'Twas the night before Christmas and all through my mind, strolled ghosts of the old year, visions of new times...
PAUSE PLEASE FOR A PROGRAMING UPDATE: "The blog originally planned for this place has been suspended by the arrival on my doorstep of twenty friends on a caroling crawl through the neighborhood.
Customarily, my moments of solitude and introspection remain largely unbroken. When the doorbell rang just now, I assumed it was a weary UPS agent with one final parcel to deliver. Instead, I was greeted with the smiles of familiar faces, shining with the spirit of the season. A boy with a fiddle, a girl with a flute, and parents aplenty - even "I'm John like the toilet," in what looked like a suit!
They sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and sang it with heart, each sequence enacted - audience says: "lords a leaping: best part." I moved from joy into sadness and 'round back again, so full of emotion too hard to explain. Each year has its moments of sorrow and pain, mixed in with fresh thrills, delighting again. The higher the highs, the deeper the blows. The lesson: remember, embrace what you chose.I don't want to end 2010 by looking upon any bit of it as stale, lost, or mistaken. The voices of the children heard (though not looked for) has charmed back the merriment of wild wonder. I type now, as a child digging into a stocking to see what present awaits. These gifts knock at your door too. Admit them. Don't tarry. And joy to the world.
from SONG OF A MAN WHO HAS COME THROUGH
Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!...
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedgeDriven by invisible blows,The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, weShall find the Hesperides...
What is the knocking?What is the knocking at the door in the night?It is somebody wants to do us harm.
No, no, it is the three strange angels.Admit them, admit them.
-D.H. Lawrence