Little Light of Mine

All of the lights are peacefully off except for the colored lights on my Christmas tree and a couple of seasonal night lights.  I suppose a few digital clocks glow as well, and an occasional red or blue pinpoint of light from a console or kitchen appliance.  And this screen.  I like darkness.  I rarely turn on any overhead lights during day or night.  Just lamps as I need them.  My kitchen light is only on when I am baking; otherwise, I use the small light over the stove.

The most incandescent thing in the room, however, is the little sleeping girl on my couch– since she was a baby, I’ve always thought my little sister Aria is the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen.  Her normal environmental influences cause her to have such a low self esteem, unfortunately.  I can see in her every glance at me that she’s very insecure about what I think of her every second.  My aim is to make her feel important, deserving of happiness, comfortable with herself, gorgeous as she truly is.  Lofty, I know.  But I see no option other than to try.  I have a week and a half.

It doesn’t seem like she’s going to get a white Christmas here, as she so wanted, but perhaps there will be other kinds of magic.  She’s obsessed with my Christmas tree, and every little thing on it.  The gingerbread houses light up with lights from the tree plugged into little holes in the backs; the tiny town, made entirely of plastic confections, has a flower shop, a cinema, a schoolhouse, even a church with an upside down ice cream cone as its steeple.  Ballerinas with fluffy tulle skirts dance to Nutcracker numbers at the pull of a string.  Old stately houses and public buildings hide rooms and furniture, begging for imaginary life, and in every building a Christmas tree, of course.  Cabinets and wardrobes and stoves and refrigerator doors open to reveal all sorts of treasures baking or resting inside.  The refrigerator even has a little light built into it that triggers on automatically when the door is opened past a certain point.  Inside is a turkey and cranberry sauce and a red jello mold and eggnog and pumpkin pie and butter and champagne and more.  At the bottom of the tree, tiny trains travel around lush wintry scenes and ice skaters twirl round and round and Santa Claus dances back and forth and little pockets of imaginary world light up as Christmas carols play.  My tree this year, in moderate daylight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas:

"Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending
smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on
our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily-falling night.
I turned the gas down, I got into bed.  I said some words to the close and
holy darkness, and then I slept."

 

Merry Christmas to you and yours.