December 25, 2023
Greetings from the quiet quiet,
In this sliver of time, this moment before the day begins, I inhale to tell you what can’t be described.
It has been my tradition to rise before the rest of the household, driven not just by the things to do, the list of which has varied over the years, but by the desire to be in this moment. I’ll confess here that I didn’t always know it was my intention.
I spend that little bit of time with a cup of coffee and my thoughts, a library that I am not always proud of, but I continue to explore. But just before this, in the same way that most of us begin, no matter what the day is, there is this soupcon of life, nearly too small to notice.
In that fraction of a second before I launch into the day, there is this moment of just being aware of life, with no burden of anticipation. Maybe it lasts a breath, one innocent tick of the bedside clock. It is as pure as a mountain stream.
On the table in front of me are decorations that are always put out, traditions so old they are not always noticed, like those fragile things on the tree. Their beauty is sometimes dulled with familiarity. My wife, who makes all this possible, reminded me this week that this little decorative box belonged to our children’s elected grandfather, Floyd. She said, “It was his favorite.” Which tumbled this other gift into my morning, a memory that dropped into the glimmer of open space that I began the day with, began these words with.
Floyd was my friend, a pedigree that came wound with his marriage to Dorothy, which pulled us into each other’s orbit, a truth I’m forever grateful. He was an elf of sorts, fun, a little mischievous, always with an eye on delighting the children in his life.
My little family was nested in Floyd and Dorothy’s house for Christmas, in a small town on the frozen shore, the world held still by a downy cover of snow. It takes a few decades of retrospect to realize how nearly idyllic this was.
Floyd and I started every morning together, coffee and newspaper and local gossip, and then traded stories about my children and his patients and our lives. We would pick at a coffee cake, like we weren’t really eating it, and share the quiet quiet.
The house would be filled with noise and food and people and the windows would steam up and the walls would bulge, and Kaylee would bark. There would be so many coats on the hooks by the back door it would be a work of art. We would eat, children would play on the floor, the back door would never stop swinging, the refrigerator would be open more than closed, the wine would flow. There would be a fire in the fireplace. Floyd would sit in his recliner, teetering between reading the paper and napping.
Exhausted from winter fun, we would shepherd our kids into some hushed space in the house, cajoled with warnings of another merry elf who was waiting for them to sleep. We would step between the other sleeping shapes on the dining room floor, nest their presents under the crowded tree, and tiptoe up the creaking steps to bed.
Early in the morning, barely light, a neighbor would slip between the houses. He would carry a long pole, fashioned with a wooden spar, all of it lined with large jingle bells. He would come to the house, lift the pole so the rake at the end would land on the roof, and he would clump it along the eves, the soft chorus of bells accenting the soft percussion on the snowy shingles.
Sleepy children would hear the sound of reindeer landing on the roof. The first feeling from the world before they could form any thought.
That little vignette of innocence was what came to me in the tiny parentheses of time this morning. The place between heartbeats, before I allow the first thought. Before worry or regret, before violence or hate before mystery or fear. In that space, where I could have anything, infinite promises, including every dream, every victory, every celebration, this blank droplet of possibilities.
That bit of empty silence, that holy moment before anything enters, when the peace is with us, when there is peace on earth. When we are capable of good will toward our neighbor. It is barely the width of an eyelash. But it is a beginning.
Merry Christmas.
Hope this finds you opening your eyes,
David
Copyright © 2023 David Smith
Comments