Friday, December 19, 2008

On Coming Home for Christmas

I lapse into old habits.

I eat frozen cookies out of the basement freezer while watching old movies late at night. I snap at my mother. I often leave the discussion at the dining room table to sit alone in my room, silent.

My mother hugs me too much, and tells me adamantly she won't share me with anyone. She doesn't want me to go to New York. She wants to snuggle me until I fuse to her breastplate.

My grandfather laughs at my bad jokes about Franz Ferdinand, and then shakes his head when I talk about books he doesn't like or movies he didn't understand.

The rain sleets across the green lawns like hissing spit. It's almost frozen, but not quite. Once, when I was seven, I sat in front of the tv on a Sunday night, and asked my father what it took for snow to fall. He told me that it had to be 32 degrees, and the clouds must be full of precipitation. I was disappointed. I had wanted him to tell me that he could make the snow fall, if I wanted. I did.

Another time the sky was purple, it was nighttime, and we went outside and made mazes in the frosty street without speaking, and my sister wore her boyfriend's oversized green coat, and my brother was quiet, and I was utterly fulfilled with my life.

The house is warm, because there's a new heater. And a new tv. And a new boat is coming too. Santa is no longer a person, he's actually the internet.

We eat too much, and drink wine at every meal. My grandfather drinks margaritas afterwards, and it knocks him out until 2 am, when I hear him sighing in his sleep, and waking up to pace his room.

Christmas is about these five people. But I'm strung between worlds. I have Pennsylvania health insurance and Pennsylvania plates, but I live far away now. I ran away from them, I think. I didn't mean to. They picked the wrong place to live, twenty-one years ago. It's not my fault.

My brother-in-law hugs me and says, "You really haven't been away that long, you know." So why does it seem like years? I've changed. Can't you see it? No one comments. Maybe I haven't changed that much, or not at all.

It's Christmas, and every year since I was twelve I lit one particular candle on Christmas Eve so I could talk to God on the holiest of holy days: the Present Day. (I didn't mean it that way.) I wanted to believe in Jesus Christ, and one time I even wrote him a note on the computer so Santa could give it to him, and my parents wrote me a note back. My parents the Agnostics played Jesus for me. If that's not the spirit of Christmas, I don't know what is.

This year, I don't have much to give. Sure, it's because I'm poor, but also because I feel empty. I feel like I gave so much away this year, I tried to give myself away too, but I stuck.

Once, my brother and sister and I walked to the church down the street because it was snowing, and we threw some snowballs, and then we lay down in the road, and listened to the snow falling on our faces. It sounded like sugar sifting, or hair freshly cut sweeping past your ears. My sister whispered, "Listen. Isn't that beautiful?"

I must have changed. I think I did.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful, T!! I am so moved by your words.

Anonymous said...

You're such a fine writer, T. I had so many images in my mind as I was reading. And your honesty about your family is brave. It's the kind of bravery that makes for poetry. If you ever decided to try something else later in life, you'd do very well writing for a living. In the meantime... MERRY CHRISTMAS, dear!

Brian said...

Yes, home does bring out the Joyce in all of us.

And don't worry - if we actually had basement freezers in Miami, that's where I would be 90% of the time, probably eating frozen cookies.

Teresa Claire said...

My Thanksgiving dribbled into my Christmas, and I can't stop listing things I'm thankful for. Three of them commented above.