Little spirit

 

December 31, 2025

I looked up into the winter sky when I was a child and asked “Which is the star of Bethlehem?” Both of my parents came up with an answer. Mother found a bright one and pointed to it, “There! There it is!” Father said, “It’s not there any more.”  Both answers turn out to be true. 

Mildly regretting not having a party this New Year’s Eve. If anyone else stepped up, they didn’t invite me. Freezing rain is called for tonight, so maybe it’s for the best. My society has generally been based on extended labor on my part. The joke is that when I finally relax and relinquish, I don’t miss it that much, or only on certain nights. 

My west yard, under the dogwoods, is a feasting place for winter birds. In that I have done well. 

Think of the 5 and 10 at Midway Plaza– maybe Grant’s? Woolworth’s?–that had a woolly monkey in a cage. Mother bought fabric there frequently, and I would go with her to see the monkey. I’d stand before the cage and hold his paw that he could push outside the bars, looking steadily into his eyes and he into mine. His sad, expressive brown eyes. His solitude. His loneliness. Despair.  I felt such grief. Grief that for a child was inexpressible, uncomprehensible. My powerlessness was a mountain as big as the world. I knew it was futile, but I asked my mother if we could take him home. It was so absurd she probably didn’t remember it the next hour. I went back to the monkey and explained. His pitiable still eyes! I heard mother calling, but I couldn’t answer until I’d stood alone for a while and stopped sobbing. Images come back through time. Why? How could I possibly have done otherwise? Are we blamed for things we could not possibly have forfended? If we blame ourselves, why? The monkey has been dead for sixty-seven years, and yet lives. Is that tribute enough? Have I done my part? 

Little spirit. . .  Little spirit. . . . . 

 

December 30, 2025

Trying to work in the freezing attic. The only possible space is right here where I sit, back almost against the heater, covered by my sister’s afghan. 

Message from the Solar Panel people. My inspection failed because one of the bolts was not screwed in tight enough. Make-up scheduled for January 6. They demand new proof of insurance, my old policy having expired (and been renewed automatically) on Christmas Eve. I will not provide that document until the array is turned on, come what may. The hill upon which I am willing to die. Hier stehe ich und kann nicht anders, Gott helfe mir, Amen

AVLGMC planning committee supper at Mountain Madre– convivial, sweet. My walking there and back in bitter cold was a victory for me.  Misty moon, fat and waxing. 

 

December 28, 2025

The relaxed feeling of my legs is surely due to their getting exercise yesterday. Let’s see if I can carry the resolution even two days in a row. Fantastic dreams, clearly meant to influence the decisions of waking life. 

MST

 

December 27, 2025

Walked on the Mountains to the Sea Trail, my first foray there since the hurricane. The wild high woods are filled with debris and broken trees, but the area accessible to the road seems worse, as woodsmen cut down everything they perceived as too damaged, so it looks like the Ardennes in 1914. On the trail I met an old woman and a tall blind boy who led himself forward on two ski poles. I assumed grandma was taking her grandson for a jaunt in the woods. A Hispanic man walked with his wife (I assumed) trudging fifty feet behind him. He played a Spanish music station on a tiny device in his hand, the sound of which was dismaying in that otherwise holy silence. Three joggers hurled by wearing orange vests and each crying “happy holidays!” at me. A bulldog followed, also wearing an orange vest, but not crying “happy holidays!” As I walked I considered what a disaster a fall would be, even if I were uninjured. The woods might be better than the floor, though, as there’s plenty of stumps and trunks to haul oneself up on. Plus, I have no recollection of ever falling on the trail. The comparative emptiness of the woods reminds one that these are the tops of mountains, and all the resources and advantage lie below. 

It being a spring-like Saturday afternoon, the line of cars waiting to enter the Arboretum stretched for half a mile. 

 December 26, 2025

St Stephan’s Day. 

Christmas Eve I was full of a rare kind of spirit. I wouldn’t drink tea without choosing the cup carefully, wanting the memory of some particular person from the vessel I chose. Everything was sweet and bristling with dimension. It was like moving inside a memory. Charpentier in the never-quite-fully-lit interior of St. George’s. Eight hours of driving dilutes merry feelings somewhat, but did not push them wholly away. Met little David for the first time since he was a sleeping lump in his mother’s arms, a good-natured, curious child. Holiday gathering at my sister's.  One tries to take everything meant as a blessing as a blessing received. 

The second year in which I received no Christmas gifts. What do I need? Nothing, but as Lear says, “Reason not the need.”  Something wholly unexpected and gratuitous would be nice. Did bring home a piece of shimmering silver damask that my mother had, that L thinks was a gift from her first love, perished in a tornado, and two small plates from grandmother H, painted with bluebirds. 

 

December 24, 2025

Woke this morning with weird cheerfulness– like a kid on Christmas Eve. If that weren’t enough, I can walk without pain and took the stairs like a grown up, one foot to a step, instead of tottering step-together-step-together, like an infant, as I’ve been doing these many months. One doesn’t expect permanence. One examines the near past to see what might have caused such a thing. Still, I am the last one to reject (or even question very much) a Christmas miracle. 

Baking so that I can take a considerable heft of cookies to Georgia tomorrow morning. 

Solstice

 

December 21, 2025

Longest night.

Woke too early, with bitter thoughts in my heart. It’s almost time to go to Advent IV service, and the thoughts have tempered somewhat. Sound of the washing machine from downstairs, harmonizing with Handel from the bud. The music for Christmas Eve at St George is a sweet Charpentier pastoral.

I have spent my life awaiting holy moments, moments of peace, moments of unexpected regard, of sudden vision, and marking them down as faithfully as I can. When I was a boy at home I’d beg not to go wherever the family was going, so I could sit alone and await the Coming. One year my father put a lonely string of Christmas lights in the crabapple, which, when lit at night, made a glittering road into the heavens, bright and dark at once, with an end unforeseeable. Last night I stayed home from a party and a concert so I could do the same, to sit in the silence until silence resolved into a song. Tonight there was caroling at church, and an organ concert at another church, and I found a way to resolved to go too late each time, so I could be here, listening to distant music, bathing in the strangeness of the Longest Night, awaiting the Voice. 

Was I asked to do this? I thought I was. I thought it was a sacrifice of what was everyone’s pleasure for a secret joy that was my reward for listening, for watching with such intensity. It has come to nothing other than itself. Perhaps I was indulging myself, doing what I pleased in a way which I could not at the outset know would separate me, however subtly, from the society around me. After a surprisingly brief time, there was no way back. There is certainly no way back now. Little hermit of the night. Little spider in the corner spinning and spinning. I thought I would be the Announcing Angel. Maybe so. Probably not.  If it comes, it must come quickly.

The bluebirds returned today. Blessing. 

A sleek red-shouldered hawk missiled into the dogwoods above the feeders. The other birds disappeared. She stayed a long time. I had my binoculars and could take in every detail. I wanted her to wait until I could through some meat into the grass, but suspected that dispensation will never come again.  

Bluebirds

 December 20, 2025

Bluebirds came to my feeder this afternoon. My binoculars were handy, so I spent time looking at them close up, the famous cerulean, the blending of the rust and cream, the incredible radiance of the light on their eyes. They were patient and let me stare. The gratuitous beauty of things is a constant wonder. Why should things be beautiful? Why should the back and eye of a bluebird, to use Whitman’s phrase, stagger sextillions of infidels? My answer is ever the same: some Eye is pleased, and He has granted us to look with the same eyes, that we too might be pleased. 

Repeated playing of Handel’s “As Steals the Morn.”

 December 19, 2025

After twelve weeks of dithering, the city inspector showed up. The inspection was the guy sitting in the truck for about ten minutes, then getting out and looking at the electrical array from six feet away. “Just making sure they didn’t change anything,” he said. “I inspected it once, but they didn’t have the right paperwork.” The solar company’s version was that they changed requirements in the middle of the inspection in October. I deduce I was caught in the middle of a jurisdiction squabble. Bad cess to them all. The panels are still not “on,” merely cleared for one day being on. 

Loving the season, the music drifting upstairs from the kitchen. Have cookbooks out looking at cookie recipes, without any certainty that I’m actually going to bake anything. As long as I don’t call to mind the particulars of my life, I’m happy as a kid. 

Burial

 

December 18, 2025

Signed the papers and paid the fees that will take care of all arrangements when I die. The mortuary guy had forty five minutes of gentle speeches to convince me to do what I had already decided on. I begged him to skip it, and he complied. Notified my sister and she wanted to know how many headstones I want in how many places, etc.