Many among us will have a very difficult holiday season. What to do?
He stood facing her on the sidewalk of our busy road, just beyond our neighbors’ giant sycamore tree. A skinny, young man with hands out-stretched toward the young woman. He appeared to be pleading, crouching and twisting his body for eye contact as she looked down and away.
She appeared to be explaining, then not as much. She would retreat, freeze and look away. She wore a dark, long-sleeve plaid flannel shirt and pants.He wore shorts on a cold morning.
What was he thinking?
I stood washing dishes at the kitchen window, glad I could not hear their argument. Still, I kept an eye on them.
For the first morning in a few, I felt good and energized after a peaceful night’s rest. I’d felt so tired at 4:30 the day before, declared it a “leftovers” night, crashed on the couch and talked to one of my longtime soul-sisters. I woke up fresh, walked the dogs, tackled a few work tasks and just wanted to make some order on this kitchen counter before I headed upstairs to the office.
Their not-so private argument continued on the sidewalk two doors down, as tractor trailers and pickup trucks zipped by on our busy, two-lane road. This traffic seems to slow only to make the big turn toward the mountain or maneuver around the slower, clattering, horse-drawn Amish buggies.
The couple started to cross the road. She stalled. He pushed and pulled her toward the other side. Two seconds later, I was on our front porch, standing and shouting over to them.
“HEY!” I barked. “What’s going on?”
She continued across. He turned and walked toward me, asking what I’d said.
With the road noise, neither one of us could hear each other, so I stood silent with my arms crossed, watching him walk closer. I’d just reacted, of course. No plan.
At the end of our front walk, he paused on the sidewalk and asked if it was OK that he step onto our property to talk to me.
By then, I felt no hostility or threat from him. As he walked toward the porch, he said he was just trying to get her across the street so they could go inside and talk.
He began to explain her side of the argument, then his side and the long litany of complicated crap they were dealing with.
I believed him.
I saw a slight, weary, overwhelmed human. He’s just a kid, 23, with a thorny story, standing in the cold in shorts and a sweatshirt, trying to figure out how he’s going to get his kids what they need and give them a Christmas with no job and no unemployment.
For the next 45 minutes, I listened — mostly. I nodded a bunch. Occasionally, I asked a question. Have you tried maybe taking a time-out from the argument? Just step away and take a few deep breaths? Maybe just focus on one problem at a time? And, by the way, where are your pants?
No pants.
Those Christmas Blues — 2020 style
I’m 50 now, you know, so right or wrong, think I’ve figured out a few things and part of my job is to share them.
This is what I’ve learned about the blues at Christmastime:
• They are real. This season of immense joy and hope and light also comes with great sadness and shadow, particularly for people who have suffered a fresh loss of a loved one, a marriage or job. Loss doesn’t take a holiday or vacation. The days are shorter and, for many of us, colder. The pressure to purchase the picture-perfect Christmas morning is great — regardless of whether we have the cash for it.
• This year is immensely difficult, the darkest period in American life I’ve ever seen. We have all lost something by now. The virus death toll has passed 292,000 in nine months — and surpassed the number of Americans that died in combat over four years of World War II. People are losing multiple family members and friends, jobs, the businesses that represent their life’s work, their identities, their life savings. And we’ve not come together as one America. My heart is broken for our country.
• Some of us don’t get the holiday blues. Those of us who do and are able to kick them have to be vigilant — because others can’t. And someone out there needs our help.
People are hungry. Children are hungry. Fifty million people, including 17 million children, are now estimated to be hungry.
Many people are hanging on by a thread — like that kid in my front yard the other morning.
Say a Prayer — or not
If you are hanging on by a thread, you can always message me through this page or my Facebook page (@lisaduchenewriter). I’m never too busy to connect. I have faith that you can fix it — one thing at a time.
I’m never too busy to say a prayer for you or with you.
And if you’re doing fine or better — which is good! — would you please do me a favor and say a prayer for this kid?
Oh — and if you don’t believe in prayer, that’s OK, too. If you don’t believe in an infinite source of love, whether you call that God or Spirit or the Universe — it’s OK. I respect that.
I believe enough for both of us.
Sometimes, that’s all we need to get through a dark patch: A little faith. A little hope. A little light. Just enough. A little chance to help someone else.
To know we’re not alone, and to know we’re loved.
You are not alone. You are loved.
The only way we get through this is together — by watching out for each other and taking care of each other.
Kicking my Christmas Blues
My Christmas blues arrive the second weekend after Thanksgiving, when I’ve realized there are a few short weeks to get it all done just as my energy drops with the colder, shorter days. The to-do list is long and all I really want to do is curl up in a ball.
Maybe this is why people put their tree up right after Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving should have more than its due time (and I love it), so I linger over the pumpkins and pressed leaves and all of a sudden, I’m behind on Christmas.
I start panicking and muttering about needing to get 12 things done in a day, and where to start?
My husband knows: The tree.
Last Sunday, he pried me out of the house for a drive to the tree farm. By Monday eve, we (actually he) had it in the silver bucket in the corner. By Tuesday, we had lights on it. They were so pretty, I decided we needed two more strings.
By Wednesday morning, when I came inside from that chilly talk on the front porch, the house felt like an 80-degree palace and that lit tree in the corner looked glorious. Who cares about the exposed bathroom pipes just above it? (That’s a fixer-upper story for later.)
This house is solid, safe harbor in this perfect storm of a terrible year.
One thing I told that kid was a bit of wisdom I’ve learned from my husband: Next most important thing.
As in: “Next most important thing, HON! That’s all you’ve got to do.”Thank goodness for this guy, who catches me. With a tree. Before I’m too overwhelmed.
When the world is spinning out of control, you’re in the heat of an argument or maybe overwhelmed at Christmas, or anything: Pause. Take the three longest, deepest breaths you can. Then do the next, most important thing.
Say a prayer — for yourself, and someone else.
That’s all. Just one thing. Then the next.
For me, it was the tree. Next, to find a pair of pants for this kid.
