Listening to Christmas carols and the ocean, as I sit outside and write to the glow of holiday lights. The windows are open behind me so the carols on the blue tooth speaker are background noise to the pounding waves. The wind has picked up from the gentle slap of earlier. The sea had sounded almost lazy as we walked along the shore, but now the sound alone makes me know there’d be no swimming off the beach and even a small boat would be a rocky ride tonight. The stars that had been so brilliant earlier are hidden behind a thick cloud cover. It’s a black night beside the sea and even with the glow of the Christmas lights I’m strangely melancholy. I guess it’s the time of year for it, remembering the people that aren’t here for the holiday and never will be again this side of the grave. Missing my mother is a constant, but I wonder what my grandmother would think about our tower by the sea, to my knowledge she never saw the ocean and never wanted to.
I can smell the steaks cooking under Spike’s watchful eye. Genevieve is helping Jon prepare fresh green beans for pan sauté with garlic and a few other spices. It’s nearly eighty degrees outside while Bing Crosby sings about a white Christmas that will never happen here. The ocean pounds, the carols sing, the lights glow, the dogs wonder why I won’t throw the ball while I type, and it’s almost time for dinner with my polyamorous foursome. Life is good, but there will always be those people who aren’t with me at the holidays that make it a strange time of happiness and sorrow.
Trinity, our daughter, will be joining us from college later. This is her first year away and the first time she has to come back for the holidays. It is both wonderful and a little sad, as well. She is off on her own adventure and we’re thrilled, but it’s another big change and all change can translate to loss in our heads and in our hearts if we’re not careful to remember the difference. It’s all good, but it is different.
Genevieve introduced me to the song, ” All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan,” by Kenny Chesney from 2003. It was pretty appropriate for this year, though we all slather ourselves up with sunscreen in an effort to avoid sunburn. The idea of a tropical holiday isn’t new. Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters were singing about it with, “Mele Kalikimaka” the Hawaiian Christmas song in 1950. Ella Fitzgerald crooned, “Christmas Island,” in 1960. When I was a little girl I loved having a white Christmas with lots of snow, but I’m pretty good sitting here with a warm ocean just outside the door and palm trees swaying in the tropical breeze. White sand will do just fine as a stand in for all that snow.
The picture with this blog is from my office for the day where three of the dogs helped inspire me, just like they do at home.
I hope that all of you reading this will have a wonderful holiday celebration whether it is Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or Winter Solstice, and that family, whether of choice or of blood, gather round you. May you have friends, and if a solitary holiday is what you want I hope you enjoy your own company, because in the end no matter how many people we love, or love us, it is ourselves that we come to in the end and always.
