Christmas

A friend went into hospice Monday night, and it's not easy to focus on Christmas but I'm trying. 

We have a fat, beautiful noble fir, the house is full of greens and and candles and gifts, there are 30 or so coming tomorrow. But I can't go a minute without thinking of Lisa, wishing she could go home, if only for Christmas.  Her youngest is B's age.

Meanwhile, I turn up the music.

From my iPod: 

I and Love and You - Avett Brothers. Even better than Emotionalism, despite no song names like "Paranoia in B Major."

"Hold On, Hold On" and just about everything else from Fox Confessor Brings the Flood - Neko Case. I also have Middle Cyclone, but am not feeling the love. 

Ambiguous - Graham Parker. Who could resist lyrics like "The meek will inherit the earth from their friends the scum"? Not me.  
The Hazards of Love - Decemberists. Which reminded me how much I loved "Oceanside" and "I Don't Mind" from their first album, so Five Songs is on heavy rotation, as well.
All of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix, although in the end, I think it's way overrated. Me and the critics, we disagree on this one.

From upstairs:

The Haydn, Hindemith, and Hummel Concertos. It took a bit to get used to the Hindemith, but now it's my favorite of the three. PH composed it while exiled to Switzerland, in response to the annexation of Austria and the Czech Republic and the invasion of Poland, and that history and his reaction to it - the grief, the protest, the disbelief - is contained in it. Boo played it at his honor society induction and it sent chills down my spine. It's profound, not pretty. If I want pretty, I nudge him to play the Haydn, or better yet, put on Rafael Mendez.

And the Christmas music. A few years ago, I started to find the traditional stuff aversive. Everything I hear in the mall or on the radio makes my ears bleed, so no more Barbra Streisand or Rat Pack or Bing. No more Run Run Rudolph, no more Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, no more Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire.

So much better:  all of Robert Shaw in his various musical incarnations, every single song, especially "While By My Sheep", "In the Bleek Midwinter" and a version of "O Magnum Mysterium" that makes me shiver. Even better: "Good Christian Men Rejoice" by an unknown Austrian boys choir.

And songs from children's choir days, like "Rocking" (Shawn Colvin), "Once in Royal David's City" (St. Martin in the Fields), "The Friendly Beasts" (Sufjan Stevens. There's also a version by Art Garfunkel and Amy Grant. How weird is that? Deeply weird, says I.)
And because I'm a chld of the 70s, "On This Night" (Michael McDonald). And just because I love it, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" (Martha Wainright).

 
And of course, one melancholy song to miss Grandmother, TL,  Weldon, and Caryn by. It's Chrissy Hynde from the Bridge School album. 2000 miles is very far through the snow. 

Merry Christmas.

Fall, Junior Year

B turned eighteen last month.  I was of two minds about it. One, big birthday, big party! And two, time for a freakout, because I'm completely unprepared for my child becoming an adult. Unequivocally unprepared, categorically unprepared, unambiguously unprepared, and I can keep the adverbs coming forever if it will slow things down, and this is the kind of nutty thing I walked around muttering to myself for awhile last month. Meanwhile, B invited a dozen friends over for a pizza, movies and music, and that settled things, thank god.

That night I sat in the kitchen with some other parents, talking and listening to the laughter and shouts we could hear over the music. One dad was telling us war stories about his college-age son (co-ed sleepovers at home, holy cats) when B and a few friends burst into the kitchen full of helium, singing Music is my Aeroplane. Hey, if that doesn't make a successful party, I really don't know what does.

On his actual birthday, I made a deal with the new adult son. It goes like this:
1) Okay!
    a) Piercings
    b) Modest tattoos
 2) No sir young man!
    a) Getting married
    b) Enlisting

It wasn't really an official deal. I posted it on his door; he pierced an ear, declined the tattoo, and began to tease me daily about how easy it would be to wander into an enlistment office or get married. I think we're good.

************************************************************************

I have an October tradition of taking inventory of my losses. Because there are too many to count on my fingers. Because it's preparation for the gratitude and wonder of the holidays. Mostly because I just do. It's emo month.

Before this, I haven't counted the losses to come, but this year B leaving for college was on my mind. I raged at the universe a little - I want a mulligan, those horrible terrifying years shouldn't count!  I was messing around in the kitchen one night, thinking these thoughts, when a tune I hadn't heard in sixteen years floated downstairs - a song from an old Louis Armstrong song we had on CD back then, a song that brings back B as a toddler, he and his best friend wobbling around their blissful parents. 

Grab your coat, grab your hat, leave your worries on the doorstop. Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.

The cat followed me upstairs, and we both sat on his bed and listened. He doesn't often play jazz. For every loss, there are blessings. It's a shame that the two don't cancel each other out.