December
20, 2021
Greetings
from the transtemporal,
Children
and photographs are time machines, truths you’ve read here more than once. And now you may add this to that list;
Christmas trees.
There
is a pine tree in our living room, such a comedy if you didn’t understand the
context. It is lit with the correct
number of lights, has the appropriate candy-cane to crochet-snowflake
ratio. It is also adorned with portals
to other times.
The
tree itself is a descendant of nearly forty of its kind. Different sizes and shapes, needles of
different lengths, but the lineage is clear.
Just looking at this conifer, you can sense the presence of others
before it. The crooked one, the spindly
one, the one that gave up and simply laid down.
Generation after generation of proud pines drafted into this honorable
service, represented at this gateway in time, by this fine specimen of concolor
fir.
It's
simple for me to look at this space and see the long corridor of experiences stretching
behind it. I see the people in the
shadows, the gifts, other holly, other decorations, dancing, I sense love gathered
in the movement of life.
There
is a certain history, not all that dramatic, that is easily seen. I can glance at the tree and be carried to
other years when these same tiny decorations were hung up. This one snowman that I think looks like me,
various Santa iterations, the little frame with a baby’s picture, whom none of
us can identify. There are the usual decorations, and a few unusual. If you stood here long enough to allow it, I
would tell you the story of the trees before this, and the adornments that made
them special. In those stories are the
key to the time travel.
Among
the sundry decorations we have packed and unpacked for all of these winters,
there are several glass bulbs that were given to us. Some are frosted, some
have glitter attached, some are opaque, some are painted. They are round or teardrop or oval. They are from a different era, a different
style, and while they are not unattractive, none of them are what I would have
chosen. They chose me, so they could be
here to allow other times to be here too.
They
are brittle, fragile, with tiny hoops looped into their necks by which they may
be hung from the branches. This little
device by itself has a story, this tiny tin collar with a wire shaped to hold a
hook. It is something from another time,
and when you touch it, you are transported there.
These
ornaments were held by my grandparents, for a while by my parents, and then
hung by my family on this tree, and the three dozen ancestors before it. When you see their shapes, their texture and
colors, you automatically move to the time they were created, back when Dwight
D. Eisenhower sat in the oval office.
I stood in the
glow of the tiny lights and looked at these decorations from sixty plus years
ago, and heard what it was like at my grandparent’s house, felt their company
coming at the holidays, felt the warmth in the room, the noise, the
laughter. Martini glasses, cigars,
phonograph records on the hi-fi, carolers at the front door.
The phones
were heavy black instruments where you would often interrupt your neighbors on
the ‘party line’. When the TV appears,
it is a piece of furniture the size of a small refrigerator, festooned with
outlandish antennae to capture broadcasts from the three channels. Men wore fedoras.
The faces of
people I love are reflected in the glass ornaments, many of whom are celebrating
in another place now. Their images,
still held in the glittering globes on the tree, look out from their time,
smiling, celebrating, inviting me to feel them again. My grandparents move away and my parents are
there, and uncles and cousins. Here is
Leslie, still a child and brimming with a rich life ahead of her.
Other
Christmas mornings, with my sisters and brother, crowded around the packages in
our tiny living room. I can see hectares
of wrapping paper that have passed these bulbs, I see crowded rooms of visiting
friends, hear the sound of laughter, of music.
My own children, impatient to see what Santa brought, waiting for the
first prayer to be said so they can unwrap things.
Time travel
can go into the future as well. I can
already see other Christmas mornings in this tree. These needles in the carpet will be place
holders for the next litter of green. There will be other trees that take this one’s
place, and the ornaments will be brought out and hung where they can catch the
light, and reflect the living that happens in it. Friends, my children, new sounds, new smells
that remind us of other Christmas moments.
My granddaughter, Ila, has
added an Elmo character that is resting in the lower branches, where she can
take it off if she chooses to.
As
I wrote these last words I stood up and walked out of my den to the living room
where the tree is. I stood and looked
into those timeless shiny things, and saw my five-year-old eyes, felt the rush
of excitement of Christmas morning. I
saw the smile of this morning, and of next Christmas and those after. I saw all of those I love in that long
hallway of light behind me, countless rooms filled with myriad lives, dancing in
the time before and to come.
Merry
Christmas
Hope
this finds you transported,
David
Copyright
© 2021 David Smith
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