Top to toe in taillights, red lights all around

 

Howdy, all you Blogbots, merry ho ho. I hope you are celebrating the season safely, pandemic-style. I'm doing fine in the Love Shack, thanks for asking. Isolation is nothing new for me. I've had almost a year to get used to living with a cat ghost. I have a new song for the season, which some kind soul looped in an hour-long YouTube, so I'm immersed in a repetitive ditty with an insipid soothing rhythm and bland lyrics that remind me that yes, I used to drive home for Christmas. Every now and then, I see a shadow and think it's Eddie, a spirit from Christmases past. 

I didn't feel sad or lonely until I read comments on the YouTube page under the static picture of a decorated tree. I'm not the only one finding refuge in a soothing song with a catchy beat. People from around the world are posting comments. Some rave about the song and wonder why they haven't heard it before, even though it was written in the late 1980s. Some are reminiscing about past holidays being with loved ones now gone. Some send well wishes from lockdown and hope wistfully for better times coming soon. Stay safe, they say, the standard greeting of 2020. Who knew? Nobody says "Have a great day" anymore, do they? Illness and death lurk outside our doors. 

Covid has given new resonance to the term Swedish Death Cleaning. In the interest of leaving life with minimal mess for my brother to shovel into a dumpster, I've destroyed almost twenty-five years' worth of my journals. I tore out a few drawings from each, most of which you've seen in this blog, and cut up the rejects. I'm trying to say so long to my past creativity. I'm making room for something new, which might actually be a vacant space, depending on how things go with Covid and Mom. However, the stack of drawings is two feet tall—thus, I admit, I have more culling to do. 

The past two nights have been cold and windy, so no outside visit with the maternal parental unit. We visited through her window using the baby monitor. I pressed the button and spoke into the tiny hole: How's it going, Mom, over. Ha. No, I don't say over, that would just be confusing. We're two feet apart, separated by a pane of glass. She reads lips and so do I. It isn't hard to have a conversation. We sang Let it Snow, as many lines as we could remember, which took us to Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. We grinned at each other. She looked happy. 

There's no Christmas for me here anymore, at least, for me, no day deserves any special celebration or attention. If no day is Christmas, then every day can be Christmas. Every day she lives, breathes, sings,  and smiles is a gift.