Douglas Adams said it best:
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
I heard that whoosh a week or so ago, as January rolled into February, and my resolution to write here at least once a month took to the wind.
OK, I missed a month – make that a few months if you count the end of 2021 (hence the resolution).
I have a choice here. I can bemoan the missed deadline, or celebrate that it’s only February 9, and I’ve written a post for the blog.
Can you guess which path I picked?
(Hint: Yay!)
This post all started with another deadline – one I actually met.
Monday, Jan. 31, was the final day for Christmas tree pickup, according to our township calendar.
Dutifully, we undecked our tree the night before.
Off came the ornaments, including the cardboard star our son drew when he was four and the construction paper bus our daughter made in nursery school (with a tiny photo of her in the driver’s seat). As usual, we played hide-and-seek with the three miniature Star Trek ships, which shift into invisibility mode amid the branches when it’s time to pack them up.
Before we finished, my husband and I took a moment. With the tree still lit, we turned off all the living room lights and sat for a bit, brilliant pinpoints of color glowing through the quiet dark.
Contentment mixed with melancholy, followed by let’s-get-this-done. We unplugged the lights, untangled them from the tree, and boxed it all up until next year.
On to the harder part, wrestling the tree from the stand, wrapping it up and hauling it out.
Usually we drag it to the curb and lay it sadly on its side, a wistful reminder of another Christmas past.
This year, thanks the remnants of a snowstorm, my husband had a better idea: He picked the tree up and planted it in the snow mound at the end of the driveway.
Perfect!
There it stood for several days, a fading but noble Tannenbaum. Some rain washed away snow, and the tree began to list, but it held fast until Thursday, when the township truck whisked it off to the compost pile, perhaps to fertilize another tree someday.
The circle of life, the circle of years.
I resolve to embrace them both.
