It's tomorrow again in Muland. I'm truly hoping this will be the last of my holiday series, but I can't be sure. See, we're getting to the original intent of my story and I'm having a really, really hard time writing this. I don't want you to think I'm getting all paranormal or religious on your collective butts. Neither do I want to come off as pathetically emotional, though in order to state my case, all the above elements must come into play.
For some time now, I've recognized little events that can only be described as too convenient to be simple coincidence. I think if they'd occured at any other time, I would have never have given them a second thought, but at the lowest point in my life I thought about my Christmas story for the first time in 30 years. While I won't go into details, I will tell you that it was Christmastime and remembering the ranch changed me more than any antidepressant, any counseling or any type of rehab could. Since then, I've been acutely aware of the world and its people around me. And since I've always wanted to explain the inexplicable, I began to formulate a theory of what we call the spirit. Believe me crazy, tell me I've got way too much time on my hands, but don't call the guys in the white coats just yet. Please, read. Think. Research. Question. Above all, keep your mind wide open. Your life might depend on it.
It may not have been Christmas Eve, but it was darn close to it. The dogs woke me one night. Not unusual in itself, but instead of whining and poking their cold, wet noses into my ear, the four of them stood by my bed, as if waiting for me to sense whatever it was that got them up. Kind of puzzled (I was way too old to believe in Santa), I put on cold-weather gear and boots because I never let the damn fools out by themselves in the middle of wildcat country. Mostly, our mutts would rather run than fight, and I for sure wasn't going to offer myself as a tasty distraction in order to save their hairy asses. Pa drilled it into me five ways to Sunday that I was not to go outside after dusk without at least a .38. He'd rather I took the 20-gauge, but hell, it was almost taller than I was, and I couldn't aim it as well anyway. Having been so conditioned, I promptly left unarmed except for a flashlight. Which, it turned out, I didn't need either. Now in the movies there'd have been a gorgeous full moon and snow to reflect its eerie platinum light, but all I had was the barest sliver of said orb and the ambient glow of the Milky Way, which was more than enough to see by. At the time, I gave it hardly a thought as I followed the dogs down to the horse corral. It did occur to me, however, that it was strange that they trotted almost single file along the trail, not weaving from side to side with noses to ground, gobbling up interesting scents along the way. Eight ears at attention, eight paws padding silently, four snouts up, they gave the impression of pups with a purpose. Neither did they stop to pee and poo which pissed me off royally since that was the whole idea behind this excursion. I was tired and cold and just wanted to get back to my bed. I started to call them to me, but the sound of my voice in the deep quiet creeped me out a litte. They didn't seem to hear me anyway. We were nearly at their intended destination when I finally woke all the way up.
The horses stood in the midst of the field, no snorting or stamping, no whinnying, all looking in the same direction. Only their tails made an occasional soft swishing. The dogs moved in between and under their legs with hardly a whisper where they, too, stood motionless, gazing at the fingernail moon. I was beyond creeped and all the way into freaked until I stopped and looked for what might have captured the animals in such a trance. I saw nothing but a midnight-blue sky dotted with thousands of crisp stars that hung suspended, like frozen snowflakes, overhead. In the heavy silence of the moment I almost turned to run back to the house, to comfort. I was half convinced I was far into a weird dream, for as in such a dream, I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot yet suddenly alive as never before. Wave upon wave of sensations passed through me: the smell of fresh manure, the heat from the animals, the feel of clean cold air, the stale taste of bed-time hot chocolate, the sight of every frost-covered pine needle on the nearby tree. And with it came a sense of anticipation. Of yearning. Of hope. Of kindness. It had nothing to do with the so-called birth of Christ. This was more along the line of a visceral racial memory.
I don't know how long we were out there, my animals and I. I didn't recall that event in the morning. For that matter, I forgot it for thirty more years. But every Christmas, in whatever part of the world I was in, I went out into the night without knowing why. And the older I got, the more I drank in of the majik we could all share if we only knew what to look for.
Golly. Guess we will have one more episode...if you want to know what I honestly think happened then and is still affecting me now.
Sweet dreams,
Mu
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
Through the Eyes of a Child - part 2
Hey y'all. In my world it's tomorrow and time to carry on with "Christmas In America". So - we left Frankfurt in a propeller aircraft on Friday, November 13th. I will never forget my first whiff of airplane fuel; still and ever the best perfume on god's earth, eliciting the promise of adventure, the unkown. The noise of the props rumbled like the worst thunderstorm. The tarmac under my feet thrummed as if it, not the plane would take me to a new future. I was eight and anything was possible. Twelve hours later, after a three-hour refueling in Reykjavik, we landed in Newark. Behold a new scent! No, not the Jersey stockyards. The ocean I had just crossed. Never realized how the two completely seperate smells are inextricably linked in my memory...
Don't remember much of the car trip - I lived in the cargo space of Pa's Karman Ghia for three days - but I do recall that we stopped over night twice. I made him stop at whatever motel had the most gaudy neon display. How I loved those lights. One morning we woke up to find that the motel property bordered on a cemetery. Cool!
On to Colorado. Where I was promptly deposited in second grade, not knowing a word of English. You take a kid from anywhere and plop her into a group of kids anywhere else, and let me tell ya, it takes her exactly 6.7 seconds to spot the bully. Of course, he found me first. Sucker followed me home, too. Seems he lived two houses up from mine. I couldn't talk to him, but thanks to Opa, I could cuss like a sailor in German. I could run like the wind and when I refused run anymore, I kicked and bit like a chihuahua on angeldust. Obviously, the kid didn't understand me, but I think he caught the general drift. Wish I could say he never bothered me again, but we were doomed to repeat this epitome of childhood comedy nearly every day after school. Sometimes I won and sent the little shit home crying. Sometimes I was the bawling baby. The only thing that changed was that soon I cussed fluently in English. Pa contributed his part of the language lessons.
I don't remember much of that Christmas, except that it was my first introduction to electric tree lights. You know, those big colorful 9watt energy gobblers that look like glowing easter eggs? And hey - they decorated the houses too so it looked like the whole friggin neighbor hood was on fire. Other than that, the rest of it was, well...Ma n Pa did the best they could, but where once there were many, now there was just us three. Where was the sense of majik? Had I left that behind, too?
It didn't happen until Pa got a job as caretaker for a YMCA ranch. 1400 acres of mountain land, two lakes, stables, miles of trails, toboggan runs and sledding hills, an honest-to-goodness ghost town far back in the woods, and for most of the year, my personal playground. As a 13-year-old girl, I should have missed having friends, but I had school to go to like everyone else. In fact, my early experience with total language immersion actually paid out by giving me a talent for grammar, spelling and bully-pounding. School was easy, but I hated it. I never felt like I quite fit in. Pa must have known this because once every couple of weeks, he'd let me stay out. The terms were that I work with him, and I got a totally different education. That man made sure I learned to shoe horses, mend fence, drive tractors, plow snow and shoot straight. We spent hours cutting wood and polishing the toboggan runs. I learned how to track mountain lion, bear, rabbits, deer and other denizens of the ranch. All the while, Pa talked about what we were doing and why. He also taught me more effective bully control. He taught me about the behavior of the animals we lived among, especially horses and dogs. I quickly figured out that our packs of pups and half-dozen ponies were the best friends I could ask for. I was alone a lot, but I was never lonely. Best of all, in the last year that we lived on the ranch, I found Christmas again.
We'll get to that in part 3. Tomorrow.
Don't remember much of the car trip - I lived in the cargo space of Pa's Karman Ghia for three days - but I do recall that we stopped over night twice. I made him stop at whatever motel had the most gaudy neon display. How I loved those lights. One morning we woke up to find that the motel property bordered on a cemetery. Cool!
On to Colorado. Where I was promptly deposited in second grade, not knowing a word of English. You take a kid from anywhere and plop her into a group of kids anywhere else, and let me tell ya, it takes her exactly 6.7 seconds to spot the bully. Of course, he found me first. Sucker followed me home, too. Seems he lived two houses up from mine. I couldn't talk to him, but thanks to Opa, I could cuss like a sailor in German. I could run like the wind and when I refused run anymore, I kicked and bit like a chihuahua on angeldust. Obviously, the kid didn't understand me, but I think he caught the general drift. Wish I could say he never bothered me again, but we were doomed to repeat this epitome of childhood comedy nearly every day after school. Sometimes I won and sent the little shit home crying. Sometimes I was the bawling baby. The only thing that changed was that soon I cussed fluently in English. Pa contributed his part of the language lessons.
I don't remember much of that Christmas, except that it was my first introduction to electric tree lights. You know, those big colorful 9watt energy gobblers that look like glowing easter eggs? And hey - they decorated the houses too so it looked like the whole friggin neighbor hood was on fire. Other than that, the rest of it was, well...Ma n Pa did the best they could, but where once there were many, now there was just us three. Where was the sense of majik? Had I left that behind, too?
It didn't happen until Pa got a job as caretaker for a YMCA ranch. 1400 acres of mountain land, two lakes, stables, miles of trails, toboggan runs and sledding hills, an honest-to-goodness ghost town far back in the woods, and for most of the year, my personal playground. As a 13-year-old girl, I should have missed having friends, but I had school to go to like everyone else. In fact, my early experience with total language immersion actually paid out by giving me a talent for grammar, spelling and bully-pounding. School was easy, but I hated it. I never felt like I quite fit in. Pa must have known this because once every couple of weeks, he'd let me stay out. The terms were that I work with him, and I got a totally different education. That man made sure I learned to shoe horses, mend fence, drive tractors, plow snow and shoot straight. We spent hours cutting wood and polishing the toboggan runs. I learned how to track mountain lion, bear, rabbits, deer and other denizens of the ranch. All the while, Pa talked about what we were doing and why. He also taught me more effective bully control. He taught me about the behavior of the animals we lived among, especially horses and dogs. I quickly figured out that our packs of pups and half-dozen ponies were the best friends I could ask for. I was alone a lot, but I was never lonely. Best of all, in the last year that we lived on the ranch, I found Christmas again.
We'll get to that in part 3. Tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tis the Season - part 1
Hey, y'all. I was going to wait until Christmas Eve to post this, but seein's how I'm going to Virginia to spend the Holiday with my older daughter and her family, I somehow don't think I'll have the time.
So let's get some background on Mu before I launch into my lecture:
I was German for the first eight years of my life. I went to a Catholic school for three years, which may account for my distaste of religion. Hell, I was scared to death of the nuns (those mamas is MEAN), the priests that came once a week to hear our confession I believed to be demons straight out of our coloring books and I truly knew the holy water fonts were filled with acid that, while not burning my fingers, would surely burn my sinning soul. PTSD, anyone? I lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment with my Oma and Opa cuz Ma was working, and as children are wont to do, accepted all, questioned nothing and was happy. This may seem like a scene out of the last century, but in post-war Germany, we honestly had no hot water or central heat. We burned coal for warmth in the kitchen and living room (I remember stacking the bricks in our cubby of the apartment basement - next to the potatoes), and took baths in a big tub filled with warm water heated on the coal-burning stove. I knew my Opa left to go work...somewhere...while Oma cooked, cleaned and shopped all day. We had seperate stores for everything - the butcher, the dairy, the bakery, the green-grocer, and we hoofed it, toting bags of vittles damn near every day. On Fridays, we loaded up the laundry in a wagon and headed for the communal wash-house. Then we hauled it all back home where Oma spent the rest of what was left of the day ironing. Did I mention that my aunt and two cousins lived in this tiny apartment with us? They slept on the couch and floor. I slept with Oma and Papa in their big, down-covered bed, with a hot-water bottle at my feet. It was wonderful and wonder full.
Come Christmastime, Oma (in addition to all the other responsibilities she handled without whine or whimper) baked exquisite cookies and cakes. We observed Advent by sitting around the kitchen table. The centerpiece was a real evergreen wreath wrapped in red velvet ribbon, sporting three red candles and one white. We would light the candles on their respective Sundays, pray, and then eat the sweet, satisfying goodies Oma worked to hard to bake. Since suger, butter and eggs were still extremely expensive there and then, I think the rich sweetness we enjoyed was the love she put in.
On the day of Christmas Eve, Opa came home early, panting and cussing (NOBODY can cuss like a German), dragging in that most symbolic icon of the Season: the Tree! Oh, how fresh it smelled. For a kid growing up in a concreted building, with a postage-stamp back courtyard that boasted an even smaller area of grass, that Tree represented freedom; a world outside and of course, MAJIK! After much further cussing, consumation of brandy and more cookies, Opa got the Tree put up. Taking a much-earned feetsup, Oma and I and whomever else (meaning the whole fam-dambly) decorated the honored Pine with a dozen crystal ornaments, lots of tinsel and would you believe - real candles in their own little tin holders that clipped onto the sparse branches. Fire hazard be damned - that Christmas Tree was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Since we celebrated on Christmas Eve in the old-country tradition, suddenly Saint Nicolas in full official regalia would appear, accompanied by the Christ Child, who, in a flowing white gown and veil topped by a bejeweled crown seemed as pure and light as the falling snow. At the time, I didn't realize that these Majikal visions-come-to-life were actually one of aunts and uncles dressed to impress. The kids got bare branches that had chocolates tied to them with golden thread and the grown-ups all got bottles of wine. Only now does it dawn on me that my guardians saved and scrimped all year to afford these costly luxuries. Our revered visitors then blessed us all and took their leave. I guess sometime later the actors reappeared; we were too busy opening the present or two that Oma and Opa bestowed upon us with great solemnity. And then the party started. I remember one year very clearly, when Opa had imbibed one too many glasses of Christmas brandy, sang a traditional German carol in a quite impressive baritone and promptly fell backward into the Tree, which blazed up like a bonfire what with all the candles lit, kinda like in the movie, "Christmas Vacation". We got Opa up n outta there post-haste, put him out, brushed him off, grabbed the water bucket(we weren't totally safety challenged), doused the Tree and partied on.
That's enough for tonight. I'm going to recall that dreamish time while it's fresh in what loosely passes for my mind. Tomorrow you'll read about Christmas in America. Don't worry - I really AM going somewhere with all this. But maybe you'll enjoy the journey, too.
Sleep well.
Mu
So let's get some background on Mu before I launch into my lecture:
I was German for the first eight years of my life. I went to a Catholic school for three years, which may account for my distaste of religion. Hell, I was scared to death of the nuns (those mamas is MEAN), the priests that came once a week to hear our confession I believed to be demons straight out of our coloring books and I truly knew the holy water fonts were filled with acid that, while not burning my fingers, would surely burn my sinning soul. PTSD, anyone? I lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment with my Oma and Opa cuz Ma was working, and as children are wont to do, accepted all, questioned nothing and was happy. This may seem like a scene out of the last century, but in post-war Germany, we honestly had no hot water or central heat. We burned coal for warmth in the kitchen and living room (I remember stacking the bricks in our cubby of the apartment basement - next to the potatoes), and took baths in a big tub filled with warm water heated on the coal-burning stove. I knew my Opa left to go work...somewhere...while Oma cooked, cleaned and shopped all day. We had seperate stores for everything - the butcher, the dairy, the bakery, the green-grocer, and we hoofed it, toting bags of vittles damn near every day. On Fridays, we loaded up the laundry in a wagon and headed for the communal wash-house. Then we hauled it all back home where Oma spent the rest of what was left of the day ironing. Did I mention that my aunt and two cousins lived in this tiny apartment with us? They slept on the couch and floor. I slept with Oma and Papa in their big, down-covered bed, with a hot-water bottle at my feet. It was wonderful and wonder full.
Come Christmastime, Oma (in addition to all the other responsibilities she handled without whine or whimper) baked exquisite cookies and cakes. We observed Advent by sitting around the kitchen table. The centerpiece was a real evergreen wreath wrapped in red velvet ribbon, sporting three red candles and one white. We would light the candles on their respective Sundays, pray, and then eat the sweet, satisfying goodies Oma worked to hard to bake. Since suger, butter and eggs were still extremely expensive there and then, I think the rich sweetness we enjoyed was the love she put in.
On the day of Christmas Eve, Opa came home early, panting and cussing (NOBODY can cuss like a German), dragging in that most symbolic icon of the Season: the Tree! Oh, how fresh it smelled. For a kid growing up in a concreted building, with a postage-stamp back courtyard that boasted an even smaller area of grass, that Tree represented freedom; a world outside and of course, MAJIK! After much further cussing, consumation of brandy and more cookies, Opa got the Tree put up. Taking a much-earned feetsup, Oma and I and whomever else (meaning the whole fam-dambly) decorated the honored Pine with a dozen crystal ornaments, lots of tinsel and would you believe - real candles in their own little tin holders that clipped onto the sparse branches. Fire hazard be damned - that Christmas Tree was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Since we celebrated on Christmas Eve in the old-country tradition, suddenly Saint Nicolas in full official regalia would appear, accompanied by the Christ Child, who, in a flowing white gown and veil topped by a bejeweled crown seemed as pure and light as the falling snow. At the time, I didn't realize that these Majikal visions-come-to-life were actually one of aunts and uncles dressed to impress. The kids got bare branches that had chocolates tied to them with golden thread and the grown-ups all got bottles of wine. Only now does it dawn on me that my guardians saved and scrimped all year to afford these costly luxuries. Our revered visitors then blessed us all and took their leave. I guess sometime later the actors reappeared; we were too busy opening the present or two that Oma and Opa bestowed upon us with great solemnity. And then the party started. I remember one year very clearly, when Opa had imbibed one too many glasses of Christmas brandy, sang a traditional German carol in a quite impressive baritone and promptly fell backward into the Tree, which blazed up like a bonfire what with all the candles lit, kinda like in the movie, "Christmas Vacation". We got Opa up n outta there post-haste, put him out, brushed him off, grabbed the water bucket(we weren't totally safety challenged), doused the Tree and partied on.
That's enough for tonight. I'm going to recall that dreamish time while it's fresh in what loosely passes for my mind. Tomorrow you'll read about Christmas in America. Don't worry - I really AM going somewhere with all this. But maybe you'll enjoy the journey, too.
Sleep well.
Mu
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