Thinking about the holidays

The end of the year has returned again, bringing with it the most beloved holidays of my youth.

Naturally this has left me feeling introspective and, perhaps, just a little melancholy. It’s more than just the distance that separates me from my family. Much more, for I don’t fetishize the concept of family the way some do. There are parts of my family who I am grateful are more than 2,000 miles away. No, it’s more and less, deeper and different than that.

The end of the year holidays make me think about what my life is and what I want it to be. Where I am. Who I am.

Am I the glass and aluminum and steel of an urban denizen of a major city, slick and modern? Am I the polished wood and rough cloth of a small town, straddling the line between industry and country? Is the scent in my air diesel and rubber, or is it wood smoke and fallen leaves? Am I stamped by a machine or crafted by hand? Is my Yule log on tv or out here in the living world? Am I a Christmas tree ordered online and packed in a cardboard box or found and cut after a tramp across a snowy field? Do I dash through the snow to the mall or past rolling hills and moonlit trees? What is my reality? What is my dream?

Like any good musing I suspect these questions to be unanswerable. At a different time of year these questions would likely not even present themselves. But it is the winter of my adulthood and I am nostalgic for the winter of my youth.