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On a Christmas In-Between
While we long for the past, we need to be creative, bold and empathetic about the future.
Christmas morning, 2019. I sit on my friend’s couch and stare out the window.
The fireplace is on, the tree is lit, Christmas music is playing, we’re on our second pot of coffee, and outside the sky is grey and tree limbs are bare.
No cars drive by, no one is out walking, the street is quiet, and outside all seems still, a serenity deeper than early Sunday mornings settles upon houses and lawns.
As someone relatively new to looking at Christmas as something other than a day off from work with a lot of basketball games on, a day I’d have to plan around even though it meant little to me, I searched for a religious comparison.
A Day of Rest
On Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the day I see and experience as the most spiritual, I go to Barton Springs pool to take in nature, the outdoors, the natural, cool water (in addition to going to synagogue, in non-pandemic times).
I’m usually there late in the morning in the middle of the week and the pool is emptier than usual.
“Ah,” I say to my companion, “this is like our Christmas, tables turned. We get to enjoy a day of serenity while the world around us continues as normal.”
