I remember, I was watching a man set up a
Valentine’s display in a shop window. It was just after New Year’s Day, but
shop people need to get a jump on love, I guess.
Don’t get me wrong.
Shop owners are fine people. They
give us choices and keep us informed on the important holidays.
Think about it,
how would we know it was Valentine’s Day or Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day,
if the shop people didn’t stay on the ball?
The other group to count on, is kindergarden
teachers. They always know about special
days and when it comes to Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, what the kindy
teachers set in motion, no shop person could ever hope to compete with.
Which reminds me ……….
This is kind of personal. It might get a little syrupy, so watch out.
What I’m talking about here, is something I think
of as a ‘treasure box’ given to me by my nephew when he was 3 and made at
kinda, of course.
Once it was a simple white box and now it’s
decorated with glitter, feathers, dried pasta, magazine pictures, shells and
pebbles.
It’s gotten a bit moldy now, but once you look
inside, you’ll know what I mean.
There are all these bits of paper with “Hello
Katie”, and “Happy Volintime” and “I luv you Katie” written on them, and silly
little red hearts everywhere. Stuck to the bottom of the box are exactly 23
“X’s” made out of macaroni. I’ve counted
them more than once.
There are bead bracelets and a necklace, a ring out
of a lolly dispensing machine, hand drawn ‘portraits’, favourite pieces of
string, dead flowers, marbles, pictures carefully cut out of magazines and even
a little favourite stuffed teddy bear.
I can honestly tell you, the treasures of King Tut
are nothing compared to this.
I cried when he gave it to me. I just think it’s evidence of love in it’s
most uncomplicated and pure state.
He’s 7 now. He still loves me, though it’s harder
to get direct evidence. It’s love that’s
complicated by age, knowledge and confusing values.
Yeah sure, this is probably the worst kind of
simpleminded female drivel imaginable, and I’ve, more than likely, embarrassed
us both by mentioning it. But it beats the hell out of anything else I have,
for comfort.
This box stands for my kind of love and I want to
take it with me when, and wherever, I go.
Speaking of
crying …...
The Christmas before last, I didn’t receive
many Christmas cards. One warm February
afternoon this troublemaking realisation actually came to me out of the
backroom in my head that is the source of useless information. I guess I just needed some reason to feel
really shitty, so there it was.
But I didn’t say anything about it. I can take it. I’m tough.
I won’t complain when my cheap friends don’t even care enough to send me
a stupid Christmas card.
Then last August, I was pottering about in
the garage, trying to establish some order in the mess, and found stacked in
with the Christmas decorations, a whole box of unopened greeting cards from the
previous Christmas. As I was working
over the Christmas period, I had asked my housemate to toss them into the box
to open at leisure, and then I ran out of leisure in the shambles of the usual
Christmas panic, so the cards got stuck in the
throw-the-box-in-the-garage-and-we’ll-sort-it-next-year syndrome.
I hauled the box down, and on a freezing
day, in the middle of August, I sat on a garden chair in the back garden with a
hot drink and a puzzled frame of mind, and began opening my Christmas
cards. Just to help, I had put a CD of
Christmas songs on the stereo and cranked up the volume.
I opened the envelopes and set the cards up
on the lawn. Here it all was. Angels, snow, Wise Men, candles, pine boughs,
horses and sleighs, the Holy Family, elves and Santa. Heavy messages about love and joy and peace
and goodwill.
If that wasn’t enough, there were all these
handwritten messages of affection from my cheap friends who had, in fact, come
through.
I cried.
Very rarely have I felt so bad and so good at the same time.
As fate always seems to have it, I was
discovered in this condition by my next door neighbor, who had been attracted
to the scene by the sound of Christmas music.
She laughed. I showed her my
cards and she got weepy. I was
weepy. And we had this stupid Christmas
ordeal right there in my backyard in the middle of August, singing along with
Neil Diamond to the final mighty strains of “O Holy Night.” “Faaalll on your kneeees, O heeeeer the angel
vooiiices.”
What can I say? I guess wonder and joy are always in the
attic of your mind somewhere, and it doesn’t take a lot to set them off.
Wowww...the power of Christmas cards and white boxes ayeee!! If the cards and the boxes were ever Semi-trailers and bulldozes, we wouldnt have xmas and valentine celebs!!
ReplyDelete