As the Christian church season of Advent draws to a close, I thought it would be a good moment to start this new blog of mine. I am thinking of this as a kind of emergence or surfacing of my writer self to a broader audience (hopefully), a larger chunk of the world, more than just my relatives. It isn’t set up quite how I want it to be yet, but that will come with time. I just didn’t want to wait to launch the thing!
This year Advent has felt strained, less luminous, less pensive and muffled, than in past years. My writing practice takes up much of my time, and I spend it contemplating, so for me to say that this year seems less so than in the past, even though in some ways it is more so, seems wrong— in general I am a more quiet, contemplative person than I used to be. But it does feel wrong. For one thing, this December has been so warm. Last year it was cold and we were wrapped in a thin blanket of snow already with more to arrive on Christmas Eve. Also there was the tightening up of the social belt once again as COVID cases surged. Last week we were just outside climbing in sunshine and 60 degrees in West Virginia with friends. This year also, though I am able to spend my time writing and being thoughtful and quiet, reading a lot, family life is totally different and not quiet and not rhythmic at all. It feels quite chaotic at moments, and I know all the time there is nothing in my control.
We started observing Advent many years ago when the boys were still very young, so it has always been a whole family practice— until this year. Now Sebastien is 18, and though he lives at home and is still a functioning part of the family, he is pulling away into his own separate life— he is experiencing his own surfacing, his own emergence, in a way— as a young, working adult. I emphasize young. He would emphasize adult. This is also the first year Oren is no longer homeschooled but goes to school in a separate, brick-and-mortar school. Family life works so differently now, if “works” is even an apt verb. There is barely any recognizable cadence, and we definitely do not have a family Advent rhythm at all. Though I am thrilled by all these changes in our lives and am excited to see how all of us grow and develop from here, I still have my moments of grieving the end of how things were. As a mom I have recognized and, I hope, come to terms with my need to grieve in order to let go and move on. Sorry kids, mommy might cry a little bit. (Soooo awkward.) But anyway, I miss our past Advents when we were all here most of evenings to eat together, to gather for quiet contemplation together at least for a moment, to watch Polar Express (okay, okay, we watched it too many times). Now we are trying hard just to eat together once a week. No TV. A short prayer time to wrap it up. If I am lucky we’ll be together for a whole hour for this once a week occurrence. The other night was one of those times, and looking back on it, I am so thankful. We needed to enjoy an hour together of talking and laughing and discussing (not just arguing, people, discussing)– whether Led Zeppelin was influenced by the blues or not and who was the best looking Beatle — with a single candle burning and a few Christmas lights.
Growing up, it was my dad who was in charge of putting up all the Christmas lights on the house and around the tree. I guess it was the “man’s job,” like making sure all the trash makes it back in the alley for the garbage truck to collect it, like fixing the car, like mowing the lawn. In my family now, I am the Christmas lights person. Actually, I am the Christmas everything person. If I want something to happen for this holiday, I have to come up with the plan. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m not bitter at all. I’m fine. Really. Brian will get things down from the attic or bring around the ladder to the front porch from the back shed for me usually. This year I didn’t ask him to. I just did it myself, wanted to do this part myself, too. Alone. I put lights up on the porch first, then the lights on the mantle, and then when we bought a tree, those. The tree only gets lights and a string of red beads and some gold ribbon until Christmas Eve when we (read: I) put on the ornaments to celebrate Christmas the next day. I do all this for myself, if I am honest, but I also hope it is habit forming for the boys. They say they don’t care about it, but if this habit/practice went away and there were no lights, I hope they’d miss it. I hope they’d notice the darkness. I hope that when they leave here and have a place of their own, they’ll get their own lights and put them up.
Isn’t this what a mom does? Tries to instill in her offspring a sense of how life should be lived? Teaching them a way of doing it, and then hope that they will take that as a template and make something of their own eventually?
Easier said than done.
