Thursday, January 5, 2012

Surfacing



It was a week where the smell of tomato sauce brought me to age five, blue TV burbling, small elbows on plastic placemats - my grandmother’s kitchen table.  A week where I stumbled upon the pajamas I wore Christmas Eve twenty years ago, only to sleep in my childhood bed, chestnut-headed daughter flush to my side.  It was a week of neck-high swimming in joy and exhaustion, memories and moments zagging my heart with deep reaching stitches.  Sometimes with things I’d prefer to forget.  Others to play on repeat.  Like our old dog, dappled in light beneath the tree.  My mother’s hands carefully peeling grapefruit, small children in her lap, cancer no longer banging upon her door.  I wonder what our children will remember and want to retrace over and over again 30 years down the road.  Will it be hand-over-hand cutting of butternut squash?  Tiny red wooden beads slung on the tree?  Nodding off to the rhythm of streetlights cutting the night?  How desperately I want to know.









1 comment:

  1. so crazy - i have had this same exact question this year…what will they remember? what traditions and moments will stick in their minds and hearts? the holidays are always such a blur….yet there are "things" and songs and stories that the girls are already connecting with. so neat to see them start to say "but mommy - we ALWAYS (fill in the blank)" and i see what their expectations or images of the holidays are starting to be (not meaning presents, etc - but the activities and events that mark the season).

    so sweet to see molly and paige remember where and why and when we bought certain ornaments. molly gushing over how aDORable or abslo-lutely beaUtiful something is. paige trying to carry on all the little details since i kinda couldn't keep up this year (advent calendars, etc).

    hope to catch up soon and hear more details. sounds like most of all that your kids will always know that christmas is about family and love and that taking time to do things by hand makes them ever so extra special.

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