Here’s something I love about holidays and traditions: you do nearly the same thing, year after year, and it has a way of helping you notice recent differences in yourself. Last Christmas my mum gave me Sasha Sagan’s For Small Creatures Such As We, a book I felt immediate kinship with. One quote:
Rituals are, among other things, tools that help us process change. There is so much change in this universe, so many entrances and exits, and ways to mark them… each one astonishing in its own way.
The changes that I need help processing are not always pleasant. Ritual repetition throws into relief the people who are missing from my life, most especially Zach, who remains, across my adult years thus far, the person I knew best and was best known by. This song is about wondering about the parallel life of somebody you used to know:
It’s dark, and it’s cold, and I feel I’m getting older
And I wonder: are you watching Home Alone, too?
There's not much to wonder about with my loved ones who have died; no parallel life to imagine, not for real. But I do have a collection of old friends and lovers each of whom was, across some months or years, the person I was closest to in this entire world, and now... Well, I don't know which city they'll be spending Christmas in. When I was first learning the joys and horrors of being known, I couldn't imagine that those relationships (and those people, and me) might someday change enough that we'd no longer be close to each other. It can be nice to notice these wistful absences; you can miss someone without being in pain.
Who are the parallel people you wonder about, this time of year?
Noticing entrances and exits,
Tessa