The long shadow of the season

Well, that’s it for another year.  

When the tree in the corner of the living room looks more like the sole survivor of a nuclear winter than a winter wonderland, then we tend to know it’s time to call it a day, pack up what’s left of the lights and twinkling ornaments, and return to our work-a-day lives. 

We’ve travelled, eaten, played, laughed, argued sometimes.

We’ve opened, bought, given, smiled, perhaps even cried.

But has any of this festive cheer changed us for the better?  Are we in any way different because of the story of Christmas that we have, in one way or another, re-enacted?

I’m not particularly speaking of faith here, although clearly this is where the story began.  I’m simply wondering whether, as the dark days of winter begin to take their toll (at least for those of us living ‘above the line’), the light that grew with all these ‘good times’ will be strong enough to last the onset of yet-again-ordinary life.

Or perhaps we’re accustomed to letting it fade away slowly – faith, hope and charity eroded by the winds of anxiety that accompany the stresses and strains of modern family life.

Looking back with the hindsight that January tends to bring, I notice that most of us head into the New Year firmly resolved to do less than what we did back in December. 

Eat less, drink less, make less mess. 

Could it be, though, that is where I tend to go wrong?  Are we too quick to extinguish the long shadow of the season and settle back into something less than real life?

American writer and broadcaster, Andy Rooney, died just before Christmas, only a few weeks ago.  “One of the most glorious messes in the world,” he once is reported to have said, “is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.”

Don’t clean it up too quickly. 

The tree in our home is gone.  To be perfectly honest, I’m not at all sad about that. 

And yet, this year, I’m determined not to forget too quickly those few days of seasonal cheer, surrounded by those I most love in the world.   I’m determined not to forget the feasting, lounging, playing, and long half-meaningful conversations that end deep into the night.

That is my resolution.

After all, these are the moments that my children will remember.  The rest is nothing but white noise.

The end of the Christmas card

The postman rarely comes around our way, except to deliver bills or spam. 

Even at Christmas, this messenger’s route is stubbornly unchanged.  But it never used to be like this.

Perched on the window sill, back when I was the age my daughters are now, I can clearly recall the feeling of exhilaration as our local postman came into view at the far end of the street.  Holding an impossibly large collection of letters and small packets (the large ones would come later in the day by van), I remember, on each of the days between the end of school and Christmas Eve, trying to guess how many he would drop through our letter box.

The wait was almost painful, but eventually and without fail a dozen or so white envelopes, each one adorned with special festive stamps, would land on the carpet, spraying in all directions across the floor.

By Christmas Day, each one of these cards had been opened, read and placed on suspended strings right around the walls of the living room – a festival of colour and testimony to the fact, I thought, that my parents had so many ‘friends’. 

I still recall the magic that accompanied all this red, gold, glitter, and seasonal goodwill; simple messages of cheer now posted on a wall.  They never said very much (except for those who chose to add a typed attachment, describing in tedious detail the wonderful achievements of their children).  In the end, though, 140 characters was normally enough to get the message across.

A generation later, there is no one waiting for the postman.  Not in our house, anyway.  A few cards have dribbled in, but sadly not enough to hang upon the wall or convince the kids that anyone is thinking of us at this particular time of the year.

The Christmas card, at least at this end of the street, is dead; replaced by another Wall, where our messages of hope and love are posted by those we chose to call our ‘friends’.

The medium has changed, but our human need to reach out to others and let them know that we are thinking of them during this season of goodwill, clearly, has not.

And probably never will. 

Telling the story of a school with hedgehogs

This story needs little explanation.

It's simply an attempt to stand out from the crowd and tell the story of a school at a moment in time when words and pictures no longer differentiate us.

So sit back. 

Relax.

And if you like it, share it.

Children say the funniest things 2011

At the start of the year I took a few moments to look back and capture the wisdom and wit expressed by the youngest members of our family. 

You can read it here.

Twelve months on, these moments in time keep on occuring: surprising us, delighting us and, on occasion, stopping us in our tracks.

That’s what kids do, I guess.  They see the world in colours that, with increasing years, we tend to become blind to.  

So, without further ado, here’s a look back on 2011 as captured by two seven-year old twins.

Enjoy!

****

"Daddy, when you wear that scarf your neck looks very small."
(Juliette, On giving someone a Complex)

"Daddy, I feel like a slup." 
(Lea, On the importance of not confusing your Ps and Ts) 

"I spy something beginning with F. It's not an object. Give up?...fun!"
(Juliette, On seeing a dimension of life in the Emergency Room at 0230hrs that adults are simply blind to)

”I can't touch you, Daddy, because you are sick and I'll catch the fleas.”
(Lea On bedside manner)

"Daddy, why is it that humans can eat chocolates, but chocolates cannot eat humans?"
(Lea, On standing up for the rights of others)

"Daddy, in my new library book it says that if you have a Border Collie like ours, you have to buy 24 sheep. Otherwise, it will get bored."
(Lea, On pushing modern pet care a step too far)

"After next year, I'll be in Grade 2 and then we go to High School."
(Lea, On accelerated learning)

"No, Daddy, I don't want to come for a walk with you this morning - unless you want to take me in a pushchair."
(Lea, On taking laziness to a whole new level)

"Daddy, there are humans and there are aliens. We don't actually know if there are really aliens. Apparently, though, if you go onto the internet you can find out for sure."
(Lea, On the ultimate Google search)

“So the snake was Harry's mummy."
(Lea, On summing up the Hogwarts adventure)

"Is there police in England? It doesn't look like it."
(Lea, On mindless acts of violence)

"Did you hear about London? Someone broke it."
(Juliette, Discussing recent social unrest with a friend at summer school)

"Today was a fabulous day. Amazing. Super."
 (Juliette, On being in grade 1)

"ISB is a vere gu schol.  Mum is a fablus wurcr.  Dad is a fublus wurcr." 
(Juliette, On learning to write)  

"Daddy, Daddy, I came second in the track race today!" (Twin 1)
"Daddy, Daddy, I almost came second too.... second to last." (Twin 2)

"Someone in my class can turn their tongue into a flower. I wish I could turn my tongue into a flower."
(Juliette, On green envy)

Juliette was proudly reading her reading book tonight when she came across the line, "Sam got some water for the ditch." It was a bad day to get her b's and d's mixed up.

"Why are you rushing? You don't have a boyfriend waiting for you at a restaurant."
(Juliette, On why Lea should colour in the lines)

"Ooh Dad, you said the 'sh...' word! ..... (pause).... Shtupid!"
(Lea, On swearing)

"You exist.  I exist.  Ghosts don't exist."
(Juliette, On the meaning of the word existence)

"Daddy, you MUST not set the alarm or make a fire this evening or St Nicolas will not be happy when he comes by tonight."
(Lea, On making sure nothing will spoil her chances of getting the present she wants)

‎"Daddy, can your boss chuck kids out of school? Because, if he can, I have a name for him. Someone who has been really mean to me today."
(Lea, On pulling strings)

"You know, Daddy, when we went to the Grand Place we saw sheep and kings and shepherds and the baby Jesus. We even saw God. But it was the fake one."
(Juliette, On seeing things as they really are)

THE END 

Plates on a stick: a short story

This story begins somewhere outside of Paris in the summer of 1918 along the banks of the river Mame.  The story is less than half true.

During this, the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World World, more than 139 000 allied troops lost their lives or were wounded in not even three weeks.  Among them, a young man named Alfred.  Alfred, like so many others, wasn’t born a soldier.   He was a poet – a sentimentalist – in love with life and all that it had to offer.   But that was then, before the world collapsed.

Sitting in those stinking, rotten trenches of human despair, Alfred Joyce Kilmer (for let us use his full name) was undoubtedly less sentimental.  All light now extinguished.  All hope now gone.  And yet his words and his story remain, as I recently discovered through happenstance and with a little help from Google.     

Alfred, just two years before his death, I discover, was fascinated by what he called “The magic of the circus”. 

We who every morning at the breakfast table read of war and desolation need to cheer our hearts with the burlesque battles of the clowns; we who ride in the subway need to exult when the charioteer, with streaming toga, guides his six white horses on their thunderous course; we whose eyes are daily on our ledgers and sales records need to lift them, if not to the stars, at least to the perilous wire on which a graceful pedestrian gayly flirts with death. (The Circus and Other Essays)

I wonder whether Alfred thought of clowns and therein found comfort on the day he died?  Did he still believe this theatre of childhood dreams was the “greatest poem in the world”?

Fast forward to 1971.  There’s Bradley standing a short distance away from the expectant crowd, just next to the row of caravans that had been the closest thing to home that Bradley (and the rest of the Troup for that matter) could recall.  In the wake of the Second ‘Great’ War, jobs were hard to find and any sense of purpose even harder. 

People love the circus, his father used to say.  It gives them something to believe in.  Faith arising from something as simple as a poster telling them that “there are in the slide-show a man with three legs, a woman nine feet tall, and a sword swallower.” That’s all it takes.

Bradley didn’t have three legs and wasn’t particularly tall.  But he could make a plate turn upon a stick.  He was a clown, you see - the clown that once had cheered his poor father’s heart, right up until the day he died on that unfortunate summer’s day.

Now in his sixties, any sense of cheer was long gone.  Children and their parents came and marveled, came and laughed, came and sat in awe of those who painted themselves to hide the sadness of who they had become.

Fast forward to 1996.  Bradley doesn’t spin plates any more.  In fact, he doesn’t do much at all except watch the television in the corner of the room that seems to be the only form of permanent entertainment the nurses want to offer.  On this particular day, though, the old man lifts his head in time to catch a glimpse; recognizing immediately that familiar lassoo and flicking of the wrist that is sufficient to produce the magical gyroscopic effect.  David Spathaky, assisted by Debbie Woolley, it is reported, has managed to spin one hundred and eight plates simultaneously on live television .  A new Guinness World Record is set. 

Fast forward to 2009.  Sue never knew her dad, just rumours about him.  And the rumours weren’t sufficient to arouse much curiosity beyond that point.  In any case, there was too much to do these days to get all sentimental about things.  There was nothing sentimental about her life, she thought.  Three children, a long forgotten man in her life, a job she didn’t care for and a boss who didn’t much care for her.  It’s like spinning plates, she’d say.  I just can’t do it anymore.  Sooner or later they are all going to come crashing down at my feet.

And on the banks of a river, just outside of Paris, the memory of a voice rang out from the darkness.

You are exactly right.  They might just do.

But by daring to do what you do – nurturing those now adolescent children in the way that you do – you have now become the greatest poem in the world.

Your grandfather would be proud.