Xmas Xpurgations

"Horrors," one might exclaim melodramatically, "I forgot Penelope!" Such is the anguish of the times, these Holy-Day, holiday, Christmas, seasonal times. I re-conjure the rosters of people I've known and love(d) over the past 60 plus years, and I wonder how their Xmas is going, or should that be 'Christmas,' or perhaps you'd prefer 'Holiday Season'? Point is that a Time-Period is reached and one gets well-wished, palpably, or not. The card, the present, the phone call, the email, the generic and the specific and the particular, anything; just don't be the one to overlook, or worse, be the one who is overlooked? The awful 'horror' of it may be that guilt and concern and worry and money and effort and time and even fear attends so very much of The Big Significant Day of Celebration. Not just Christmas, but a Birthday can be missed too!

In another cartoon a cynical husband tells a wife, "Sure I can tell you what Christmas is all about; learned it as a kid: It's about a decorated tree and Santa leaving presents under it, for me!" Ha! It takes a moment to realize he speaks not of gifts from him to others; and when he does, he says, "And it's about all the bills at the end of this December! Happy New Year!" Ha!

Counting one's cards can hardly be deemed proof of having been thought about too. Very many of my friends no longer send cards. One of my dearest friends, M'Lady Nancy, at 91, starts hand-writing cards almost two if not three months in advance, and posts over 130 in time for Christmas! I doubt that she receives as many. But she's been doing this for years. Yet in the long list of people to whom she does send cards there are so many others in her ken that do not get such tokens of her remembrance, not for her lack of care or interest, but simply because in one's lifetime there grows hundreds upon hundreds of persons one has met and liked and shared time with and known, and some contact-loss just has to be expected. They too, each of them, might well spare a thought of well-wishes and fondness and kindness toward her. Yes?

And what of YOU, specifically? If you're reading this you may well know me, personally, and by a long-shot recall having had a much more personal communication between us than is this generalized missive. (Just this last week I received a Facebook note from Brent, a person I could no longer place, until he reminded me that we'd performed together in South Pacific, over ten years ago!) Among the thousands of students and actors and colleagues with whom I've shared time over three-plus decades (as well as the non-job related friends and acquaintances along my 60+ years of life) it makes for an over-long list of people to whom I'd like to send well wishes, specifically, particularly, precisely, and pointedly: You. But....

Time arrives at points. And then they too pass us by. We turn up in the moment and much is made of it, or not. We give our love and care and well-wishes, and are heard, read, received, or not. And in the great glue that is this world of connections amongst us all there continues the memory and the imperfection and the hopes and dreams and even the disillusionments of time and pace and intention and action, always. Point is that to take much of it personally is perhaps to be left rather sad indeed; someone somewhere is bound to feel overlooked, neglected, forgotten.  We carry people with us, always. We think of them, sometimes. We think of others, often. We think yet again of another, once in a while. And yet another, continually. Almost always we wish them well, Godspeed, health, and care. Let there never be 'horror', but frankly, myrrhth, and merry moments too! And so, Penelope, and you and you and you too, Merry Christmas! And love, always.