The advent of the winter season is almost upon us, embodied by the pinecones dangling from a neighbor’s evergreen. Happily, this scene doesn’t so much remind me of the coming winter, but rather the coming spring. When Andy and I first looked at our home, it was around March, at the very end of winter. Some snow was still on the ground, but as we toured the backyard in the dark of an early evening, we saw the pool, and this evergreen rose dimly behind it.
We see the tree at all times of the year, but it’s most prevalent in the summer, when we are out and about in the backyard. Throughout the winter, we watch it from the windows, waiting for spring to give a hint of itself in an early thaw or a wayward warm breeze. When I see it now, it gives me a little bit of hope, reminding me of that first spring when a new house started to take shape as a new home.
We have arrived at the first of December, easing into the high holiday season with a little holly and ivy, and a couple of rustic renditions of this traditional Christmas carol. As December has only just begun, it feels too soon to be so consumed by the chaos and cacophony of holiday mayhem, and so I’m pushing back, clearing the mental space and readjusting the mindset with a return to simplicity. This is my usual goal at this time of the year: to make the holidays a simple and quiet experience that approaches something slightly spiritual.
That’s not always an easy frame of mind to maintain, and I have often spun way off trying to do too many things and see and entertain too many people, but in the age of COVID, staying somewhat isolated and safer lends for more moments of quiet and stillness. For a socially-anxious introvert, it’s my comfort zone, and instead of resisting that in an effort to fit in and go with the flow, I’m embracing my natural state of being. Hence this quieter beginning…
This is not one of those bombastic Christmas songs that all the kids love to sing. It’s old-fashioned, with a multi-layered history of meanings – the crux of the Christian and the Pagan or some other bullshit – but when I was a kid it was one of those songs that signified the role of nature in the Christmas season, and the outdoor beauty of winter.
It was the crystalline magnificence of the morning sunlight through a piece of ice dangling off the edge of an evergreen leaf. It was the gloriously sharp scent of pine trees, entwined with the faint smoke of a fireplace somewhere in the distance. It was a winter walk in the woods, away from people and noise and the stresses of everyday life. It was something that feels less real to me the older I get, but I know I had those moments because I remember them – scattered and vague and likely an amalgamation of various woodland memories – and no less real because of that.
Between the suburbs and the city, most of the brushes with holly and ivy that I get these days are part of landscaping or gardens – a far cry from any forest path that probably never existed in the first place. That’s where these photos came from: a stand of holly along the Southwest Corridor Park in Boston, and a patch of ivy in front of some brownstone. On the grand scale of things, they may not be all that spectacular, but when taken in up-close they become a little forest in and of themselves. Stilling the moment to pause and reflect on the holiday memories that each evoked, it was possible to conjure entire winter worlds from a single leaf and berry.
Whenever this holiday season starts to veer away from this central tenet of seasonal significance, I will return to this post as a reminder of a simpler time. It will also serve to remind of the beauty of winter – and that always lasts much longer than Christmas.
Welcome, December.
From your scarlet berries of holly to the entwining tendrils of your ivy, you inspire with your raw beauty. Tucked into the very end of the calendar year, you are the finale and the beginning of something new all at once.
It was a question I pondered myself right before I posted it on Twitter: which to have in the days following Thanksgiving – a cold turkey sandwich with mayonnaise or a hot turkey sandwich with gravy? On that particular day-after-Thanksgiving, I opted for both, but I wanted to see how other people felt, so I threw the poll up on Twitter. (I’m mostly on Twitter these days, so follow me there. Fuck Facebook and screw Instagram, Twitter is about all I can emotionally handle right now.) The results are below, and I’ve never had a poll break this indecisively. We are indeed a world divided, even when it comes to leftovers.
Today marks the start of a series of concert dates for Ana Gasteyer in support of her festive album ‘Sugar and Booze’ which should be the new holiday classic that everyone is playing this year and beyond. Gasteyer earns her first Dazzler of the Day crowning thanks to that seasonal sparkle, but also thanks to her impressive body of work that ranges from stage to television to music and more. Check out her website here for more concert dates.
And here we are on the 30th day of the penultimate month to the calendar year.
That means December arrives tomorrow, and with it the holiday season in full-swing. The aim, as it ever is, will be to keep things simple and genuine, to inhabit the moments as they arrive, and not to over-plan or commit to things that may just prove to be too much. I will follow the light of the day, take in the sky and the roving clouds, listen to the wind and the chatter of cardinals.
Anyone who can be both a staff member in the Barack Obama Administration and star in the ‘Harold and Kumar’ movie franchise has got to be dazzling, and so it is that Kal Penn earns his first Dazzler of the Day, thanks to those storied roles, and quite a few more. His latest project is a memoir, ‘You Can’t Be Serious’, in which he finally reveals an 11-year relationship with his now-fiance Josh. Dazzling is indeed a serious business.
After the third day of leftover turkey, I may be ready to move onto something else. Maybe. And we didn’t even have a whole turkey, or a gathering for Thanksgiving for that matter. One day I’ll tell the story of why that was… Oh well, on with the recap of everything we did have in the last week…
A Christmas wish list, by request, as I’m not even in the mood for gifts. (Check the pulse.)
Low temperatures and wind gusts conspired to keep the snow around longer than expected yesterday, which made for a few more photo opportunities. Here you see the snow-capped hydrangea flower heads, their dead and dried form taking on new life thanks to the coating of fresh snow. Encased by the crystalline cape, they are almost in re-bloom, a lovely if dimmer echo of their summer glory.
Now that the growing season has passed and the season of slumber is upon us, it’s up to architectural flourishes like the mop-heads that remain on the hydrangea stalks. Along with the branches and more stalwart grass stalks, this will comprise the bare bones of the garden in the months to come, augmented and accented by ice and snow, which forms its own beautiful landscape when the light is just right and the day doesn’t call for traveling.
While we may make-do with these faux-blooms for the moment, they will soon grow tiresome. That’s some time off, however, as winter has not even begun, but it’s less than a month away. And after that, the spring… when these hydrangeas will rise in shades of green and chartreuse, followed by new flowers and a new season of glory.
Agnes Obel provides the musical calm for this wintry post. After granting us a bit of a reprieve for November, Mother Nature has lobbed her first winter weather at us, and the wind and the chill bring January to mind. This music is indicative of that shift. Not wholly unwelcome, as we have to go through winter to get out of it. And winter holds its own enchantments if we can be brave enough to find and enjoy them.
The first snowfall seemed to come mostly at night, which feels a bit unfair to the kids who were waiting and watching. That was a favorite activity for my brother and me at this time of the year, and it would often be the first (and only) time we’d convince Dad to light the fireplace. Mom would make cups of hot chocolate, and as the first flakes of snow fell on the raw and tender ground, my brother and I would run around and celebrate the irrevocable coming of winter.
On this recent end-of-November morning, I stepped outside to take a few photos of the snow that had nestled in this juniper. The wind was brutal, and the sun did little to temper the cold. So the season begins…
Snow softens things in a way that almost nothing else can. It provides insulation to the gardens, creating a haven of consistent temperatures to stave off heaving and other dangers to the plants. We can’t be completely mad at it for that reason alone.
Even better, snow provides a reflective surface for light to double its effects, something we need as the shortest day of the year quickly approaches. The more light, the higher the spirits.
Outside the window a towering stand of fountain grass, brown and desiccated and paper-like, shudders and flails in the wind. A few strands are torn and blown high into the air. A light blue sky bereft of clouds stands behind it all. I make a cup of tea and ascend the small staircase to the attic room, where the heater has been running for a while. It is finally warm here, and this will be where I spend the day in cozy fashion. Surrounded by candles that flicker and glow, the light of the room is soft and the fragrance hints of the holidays – spices and pine trees and incense.
The feeling is at odds with the wind raging outside – a wind that rattles the roof, rumbling across the expanse above me. We lead such precarious lives – only a single roof between survival and demise – and it’s as dramatic and plain as it sounds. Cradling the cup of elderberry tea, warm in my hands, I sip and live to enter another night.
Beside a Boston brownstone, a bunch of berries dangles above the steps leading to someone’s home. They sway slightly in the breeze and the afternoon sunlight, impossibly incandescent even in the strongest of rays. A natural holiday decoration, they hang like the littlest of ornaments, paving the way for the Christmas trees already on the march.
After a day of eating turkey and having a quiet Thanksgiving, one would think I’d be in a natural state of calm, and as it goes with most things, one would be completely wrong. When the heart and mind are in turmoil, when the little frustrations and blames prickle the minutes, I turn to the only solution that makes a difference, even if it’s just for a moment, and for me that’s meditation.
As Andy was watching a Dean Martin roast in the den, smiling and letting out a rare laugh, I lowered the music and lights in the living room and began taking deep and slow breaths. I lit a stick of Palo Santo and blew it out, watching the smoke curl around me, then closing my eyes and sinking into a deeper breath.
It took a little while, but eventually I found the empty space – the clear and calm stillness in that place where no thoughts raced or worried. It’s easier to find it than it was when I began meditating, and for that I’m grateful for the practice and the time spent figuring it out. It is a perch I can access wherever and whenever I need a bit of calm.
This is my favorite day to work, as the office is mostly empty, gloriously quiet, and peaceful in the best possible way. It’s a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season now in full-effect, and a satisfyingly calm entrance to said season. Seeking to bring some hygge into the journey to Christmas this year, I’m crafting more quiet moments like this. There will be bombast enough in the festivities to come.
The annual bridge from Thanksgiving to Christmas gets erected with this Turkey Lurkey post. In addition, the featured GIF is a wild turkey I captured while in Boston earlier this year. If not today, when? What on earth a wild turkey was doing skulking about Downtown Crossing is anyone’s guess. Anticipating the end times, in all likelihood.
Today’s quiet Thanksgiving actually wasn’t the quietest I’ve ever had, and for that reason it was less sad than anticipated. The quietest year was when I stayed on campus at Brandeis to work at Structure early the next morning. That didn’t seem sad at the time, though looking back I marvel that it didn’t bother me more. My mind at the time was a little work obsessed. We make our choices the best way we know how. Almost absolutely no regrets.
