Light: 12/24/14

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined. (Isaiah, 9:2)

Most years I cry at the end of the Christmas Eve service, while the congregation sings Silent Night by candlelight in a darkened sanctuary. This year I had two chances:

1) at the church I grew up in, with Parents and Kids and Husband. It’s not that the emotions didn’t hit hard as we started singing. It’s just that I looked at Youngest next to me and she had her head thrown back, glow stick aimed at the back of her throat, rock star/flame eater style, as she sang. And that kind of magic did not need my tears.

2) at the church later where I filled in for another violinist last-minute. The orchestra played two verses of Silent Night and then dropped out so the choir and congregation could sing a cappella for the third verse. I did not even try to sing. I closed my eyes and let myself float on the sound of the choir. And the sound did not break my heart. It lifted me out of myself the same way the waves did at Galveston Island many years ago. And that magic did not need my tears, either.

Leaving the church after my job I remembered I had no picture for tonight’s post. I also realized I still had presents to wrap. The post had no chance of being done before midnight. The luminaries curving along the path in front of me outside the church were clearly the perfect thing. But I couldn’t get a good picture. The best I got was what you see above, which I’m convinced is beyond perfect. Because I keep thinking I know exactly how I should go about doing this life thing, and I keep not getting it right but finding something better than I wanted despite that. Because I can’t stop thinking about how subversive a thing Light is, and how all it needs from us is our imperfections and our expectations and our plans, if only just to show us that this kind of magic does not need us at all. Just watch and wait.

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Light: 12/23/14

(Variation on a Christmas tree. Free, effortless, perfect.)




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Light: 12/22/14

Variation: Hwy 63 North

Of course all the light

is in the sky,

and reflected off the wet road

and in the headlights and taillights

smeared long

on the pavement,

but the heat—that is in the grass

along the sides of the road,

tall and tawny and gold.

It is three days before Christmas

and snow would be nice,

draped clean and sparkling

across these hills.

Maybe
this is a variation 
on winter,

the same way the Nutcracker pas de deux

is a variation on a G major scale—

it may have started off as a riff

but what you get in the end

is a melody you can feel 

throughout your body—

a melody you can flow with

over and through these hills—

these hills that after seven years

have become like home

(and maybe home, too,

is a variation.)

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Light: 12/21/14

Today in Urgent Care I had a little bit of a rant: “It was January 2 years ago that I started getting sick all the time, and it’s been one thing after another ever since. I’m so fed up!”

To which Husband answered, “Ooooh, now all the germs are so scared! Every single-cell organism in the room just shuddered.”

It was worth a good belly laugh.

It has been a good day for levity. As in: we’ve had some good laughs today, and also: we needed some good laughs today.

I have felt good for one week since the most recent sinus/bronchial infection. Now I have shingles. Add the last 2+ months of kid’s illnesses, add all the hours of sitting in or driving to and from doctor’s offices with them, add the stupid asthma that four of us have, and the medicine that helps us breathe that costs twice as much this year as it did last year, add that while the pet mouse has been slowly gruesomely dying of cancer the pet hamster and pet fish died unexpectedly. Things could certainly be worse. But I’m really, really tired of acting like I’m patient.

I can’t say we laughed light-heartedly but we laughed a lot, and shot-through with all kinds of light. That is a levity I can trust , close to perfection.

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Light: 12/20/14

We decorated, at least part-way. The to-do list is shorter than it's been in months. I gave Oldest a haircut—one of the most improvisatory ever, and he trusted me. The weight of everything tonight is more moon-weight than earth-weight, which means it will float away before I can catch it, but for the moment feels perfect.




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Light: 12/19/14

I live in a world where things like this sparkly bouncy ball just show up, possibly out of thin air. Also magical: the patch of glitter glue on the floor in the den (I left it there on purpose, a memento.) 




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Light: 12/18/14

Ran inside today, but no matter. It is unbelievably lovely when my lungs work the way they should. Sometimes I believe it might be possible to inhale light.

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Light: 12/17/14

Today's light: sitting on the floor of my daughters' room, just being here as they fall asleep. It's been a long day—not terrible, but not easy, either. Being there was the best I had, but there was a sacredness to it.

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Light: 12/16/14

As a child I was adept

at slipping my eyes out of focus,

making the headlights and taillights

on 35W at night

into strings of pearls and rubies.

On a sunny windy day

I could turn

the waves of Lake Harriet

into a mass of diamonds,

and I conjured pearls

out of rainy evening streetlights

(though on foggy mornings

I preferred opals.)

I sat easily with the fairies

disguised as dust motes

and in bed at night

I contemplated

the kaleid0scope

in my head,

fingertips pressed against eyelids,

moving color,

moving light.

I was a master of light—

not once did I recognize

or question my power.

Not once did I lose

my fear of the dark.

Light: 12/15/14

Every day I see this. During arrival/tuning/snack time, especially—they are experimenting, exploring, asking each other questions, teaching each other stuff. Every day I see this fire for learning igniting around the music room. Yes, they are tired and distracted after a long day at school. But still. I get to work with that fire.

Maybe one of these days when someone asks me what I do, instead of saying “I’m a violin teacher” I will tell the whole truth: “I am a violin teacher, a witness-er of miracles, a problem-solver, a counselor, a herder of squirrels, a maker of music, a fanner of flames.”

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