home for christmas

Sinterklaas Kapoentje,
Leg wat in mijn schoentje,
Leg wat in mijn laarsje,
Dank je Sinterklaasje!

(Saint Nicolas Little Rascal,
Put something in my little shoe,
Put something in my little boot,
Thank you little Saint Nicolas!)

("Sinterklaas Kapoentje" - A Dutch St Nicholas Song)

27 November 2011

Once upon a time, in a tropical island, far far away, I sat staring at a two meter Norwegian pine tree (imported, of course).

It stood elegantly in our air-conditioned living room.

The fragrance was bliss. And along with the crisp processed air, it took me back to a very happy place. The decorations were pretty enough. They were not too fancy or fashionable. Perhaps a little too formulaic and predictable. Pretty. But a little lacking in history. Never mind.

Fairy lights twinkled, Christmas tunes jingled and the air-conditioning hummed.

That part of my Christmas "duty" was done.

I stared at my handiwork for the day, with some degree of self satisfaction.

All in place.

But.

Something is missing.

I sat there alone with my thoughts.

No. It wasn't the snow, or the fireplace.

Nor was it my mother's "Pastel" (Spanish shepherd's pie; I always thought it was Dutch), or her "Huzarensla" (Huzaren Salad, this one is Dutch), or her Indo-Dutch sausage and cinnamon soup (I have no idea what it is called). It was not the fact that none of the children I know these days leaves milk and cookies for Sinterklaas and a handful of fresh grass in their shoe or boot for his white horse, or the fact that they look to the North Pole and not to Spain for the approach of the jolly old man, or that parents told their kids that he will arrive on a sleigh drawn by flying reindeer, and not by the sea, in a large ship, or that every other greeting card makes him look like that other jolly old man in red from the Coca Cola ad, or that no one really knows who St Nicholas was.

It was not the lack of a crowd to have Christmas dinners and lunches with, or the lack of midnight masses, or beautiful choirs, Christmas hams and puddings, bowls of eggnog, or great presents.

No. That wasn’t it.

I could not put my finger on it. So I put it aside, as we do many things in our lives in the name of reason, and carried on with my days.

Slightly uneasy, but convinced of the superiority of my own sensibilities.

Then, one other hot and humid day, as I roamed around in a fancy air-conditioned ginormous shopping centre that by then became like a second home to me, as I could do almost everything there. This time I was running some Christmas errands. On one of the top floors, I came across a large Christmas advertisement poster by Tiffany & Co.

Christmas is so intertwined with the idea of home for most of us.

Tiffany & Co knows that.

There he was, a nice looking, well dressed young man, waiting by a very homely and elegant looking front door, snow flakes falling all around him. He had in his hand behind him, one of those Tiffany blue (yes, they have in fact patented the "Tiffany Blue" colour) boxes tied with the similarly infamous white ribbon, inside which many dreams and hopes can be purchased for a lot less than their true worth. We see only a part of his face, as he looked down at his shoes, with a glow on his face. We know that he has rung the door bell, or knocked. We feel his anticipation, as he listens for any sign of welcome coming from behind the door. His smile embraces what was waiting on the other side. We clasped our chests as our hearts warmed up with his. There was a glimpse of the flickering of fire through the window. The absence of display of what was waiting for him on the other side, made the imagery ever so much clearer in my mind. I could smell the Christmas cake, and the ginger bread. I can see the fireplace, and feel the wood burning.

As my mind continued to fill all the blanks, my own memories of happy Christmases started flooding in with such force that they almost knocked me over.

That bloody advertisement worked like a charm.

No. I did not barge into Tiffany & Co waving my credit card to shop a storm.

The song "I'll be home for Christmas" started playing in my head. I felt like I was about to choke.

Home.

I wanna go home.

I rushed to the nearest taxi stand and headed back to the apartment, forgetting everything else that I was supposed to do that day.

(Notice how I said “the apartment”, and not “home”)

I slowly realized that my last recollection of home was a patchwork of different places, different times, and remained only in my memory.

With that, I also realized that Christmas, as I have always known it, no longer exist.

I've lost Christmas.

So. I decided to press the re-start button.

Last Christmas was a very quiet one. I spent it alone.

This time, not in the aforementioned tropical island far far away. But another far away place at the bottom of the planet. Yet another fragment of my idea of “home”. With not much else left to call home after 10 years of being away, except the memories of my 20s. Filled with broken hearts, but not yet broken dreams.

I bought a cheap, but natural and tasteful looking 30 cm artificial pine tree from Kirkcaldie & Stain’s. An iconic Christmas shop in an iconic store in the CBD. It was our very own Harrod’s. The tree was small enough for me to carry back in a big plastic bag.

As soon as I got home (my mother’s home actually, notice how this time I actually said “home”, even though it is no longer home to me), I wrapped around it a short string of fairy lights, and decorated it with my collection of silver rings. It sat quietly on the kitchen bar top table between late November and January. For many nights during Advent, through Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year, I switched all lights off, and let the small mount of twinkles sooth me.

I did not go to church, or sing Christmas carols, I did not have presents (I received one, and gave one) or Christmas lunch or dinner (I did go for a quick lunch visit on Boxing Day). I did not dress up for the occasion, or decorate the house, or have a get-together with anybody.

For a brief moment, I was at peace. For a brief moment, there was time to recollect, and to redirect.

A home is made of more than the things we can touch, see and acquire, more than the gathering of people no matter how often or how many, more than the things that are safe and comfortable that it can provide.

A home is a fellowship, of loved ones, of friendship and family.

Christmas is celebrated as a spiritual occasion, a social, or a cultural one.

Whatever the manner of our celebration, it seems to me to be a time of reminder, of what we have been given, what we have been blessed with, and how we can give and bless others in return. It is a time of reconnections and rediscoveries. With and of those without whom we could never be who we are. Without whom, the little sense there seems to be in the world might just disappear all together.

As families and friendships evolve with marriages, deaths, separations, remarriages, migrations, relocations, and everything in between, Christmases, and Homes (with a capital 'H'), evolve with them. And if we do not want to lose Christmas, or Home, we must, take time to rediscover them, to find them in their new incarnations.

Risking the tackiness of a cliche, I will, and must, say this.

As we celebrate Christmas this year, perhaps we should try to remember what lies beyond the husk of sparkles that disguise the beauty of true Christmas.

Beyond the routine and dutiful fulfillments of social demands which often distract us from being able to truly celebrate the season.

Let us take time - enough time - before the 25th, and after, so that we can be allowed the space that is needed to reconnect, and to re-vision, our fellowship with those whose presence in our lives make some days a little less pointless, a little less meaningless.

To remind ourselves of what, and who, truly matters, and ultimately, of what it is all about.

As we enter Advent and approach Christmas day, please allow me to leave you with my most precious Christmas memories.

My Mum and Dad, waking me up in Christmas morning, nudging me in the direction of the fireplace upon which stood a lone red boot stuffed with sweets and chocolates. The man carrying a large pine tree on his shoulder, his wide smile, snow flakes on our faces, as we talked and laughed with a dear friend, and of a picture I took of this momentous occasion (carrying a pine tree on his shoulder). Warm pastels, and sausage cinnamon soup, and huzarensla (none of which is a traditional Christmas meal). Singing "Sinterklaas Kapoentje" with my mother. My father driving on long Christmas road trips, his fedora hat, cigarettes, aviators and coffee thermos. The smell of pine trees, ginger bread, cinnamon, morning snow and winter sun. Pohutukawa trees. Smiles, and giggles, and laughter.

And of a certain magic that seems to come only once every year, but indelibly colours all of our remaining years.

Christmas is many things, to many people. It might be nothing, to some.

Whatever it is to you, what better way to spend a day, or more, than to love, and to laugh, to be reminded of the reasons for them, and to know with greater certainty, more than any other day of the year, how everything that is good, is so very real and possible.

Merry Christmas.

(Editorial Note: This has been edited on 16 November 2024, thirteen years later. Much have changed since. I’ll catch you up next time).

everything is illuminated

Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think.
  (Chinese Proverb)

Sunday, 20 November 2011

My Father has been gone for approximately 17 years now. Believe it or not, I still grieve. And obviously it has taken almost half of my life to process this. I doubt it will ever reach a full stop. It defined my 30s as I came out of my 20s with the struggles to cope with it. Reflecting on life and death took a back seat for a bit as I embraced the life of an internationally mobile 30 something with the world at my feet, dreams yet to be fulfilled carried in a bundle, and an array of different possible futures to choose from before me.  As I end that part of my adventure, slightly dented and bruised, and slightly less optimistic but more hopeful than ever, I entered my 40s. And as time began to show itself again, the topic returned to my consciousness. Another time for the next step of the evolution of the self I suppose. And there it was again. The body.  This time, mine.

For as long as the end of the physical body is certain, one other thing is certain too, the deterioration of it. That alone is often hard enough to remember. But before the end arrives at the bottom of that downward slope, something happens. Somewhere along the mind-body interaction, the mind takes off in a different direction. And for a wee while, things get a little confusing.

They say on a cellular level our cells stop building and developing in the way they had before the age of 25 . In other words, we peak at 25, and this peak is also our point of decline. From then on, we - technically - start dying. But our physical bodies remain strong and collected, and they remain for the most part an extension or an expression of who we are on the inside, well into our 30s, sometimes also 40s, so this fact is not always apparent to us. And when time finally decides to make its appearance as we look in the mirror, or as we experienced yet another health scare, it can be a little shocking.

The mind, on the other hand, seems to go on a different path after this point. It became more sophisticated, confident, and certain. As we get older, our mind seems to transcend the fire of its younger days, while retaining the passion that truly matters. It becomes a more abstract lens that gives clarity to how we see life and all its complexities. It knows itself more than ever before, it recognizes itself with more certainty. Some call this wisdom. Some call it depth, or well-roundedness. Whatever it is, it strives towards perfection. And with this, we propel ourselves towards a certain kind of becoming. As such, with aging comes a more refined being and the blossoming of something.

After I recovered from the shock of being reminded that I have been slowly dying since the age of 25, the apparent disjoint between the trajectory of the mind and the body startled me.

For most of us, the last memory of a similar mind-body disjoint is of times when we first started to learn how to shave, or when parts of our body felt strange and unusual, or of times spent sneaking around the house doing the laundry before dawn. Modern psychology conceptualized this transition period between childhood and adulthood as adolescence. It can be a time of flux, conflicts, and confusion. But if we look back in history, this was not always the case. It was said that in those days, by the time one is 13 or so one was considered an adult, old enough to go to wars, marry and procreate. Many ancient traditions which can still be found today bear the mark of this old understanding with coming of age rituals done when the age is reached. The changing life expectancies and a lot of how the world works since the time of the ancients necessitate a different understanding of the human life span embodied by the relatively new social construct that is the adolescent years.

While adolescents are generally given much sympathy for their struggles, those experiencing similar crisis later in life are often seen with a bit of irritation by the general population. It is as if older people should know better than to have a crisis like that, or at least, should know how to handle such a thing by the time they are that age. At times, we also question the reason behind such internal upheavals. Comments about it fall along the theme line of recapturing the past, desperately clinging to what is no more, lack of mental capacity to accept reality, and embarrassing oblivion to the realities of the aging body. It never seems to occur to anyone that the mind-body disjoint later in life is as complex as, if not more so, than that of the adolescent years. If we have acknowledged that adolescence can be a very difficult transitional period in most people's lives because young minds find themselves struggling to cope with new adult bodies, it seems to escape most people that later life changes can be especially mind-blowing, because they force us to deal with our mortality for the very first time in our lives.

While during puberty our body felt as if it was changing into something, as we age past our prime, the changes which occur feel very much like everything is moving *away* from something.

The rather sloppy construct of "the midlife crisis" results only in jokes, stereotyping and ridicules at worst, and at best the non specific and misleading understanding of "midlife" and the less than empowering word "crisis".

As we wait for our trusted social scientists to come up with a more productive framework, perhaps we should take the responsibility to give this later life transitional phase a more deserving place in our social narrative. 

Perhaps it is time for yet another review of our understanding of the various transitions that occur within the human life span. Perhaps it is time to move our discussion about later mind-body disjoint away from the idea of grieving over lost youth, or over what was and no more, as it oversimplifies the matter terribly. Perhaps it is also time to take a firm stand against confusing the issue of mortality with that of vanity.

But for now, let us simply acknowledge, that this later life mind-body transition can be as hard as our first one. And be kind to ourselves, and to those who might be in the midst of it, because one day, if you are not already there, you will be. And we will all ride this wave in any way we can, and come out the other end less disjointed, as we realize that the body was made to have a very different journey from that of the very thing that truly make us who we are. Whether this is our mind, or our soul, will be a topic for another sit down.

it has begun

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,  20

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,  25

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.  30

    (T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land, 1922)   

Thursday, 17 November 2011

I saw a rerun of Six Feet Under the other night. It didn’t come across as ground breaking as it did a decade ago but it was still a good watch. It was rather telling that what was shocking back then was not so shocking last night. But that is another conversation. What I want to talk about now is the coffin. Yes. The coffin.

Dave, the second Fisher son of Fishers & Sons, was attending to a grieving widow and was trying to assist her with making a choice of which “vessel” is appropriate for her late husband. She was too upset to make a choice, so Dave asked what car her late husband drove, BMW she said, the largest one possible, so he recommended a flash mahogany casket. He pointed at a picture in a fancy brochure. And there it was. Stunning. The pillow was lush and the lining, sheen. The casket was polished, dark, and sleek. Nine thousand dollars, he said.

Suddenly, I flash-backed to the day my Father passed away. Only moments after, in a haze of utter sorrow, I found myself in a badly lit smallish room, choosing a “vessel” for my Father’s last resting place. In my mind I had an idea of how it would look like. And I searched for it, asked about it. The man said, ah, we don’t have those ones, they are very expensive, and those ones with the top half opening are only found in movies (by that he meant not around here), but not here. What I had to choose from was an array of beautifully carved wooden boxes lined with what looked like metal. There’s that word. Wooden box. Certainly not a nine thousand dollar vessel. There was no pillow, satin sheet or lining. The lovely carvings on the outside did not try to disguise what was blatantly obvious on the inside. What’s the metal lining for? Ah. Death. Body. Father isn’t really here anymore, it is not really him that will be resting in there. And we must prepare for what is going to be. It was bare. It was brutal. The grieving had not even started yet. And the first of many smashes of reality had begun to strike. By the time Father was rested for the weeklong wake, the metal lining had been disguised with clean white cloth, lovingly pleated along the sides. I was relieved. But there is no forgetting what was underneath. And then the time came to close the casket, men with solder torches put another metal sheet over Father, and then proceeded to seal that in a blaze of sparks, before placing the “lid” and screwing it down along the edges by fastening its crucifix shaped pins. There it was, another metal sheet. I just this minute realized that we did not actually need all the metal lining because he was to be cremated. But that’s beside the point. The metal lining was part of the design, and it was so for a reason.

We all know we are going to die one day. But I think most of us, for the most times, forget. In a way, it is good that death isn’t dressed up in some societies. In other cultures death is often masked in beauty and order. And in some others, the process of dying is collectively denied, and people and families fall apart when the time arrived. One can argue how best to deal with death, or the process of dying. One can argue that such brute display of reality was cruel or traumatizing. And dwelling in the reality of death is not very productive. Or, one can say, that a shake like that is what everyone needs. So that one never forgets, that death is not an option you can consider, but a path everyone must take. And perhaps, this might force us to see and value not only life in a way we had not before, but the process of life and the journey of time in a different way. Life to me seems both limitless and limited.  It is limitless in what we can aspire, and in what we can do and achieve, but it is limited in the available time it can give us to do so. Sometimes we are too busy puffing ourselves up with one, and forget the other. Catching a glimpse of life at an end, made me re-think of my own, not in terms of point in time to live the moment for, or future point to arrive at, towards which everything is geared, but as a curve, continuous, up, and then down, and many shaped in between, to be taken as a different journey each time, each phase, with every transition not only an end to something, but also a beginning for something new. Perhaps even in death. But that, is also another conversation.