hope – Riding the Light

Holidays. The best. The brightest. The bane. What a triangle to ring, a summoning to change… a precursor to taking up the polished, jingling harness of 2025.

For years Christmas has not been anything magical in my life. Oh, the spirits it engenders, the hopeful faces gazing into colored lights: these all nourish Hope, always a fire in need of a bellows. I’ve always had hope, it’s just not been tied to holidays so often a source of angst. Somewhere the anxiety fluttering around holidays left & these softened into hours of peace & the silence of a power-down: a parenthesis opening to slide into no-time. A day I didn’t have to be anywhere, have to show up, have to live up to anything except the contents I unpack for the day. Memories & moments, merriness & mess.

I hope I’m one who gets happy endings.

I could describe my Christmases, given the rest of my life & an unending supply of ink & paper. The only consistent gift for me is writing – it keeps on giving. It’s a responsibility & a talent I nurture as I do nothing else in my physical, spiritual, emotional life. It keeps on giving & I remain in awe of its harmonics, its melody & how these dance thru me. My words are wounded birds unable to remain in flight so, fluttering onto paper, they make you smile.

Ironic that they are not MY words. They belong to everyone, no?

I want them to belong to the worlds & take their place where they belong – memories & moments, merriness & mess.

Christmas is a scab I pick at til I bleed sometimes. But mostly I’ve gotten better at ignoring its physicality for its ephemera. The best of the Times:

Once, in a motel breakfast bar en route to New Mexico during this Season, a fella with soft white wavy hair & a soft white beard wearing a red tracksuit stood in line for pancakes. My husband du jour had to take me by the elbow when I looked at this man, my eyes starred up & I drifted across the room towards him, convinced it was Truly Santa reaching for the syrup. Husband smiled & whispered, “Carol, honey, that’s not him.“

Once, meeting the new boyfriend’s family at the holidays I answered “a pony” when asked what I wanted for the holidays. They gave me a makeup kit with fifty different colors of eye shadow & a tiny stuffed animal of a checkered horse.

Once I wore a brocade dress to midnight mass, a maroon brocade top stitched to a satin bell-skirt bottom, with patent-leather kitten heels which were too big so I slipped on a pair of white cotton athletic socks , innocently ruining any formality. My hair is parted on the left, I have spitcurls, my eyes are crossed in the photo (which I kept for a long time.) Brother Joe sits beside me in a chair holding a wrapped gift. The Christmas tree lights glitter softly behind us.

Christmas. Synonymous with hope’s annual renewal & the opportunity for unexpected gifts, unmitigated joy, unbound blessing.

May you have so much Joy you must give it all away at once!

Love,

Carol

Wake up to the grave every day

Wake up to radical choices

Of health

Prosperity

Abundance

Because these are what the world wants us to have

And know that no other reason is needed.

If fear or complaint is your home page

Click on the menu called “Prayer”

Watch for the submenu “grace’ to use as a

Superglue

Eliding all extraneous borders into seamlessness.

Stretch for something you can walk forward upon

Something solid, not heavy like pavement,

But supportive & gracious to feet

Think on how long the wood speaks to us

After trees are made furniture. Think how it

May have longed to be a bureau or a stair.

We can no longer afford to waste even this

Intangible energy breathed at us…

Awaken to only THIS day, for none will ever be so again

Put out your super-natural antennae

Listen for hoofbeats, watch for omens

If you’re one to create your world, plan it for good

_______________

I watched a short video accompanying a longer article about Jesus. In the video, He is shown as a man in white robes striding towards the camera. I am directly entranced by this video. I bookmarked it to watch again.

Towards me

I have a framed picture on my bureau:

A magazine cutout purporting to be Jesus

In a white robe with a red sash…

Walking towards me.

And this is where it will get strange for some people,

So, if you are even the least bit strange, stop reading here, please.

I knew this image to be so familiar for I had seen it in real life.

In my waking reality, once upon a time,

I saw Jesus striding towards me,

Pacing up the road ahead of any entourage

Eager to arrive at a home, to table, clean & at rest: a meal.

I knew that Jesus sent His essence out ahead of Him

I knew the first image was His wish to be with us

And that I still had time to prepare

For the moment He would fill His shadow

At my door,

Smile up at me, from my table

All of us, Arrived, at last.

_____________

I’ve waited a long time for JOY to become my habitat.

I needed to recall that Joy is set up beyond earthly constructs

So as to be accessible at all times.

I needed to remember Joy is entirely individualized

Apparent only on those terms

Entangled in these constructs

Enabled by fearlessness.

Joy is light, it smells like reflected sunlight

when you pass through high grass, tasseled & be-stemmed.

Don’t waste a bit!

Always put it down in the exact same place…

Or set it up as your default state.

You see, first you get through Hope

Then Faith

Then Love

to Joy.

(Once you’ve Joy, all else drops away.)

___________________

I declare a General Amnesty for myself!

I did all of it so far & didn’t even have the full story

(Conventionality wears off early

If you’re set aside young.)

Recovery isn’t to be trusted,

Fitting in doesn’t feel “organic”

Comfort = Alone.

I find my pardons along the roads I travel

And I’m open to bridges.

Tag: hope

Santa Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Seeing the Unseen