Each moment might be a moment of revelation, but most are not. Epiphanies. The sense of things being hidden rather than revealed, as if they were presents with almost recognisable shapes, wrapped in enticing paper. But you can't quite recognise them, and you can't unwrap them - tantalising, out of reach.
The repetition of dates, months, seasons. Every year has its 30th of December, and every year it's dark at 4.30 and there's always a Christmas tree twinkling in a darkened room downstairs, when everyone is in other rooms. The year is dying. Always at this time. So many other December 30ths underlay this one that it is hard to believe in its specific reality. It's a December 30th. But it's truly this December 30th. This one is a one-off, unique. This Christmas too, but Christmas is so overdetermined, it can never be just this Christmas. It comes with the massive pass the parcel weight of each year's wrapping paper - the music stops on December 25th, and you add another layer. 2011. So you can never remember what was inside the parcel, under all the paper - what Christmas was when it was new, unwrapped, naked.
5 comments:
Oh, that is good.
One word, "wow!"
I do remember what it was, that very first time. A plastic horse, on springs. He still lives in my attic.
I was thinking about the end of the year in much the same vein as you wrote about here so beautifully. I miss that sense of the "unwrapped" presence of the last of December.
Happy New Year. May 2012 bring peace, love, and joy.
Thanks everyone, and a happy and creative 2012 to all.
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