Lately, I have been thinking a lot about time. Perhaps it is with the talk of New Years or with the changing landscape of my life, but it seems like the passage of time feels somehow more present lately.
Sometimes my brooding on the passage of time is more obvious, like this weekend when my friend's husband dressed up as "Father Time" at their annual "Hideous Holiday Sweater Party." This year, I didn't make the mistake I made last year when I misread the comma as a Hideous Holiday--Sweater Party and came as Columbus Day complete with a sweater depicting the rape and murder of North America's indigenous population. Yeah, that didn't go over so well in a sea of red and green, snowmen and reindeers, Santas and sleigh bells.
The party was comprised of people I have known since college and, at the end of the night as we chatted about New Years, we looked through old pictures of New Years from long ago. We laughed as we remember one particular New Years Eve when we went out in the "city" near my hometown and my parents dropped us off and picked us up at the bar. I still burst out laughing when I think about the image of all of us barreling into my mom's station wagon at the end of the night. We have since moved out of the house and as we looked at those pictures and saw a youthful fullness in our faces we laughed about how long ago that seemed and how different our lives are now from then.
While some of my thoughts on the passage of time have been humorous reminders of how far we've come, others have been more bittersweet. M. and I got our Christmas tree and, as we decorated it, I realized many of the ornaments came from a couple of my favorite people: My Nana and Poppop. Though my Poppop passed away a few years ago now, I think of him often and during the holiday season I always feel his loss more acutely. My favorite ornament is one that came from my Nana and Poppop; it is a beautiful glass bulb and it is so fragile that it has a special velvety box in which it is stored each year until it is placed in its rightful place on the top of the tree. Hand painted doves flutter across the ornament; a sign of peace, which is such a relevant reminder of my Poppop for so many reasons. Sometimes I feel sad when I think about the fact that if I have children they will never know my Poppop, but then I remember that, as cliche as it sounds, he really does live on in memory and in moments--like when I put that beautiful, fragile glass bulb on the tree each year. A reminder that life and love are fragile and precious, but they are also powerful like the memories that flood over me each year.
After we decorated the tree, we went to The Metropolitan Museum of Art at night to see their tree and walk around in the crowd-free, peaceful museum setting. It is difficult not to think about the passage of time when you walk around a museum and look upon all of the antiquities that were so alive and real during their time and are now merely relegated to artifacts for people to look upon and try to make sense of.
So, for me the "ghosts of Christmas past" have loomed large this week and I just want to take a moment and appreciate the past since it has help to make my present so rich and full of wonder. Since I know that one day these moments too will be merely memories, I hope to make them powerful and important ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment