Every year at this time, I turn my thoughts to writing my annual Christmas poem. Some years, the writing comes quickly, and I feel as if it were truly a gift. Other years, it feels stilted and contrived. Nevertheless, I still put to paper something. It is my curse and my blessing.
Celebrating Christmas at the darkest time of the year helps to bring some people up from the despairs of SAD and into a brighter place where sparkling lights and traditional songs lift them up. Others, annually dread the holiday as a day of little light and mounting pressures and dysfunctional families; it is, for them, a time when hidden sensors in the brain trigger dark memories and cause unexplained anger and dismay. I once saw a man from my car window as I waited in a bank drive-through, years ago during the Christmas holidays, tear a marble writing table off the back of the wall with his bare hands and pound on the ATM machine until it was practically pulverized. He then ran across Highway 50, in Orlando, as if demons were chasing him. Needless to say, I exited the area quickly and called the bank the following Monday to tell them what I had witnessed and why their drive-through was vandalized. It was a sad scene. I hurt for that man even though I never knew who he was or what became of him. He left on foot. He needed a lift in more ways than one.
As the magic day of December 25th approaches, like that man at the bank, due to unfortunate circumstances, I feel both the pressures and sorrows of family pathos, but fortunately for me, I have a natural buoyancy that always forces me to the top and reminds me of the incredible blessings I have received. My prayer for all this season is to feel that buoyancy, that sense of wonder, that feeling of "liftedness" at least once this holiday. Then, wrap it up in some leftover Christmas paper, and carry it into the new year.
Celebrating Christmas at the darkest time of the year helps to bring some people up from the despairs of SAD and into a brighter place where sparkling lights and traditional songs lift them up. Others, annually dread the holiday as a day of little light and mounting pressures and dysfunctional families; it is, for them, a time when hidden sensors in the brain trigger dark memories and cause unexplained anger and dismay. I once saw a man from my car window as I waited in a bank drive-through, years ago during the Christmas holidays, tear a marble writing table off the back of the wall with his bare hands and pound on the ATM machine until it was practically pulverized. He then ran across Highway 50, in Orlando, as if demons were chasing him. Needless to say, I exited the area quickly and called the bank the following Monday to tell them what I had witnessed and why their drive-through was vandalized. It was a sad scene. I hurt for that man even though I never knew who he was or what became of him. He left on foot. He needed a lift in more ways than one.
As the magic day of December 25th approaches, like that man at the bank, due to unfortunate circumstances, I feel both the pressures and sorrows of family pathos, but fortunately for me, I have a natural buoyancy that always forces me to the top and reminds me of the incredible blessings I have received. My prayer for all this season is to feel that buoyancy, that sense of wonder, that feeling of "liftedness" at least once this holiday. Then, wrap it up in some leftover Christmas paper, and carry it into the new year.
Lifted
It’s about that time of year,
that time of love and cheer,
when friends and family meet
and talk and share and eat,
that time when church bells ring,
and angels in tennis shoes sing
in choirs across the land,
that time when thoughts return
to days gone by so long ago,
to nights so dark one star did glow
to show the world so far below,
that we are finally
lifted.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Linda 2018 Christmas Poem
Done!
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