This Life in Writing » Christmas

representing.

jessica — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 05:49:11 +0000

Two of the three Latshaws who represented in the Nutcracker this year.

Nobody got me a King Rat Nutcracker, though (unlike a small somebody I know).

There’s always Christmas, I suppose.

(merry christmas) i really do not miss missing you

jessica — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:08:33 +0000

I was driving home tonight and this song dropped into my mind.

I wrote it down at the piano when I got home and then I went and recorded it.

Unfortunately, the piano is really quiet compared to my voice.

But, yeah. Here it is:

(merry christmas) I really do not miss missing you

christmas lights are shining
and I’m no longer pining for you
those jingle bells are ringing
and boy, I’m no longer singing for you

and I won’t even ask, cause I don’t even care anymore
if you miss me at all, if you regret when you slammed that door

so merry christmas, I really do not miss missing you
yes, it’s a merry christmas now that you’re no longer making me blue

all the family gathers
and it really don’t matter
that you don’t come near
cause I hear the church bells ring–
such a pretty, delicate thing
and it sounds a lot like freedom this year

and I won’t even wonder if you’re standing under
the same snowfall
cause I’ve let you go, and just like all the snow
you were never gonna stay for long…

so merry christmas, I really do not miss missing you
yes, it’s a merry christmas now that you’re no longer making me blue

(good?)-bye.

jessica — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:31:19 +0000

Why is it called good-bye?

What is good about it?

Okay, I can think of a few people for whom saying those two words–either literally or figuratively–has been a good thing.

But mostly, it is sad.

Actually, when I was going through that time in my life that made me think about what it would be like to just lay down in my stream for a good long while, my friend refused to part with the words good night. “What is good about tonight?” He’d ask. “Nothing, so I won’t say that to you. Instead, I will just say ‘night.’”

And that is what he did.

He says good night again to me, though, now.

Because there are many good things about these nights, and I am grateful.

But today I had to say good-bye to Latshaw-West and I hate that.

It doesn’t ever get old, either. Loving people, I mean. You never get used to missing them; you never get used to swallowing back the tears so as not to just start crying because somewhere along the path of life we got the impression that we should, as a general rule, try not to cry. It’s awkward. Your face scrunches up in that pinched kind of way and then you get all red.

I am not so good at not crying, but I still try to do it, anyway.

Oh, but Christmas is on its way and, with it, a lot of sweet hellos to be said to people who are coming back.

Maybe that’s what makes it good. After you say bye, you do get to say hello again, and that is unbeatable.

it’s not about things, but the things help

jessica — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:47:59 +0000

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without this little creeper, unfortunately.

santa never looked so good

Something about sentimentality keeps him resurfacing every year.
And something about my brother relentlessly searching through the box of Christmas ornaments until he finds his Santa that he made when he was little.
And then settles it on the tree in a place of honor.

Look at that pride he has in his craftsmanship.

homemade? I could hardly tell.

Can you believe that he decided to write for a living instead of continuing to craft these babies for Hallmark?

Some people just want a challenge I guess.

And I have to admit I have some attachment to this little ornament.

it's not christmas without this

I’ve had it forever I think. And it doesn’t hurt that my name is etched into it. In gold, no less. Who doesn’t love a tiny kitty in a stocking with the added bonus of their monogram? That’s what I thought.

But I definitely saved the best for last.
There’s one ornament that makes us all laugh. It’s all face and curls and a smile for days.
And look–

cheese.

Not much has changed.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

*please note that you can also see Jason in action, placing Santa on the top of the tree (much to our chagrin).

in a dirty little manger

jessica — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:24:41 +0000

There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. –Washington Irving

I read that and it catches my heart. And everything–my skin, my lips, the back of my neck–is alert, trying to make that spark blaze. God knows it’s dark enough. And God knows I want that spark to spread like those fires in the mountains of California; to eat up everything else until it becomes the biggest thing about me.

Kindles.Beams. Blazes. Adversity. All of it catches my heart.

Kind of the way Christmas catches my heart every year.

But this time it’s different. There are things that usually excite me, things like trimming the tree and buying gifts, but my heart isn’t so much into that now. What I’d like to think about is what happened on that night. And you can say it was in December because we sing about it being then, or you can talk about how theologians go around bursting our bubbles as they prove that the famous silent night was actually in June, but really I don’t care about any of that so much.

And really, I don’t think that it was all that silent either. Not with the baby crying and all those animals milling about, and are we really supposed to believe that those shepherds were quiet? I’m betting they liked to talk, those guys. After all that time spent under a vast endless sky with only sheep for company don’t you think they were excited to talk about current events with Joseph and Mary and all those magi?

Though I don’t think Mary was talking back too much. She was too busy pondering the good things God was doing in her heart.

But whether or not those shepherds talked at that birth is irrelevant.

What I really care about is that it happened.

And what I care about right now is what it looked like.

The way society painted Mary with the staining color of shame. Joseph, who wanted to leave her, but decided to take a risk and spend a life on a dream and some faith in an angel’s words. The way that nothing went right that night; they couldn’t find a suitable place to have that baby, though not for lack of trying.

But this Christmas the thing that I’ve been repeating in my mind over and over again is that dirty little manger. The ugliness, the shabbiness, the bleakness of it all. How none of it seemed perfect, but God, was it humble. And that’s where God chose to place that innocent baby.

Not where it was orderly.

Not where it was perfect.

Not even where it was clean.

But in the midst of all of that, there was somebody perfect. Beautiful. Full of light and hope.

In that dirty little manger.

Which means that maybe in my life, my own dirty little manger, God can place something beautiful, full of light and hope…Which is what I like to think about this Christmas, if that’s okay.

apparently santa’s elves make wheel chairs too

jessica — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:48:00 +0000

It’s always strange when somebody steps out of character for a moment. As a kid, when I overheard my mom say she was really P.O.‘d about something, it was like I’d heard an angel take God’s name in vain, it was so shocking.

Because see, I knew what the ‘P’ in ‘P.O.‘d‘ stood for.

And just today, Santa Claus said something kind of strange.

Yeah, that’s right, Santa Claus. Red furry suit. Long white beard. Jolly expression. Only it’s odd when all of the sudden he drops that famously jolly expression in order to ask your sister, who is recently wheel-chair bound due to knee surgery from which she is recuperating, if her condition is permanent.

And yes, all of the Christmas music came to a screeching halt because that’s a weird question anyway. Even if you aren’t Santa. I mean, what if it was a permanent condition? What if she was our own version of Tiny Tim, doomed to forever hobble around on a leg that barely works? Or rather, be pushed by people like me who erroneously presume that when a bump is in the horizon, the best course of action is to push the wheelchair harder, making her almost fall out and brace her body against doing just that with nothing other than her bad leg?! And is it a good idea to bring it up in the middle of the mall? So what then? My sister bursts out in tears because she was once again reminded of her poor and unfortunate state by freaking Santa Claus, of all people?!

Luckily, though, her condition is not permanent.

And she let Santa know.

And then he continued in a most un-jolly voice, red hat pulled low over his brow, Well, you really should have a lighter chair than that for travel.

Ummmmm, okay.

Thanks?

I mean, I knew Santa was a lot of things. Able to be in all places at once on Christmas Eve. Able to shimmy down chimneys and other such impossible looking entrances. Able to manage a whole team of mythical creatures, one with a particularly bulbous and shiny red nose. But a wheel chair aficionado?

Honestly, I kind of like him better when he sticks to asking me what I want for Christmas.

something to sing about

jessica — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:40:00 +0000

Tonight we broke out the craft table and started coloring.
Christmas scenes. The manger. Evergreens and wreaths.

And now I am listening to Christmas music and instead of trying to wonder what it all means, I am just letting it happen.

The transformation that comes from believing in something greater than yourself.

The small inkling of hope that comes from seeing beauty in the ruins. Something familiar in the wild. I imagine that’s what the British settlers must have felt when that first little baby, named Virginia Dare after the Virgin Queen, was introduced to Roanoke. It was probably no small relief when they saw with their eyes, felt with their hands those soft little baby fingers that gave evidence to the mysterious cycle of life that continued despite being so very far from home.

I remember as a teenager going to some crack houses in Philadelphia, handing out hot egg sandwiches to people who were skinnier and sadder than they should be. Everywhere I looked, the story was not good. All the clues–the boarded up windows, door frames that no longer bothered with an actual door, kids in ragged clothes that fit somebody at some point, but it sure wasn’t them and it sure wasn’t now–added up to a people who had given up hope.

Until I met him.

One guy, whose name escapes me all these years later, was different.

Not because he didn’t quickly grab a sandwich or wasn’t addicted to crack or worse. But because of two things that still stand out clearly to me now:

He looked me in the eyes. Like we were both people. Just people. Neither better or worse than the other. Maybe luckier, sure, but not better. And what’s that saying? We’re all on the same level before the cross. Well, that’s true. And we are also all made up of DNA, of thoughts we learned to think from the way the world has reacted to us through the years, and a jumble of painful wounds and loving touches that make us who we are today.

And there was an air of transcendence about him also. I felt it when he opened his mouth and sang for me. He sang Amazing Grace and I couldn’t help but believe it. All of it. I saw the wretchedness of his home, felt where he has been and knew without a shadow of a doubt that he needed somebody and was not about to turn grace, any grace, down.

And there he was, just singing. In the ugliest place in Philadelphia, it was beautiful. Like an alter not built from materials that can crumble with the passing of time, but made from a raw honesty and the desire to look up, up, up; past these old buildings and even the charity that would fleetingly last the afternoon, he sang and made life better.

And no, a song can’t fill your stomach and no, a song can’t pay your bills, but it sure can transcend you. It sure can remind you that there is something more to life than our own hollow desires and the way that we clumsily hurt each other.

And I guess that is why I am going to keep on singing.

Because I want to look up, up, up. Not in denial, necessarily, but in belief that there is still something to sing about.

Sorry for the deep thoughts (by Jack Handy). Maybe next time I listen to Christmas music I will write about silver bells and whether or not an angel or a star should top the tree.

Um, totally a star, by the way.

goals, or not.

jessica — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:28:00 +0000

Lately I have been possessed with this desire to learn to sew.

But I just read in a magazine that “people who tell others their newest goals too soon often end up not doing them. It is better to start working on the goal, and after having done it consistently, talk about it.”

Okay.

So I am not going to tell you that it’s a goal of mine and you may or may not someday see a picture on this blog of a pillow that I made.

And I am not wondering if my mom might lend me her sewing machine.

And actually making a pillow may or may not be a goal of mine.

I guess I’ll just keep it to myself for now.

So instead, let’s talk Christmas.

Too soon?

Okay, we’ll table that. Even though I have been listening to some Christmas music. But it was really just one song, an original song from Over the Rhine’s Christmas album, and it doesn’t even sound very Christmasy at all, more wintry and encouraging, so don’t get all we haven’t even had Halloween yet, let ALONE Thanksgiving!!! on me, okay?

Cause wintry and encouraging music is approved for listening all year round in my book.

But fine, let’s talk…2009.

Cause it’s already September of this year. And almost the end, at that. I know, I know, where did the time go? I know that I spent a lot of it doing step, kick, kick, step, kick, touch and if that means nothing to you, than maybe you should see A Chorus Line. Or just follow those verbs verbatim and see what you get, cause that could be pretty funny.

Maybe as funny as the time my brother Jase bragged to me and (his girlfriend at the time but is now his wife) Darby that he could definitely kick this little good smelling decoration that was hanging from my parents’ kitchen ceiling.

Okay, Jase, let’s see it, we encouraged him, only too thrilled to sit back and watch his bravado meet its match in the form of EXTREMELY TIGHT HAMSTRINGS.

And now I’m gonna brag and say that I was right. He lunged in preparation, his eye on that prize hanging from the ceiling, so perfectly kickable, right?

Well, no.

His leg flew up in the air with all the speed of a ticketer at the beach once your car has been parked just one minute past the time you’ve paid for and what about grace, Bethany Beach, what about grace?!?! But it was the leg still on the ground that failed him.

Or maybe it was his sock, that slippery sock that never stood a chance against the hardwood floor.

Because his socked foot slipped out from underneath him right as his hamstring alerted his airborne leg that it had gone as far as it could, really, and with a great and glorious crash the poor guy fell backwards.

And no, Darby and I didn’t laugh.

At least not until we made sure he was still alive, that is.

And no, he didn’t ever kick that little decorative thing that was hanging from my parents’ kitchen ceiling.

But I think what he did end up doing might have been even better. At least for us.

But, 2009.

Can you believe it’s September? The kind of September that’s almost October, albeit?

And speaking of goals, or uh, not speaking of goals, rather, are there any goals that you’d like to accomplish before this year goes by?

Other than the sewing thing, which I am so not mentioning here, as per the instructions of that magazine, I also want to book another project. One that doesn’t involve something that sounds a lot like A Shmorus Shline.

Not that I am not grateful.

But it’s time for a new job, and that makes me pretty excited.

So that’s a goal of mine.

Okay, your turn.