This must have been the greatest Christmas I remember. For the very first time the good moments were so good, that I did not even notice the bad.
Really a very, very new thing. I could probably just blame my memory for being too cloudy... but does it matter? Is life the ultimate Olympics? Do we have to have the best moments at the age of three and then see every festivity after that as a chewed on toy and a decaying piece of christmas cake?
The holidays this year felt as if a gigantic circle somehow finally closed itself. I found myself in places that reminded me of idealized memories (or maybe fantasies) of good moments, all brought together in some forty eight hours or so.
Wow, life really can be a wonderful place.
The universe seemed to try to maybe somehow create a balance by planting a vicious custom tailored nightmare in the back of my head this morning, but it was nothing compared to all the goodness and new discoveries of the familiar I had the privilege to encounter. Nice.
Oh, and the ten pound box of Lebkuchen, my mother wanted to reach my by christmas eve has not yet completely crossed the ocean. Maybe that's actually great too.
The lebkuchen last night was quite wonderful, especially because i was not there chewing on it in the dark trying to grasp on to the faint smoke of my first lebkuchen memories. I was at a table with a loving group of people of whom some had yet to discover the special side of this special German Christmas treats. There was Stollen, for example. How could I have ever predicted that the best Stollen I could possibly come from the food market in Grand Central Station. I mean really, of all places?
Oh, and the goose was also the best. And the rest... grossartig.
And the conversations were just like the most wonderful nutrient of the Christmas evening.
And the day before as well. Christmas eve used to be the evening on which strange knots were created. The awkwardness would usually come to a screeching peak. But not this year. It felt like a gentle home, as if I had been the missing piece. As if the balance had finally been reached.
And so the festivities themselves and all the people I was allowed to meet, were the most wonderful gift... wow... thank you so much.
Recently in personal Category
Happy Thanksgiving. It looks like I have managed to slice myself out of certain things. Long and painful preparation, fast execution.
Cold turkey indeed.
I will now begin with the thorough reboot process.
Please be patient, as we verify all of the system components. There will be testing, there will be reconfiguration, there will be good old reattaching of severed limbs.
I am currently in a place very familiar, still.
My job now is to transform it into a place that does not contain traces of me.
I will then take everything that I will collect here and reapply it into a masonry and wood cavity, several miles from here.
I have seven days to complete this operation.
I am about to go onto a very serious journey.
There have been some very serious mistakes in the past.
I have to now very much refocus energies, re-heal, re-activate, re-invent...
Please wish me good luck. I really, really need it.
This gives me some hope, and so does this.
(And no, I do not think I have any deadly disease, except for life, of course... but that's just 100% deadly.)
As the journey progressed, the sights became more and more interesting. Each new one became more informed than the last one. The layers of beauty increased with the slow and steady unavoidable progression of things.
Nobody had ever told him it would be this way. Nobody had ever prepared him for this. Nobody had ever explained it this way. The darkness was supposed to be all enveloping by now. The pains were supposed to be debilitating by now. The young ones were supposed to rule the world by now. He was supposed to be out of the plains of surprises and wonder... and dug deep in the trenches of disillusionment.
But instead the same objects and places, revisited, became more and more informed. More interesting. More beautiful. Deeper. Still new.
People became more and more transparent. More interesting. Deeper. Still new.
Yes, the clarity of vision was slowly giving way to the warmth and comfort of decisions made in the past. But that was not as bad as he had feared...
Every single one of the moments given could be declared glorious. And there were miles and miles and years and years of those ahead.
He never stopped being amazed. Ever.
My High School is almost 400 years old... I graduated form the HoLa in 1989... 15 years ago... and now there is going to be a reunion, a complete get together of the winners, the losers and some of the ones in between...
The title of this entry was also the title of the email I received this morning. The date of the reunion has been moved to Saturday, 07/03/04... (what incredibly lucky numbers.)
The date has been moved because of some of those who will arrive from "overseas"... there were particular requests...
The email also contained a file with the names of those who could not be found... (I obviously had been found, so my information was not distributed...)
I do not thing I want to go. I think I will not go. I'm not going.
There is not one good thing that could come out of this reunion for me. Whom would I get to see? Those who were more ambitious than me? They were painful at times then and they will be painful again.
Will I reconnect with long lost friends? (hardly.) Will there be some embarrassing games? (Very likely.)
Do I want to get really nicely jet-lagged for such an event?... I don't think so...
So please forgive me friends (and "friends")... I do not think I will be there.. I will just stay here, keep writing, keep working... it is so easy to find me... it is incredibly easy to get in touch with me... let's make tiny, personal, one on one reunions...
If you went to school with me and would like to stay in touch... please leave a comment here or send me an email... oh well...
(what the heck am I afraid of?)
How was your High School / College / Kindergarten Reunion... any positive experiences?... (the comments are now open...)
A friend in Berlin once told me that one of her pastimes was to imagine what kind of issues the other people on the train might have... I mean... think beyond a common cold. Could you spot the guy who just ate a whole sandwich while tied to a chair, upside down? How about somebody else, who likes to spend their night in a tank filled with water. That little old lady back on the seat near to the exit might be actually a famous breeder of some very special bacteria... and that homeless guy, there in the corner... he might be an actor, a supermodel, a hygiene expert... pretending to smell like an antique urinal.
So if such strange assumptions can be made on the subway, what is left to imagine in the waiting room of a cardiologist? Clearly some of the people here moved too quickly into some serious direction.
The older gentleman I saw yesterday looked like Willy Loman, he had forgotten to take off his hat, he was marking some lists in a packed manilla folder. From time to time he would shake his head... how dare they, how dare they...
The other older gentleman had been left behind by his maybe 40 years younger wife. She probably went shopping, he barely heard the calls, when his car arrived. The wife of the Hassidic man had to take him downstairs... or at least the rest of the family convinced her to. Her husband went to pray right after. The older lady, also with them, she must have been related, made sure to show off her large blue marks on both of her strangely shaped legs. I really do not know what the story was all about. The mishpucha spoke the fast kind of jiddish/hebrew mix.
There was this 20 something guy in the waiting area today. He was somehow fascinated by that food and wine magazine. The lady next to me just read the New York Times. Did he have a broken heart? Did she lose hers in translation?...
I only had to go back today to give some (4-5 of those little containers with that waxy stuff on the bottom) blood for testing. I wonder what will come back in a few weeks. One of the tests is apparently "experimental"; how nice to know my blood will be right on the cutting edge.
Oh, and I do shivers when I see any kind of injury on someone... and I would have probably fainted seeing my blood drawn.
But I knew all that... and I can tell you, that there is this very interesting double edge in the corner of the ceiling of that doctor's office... and that the lady who took my blood, was the most skilled one yet.
So what do your friends on Orkut have?
"if you are being sent back to wait, that is a good sign."
My first cardiogram was probably a good one.
Something is obviously going on with me right now, my body is shutting down a bit. I was told to stay home tomorrow... and I guess I will...
oh, and there will be extensive bloodwork... love that word... bloodwork...
Oh, and once the doctor found out that I have something to do with advertising, he immediately brought forward his (actually quite funny) advertising idea...
I guess people at parties also ask him about their swollen feet and other strange headaches a lot... thought wait, he is a cardiologist... does he get to fix a lot of heartbreaks?..
