Warm and Merry Holidays

This morning a thunderstorm moved through. It began quietly, but the retriever can hear the thunder long before I can and was curled up in my lap not long after the sprinkles started. We passed a few minutes of silence while I read and he watched the weather through the window. Then, the storm rolled over and the thunder was audible and lightning visible, even to me. The retriever started to shake and cry, and the magazine was laid aside as I tried to calm the pup. There is no explaining thunder to a retriever. He continued to shiver as the storm staked out a place over the house to drop a few electric pronouncements. Soon, 80 lbs of dog had shifted from my lap to my left shoulder, his haunches in the crook of my left arm and his trembly middle wedged up against my ear.

At this point, I closed my eyes and rested my head against his side. Despite his nerves, he's a comfortable dog, like a warm furry pillow when the storms curb his restless flopping. I could see the Christmas tree over his back and I was reminded of what I had been thinking about yesterday. We don't have kids (except for the dogs) and we are both several decades away from the rickety Christmas movies projected in an elementary school cafeteria that really helped to draw in the mystery of the holidays. The clicking of the filmstrip and the fact that every class was allowed to sit together, the cold linoleum under us, as we watched angels searching for the what they could give for Christmas. How, I wondered, could I understand or even begin to ponder that miracle now? What is the access point for holding that wonder again in my heart? It was then that I understood the meaning of the filmstrip--I could not so much as ponder as welcome the miracle in. As a child it was easy to give up myself to the season, the joy and mystery and wonder. I didn't need to be told how to do it or even told that I should do it. I didn't need to be told that you can't ponder or hope to contain something like the Christmas story. Not unlike the trembling retriever, the joy of the season is something that you must support by giving yourself to it.

It's difficult to remember, when you are used to having to control your own schedule and expected to learn and continue to process things, that some things must be stepped into and experienced in order for you to understand them. You don't so much understand them as they take you, your heart or your time or your soul, and allow you to be part of them.

I missed Christmas this year--never let it in while I let myself stress about other things. Even now, I feel the tidal pull of New Year's goals and next year's planning catching at me. Today, however, I'm going to sit down and watch the lights on the Christmas tree and curl up with my puppies.

Merry Christmas.