December 25th, 2007
There was no way to know that this moment would turn up like this right now, with this cast of characters forming this specific context. It is Christmas. So temporal, so short, so flimsy that I can see right through it. The flimsiness of it makes me want to break it. I know I can.
At the end of all things it means close to nothing – like a kid who does a job for a quarter. It is only a quarter. It is a piece of extra change, and if it got dropped behind the dresser no one would notice. Yet, to that kid it means the world. It is just a day, just a Christmas day in the 21st century. Like a kid who misunderstands currency, we place too much weight on a day.
But it is a day: a holiday, a remembrance day. A day to remember how involved, or not, we have been in our own lives as we face the close of another year. Well, here it comes: closing fast, closing tight with all its mountain peaks and valley depths, stationary, painted onto the canvas of our past. On the frame of this piece will be a little gold plated rectangle with the numbers 2-0-0-7 engraved into it. That will jog our memory as to the anatomy of the particular peaks and valleys years from now. Without that label it would blend into the last set, or the next set, or a set tens years ago.
At the end of my life I imagine myself walking down a long corridor, pausing at each frame with its own little number, and then I’ll look up and realize that despite the frames and three inches of wall between each, they become a solid stretching mountain range. One unbroken range lined up in front of me. Who but me – or you – could have scaled those peaks or waded those depths? They are all circumstances created that I climbed over or under or through. Each lake of tears that reveals my reflection and each sunburst of laughter painted throughout: they are mine. It is my painting, my life that I’ll look back on.
As I gaze towards 2008 I have no idea what to expect, and yet I know exactly what is coming: peaks, valleys, tears, laughter and all that will be painted in between. It won’t be easy. It never is. It won’t be ideal, but the real quality of the mess and the places that come up short are what make it me.
