Wednesday, December 26, 2007

It's Astounding. Time Is Fleeting.

. . . and so another Christmas Day has come and gone. The day after Christmas always seems sad to me. Christmas itself takes such a long time to get here; the calendar turns to fall and fall brings thoughts of winter and winter without Christmas would be exactly the horror C.S. Lewis paints it to be. We need December in all of its holy and secular incarnations. It gives us hope. Reasons to go on. As Allison Kitchell says, in the Christmas novel What Child Is This that I've already quoted several times but am not finished quoting yet because it's packed so full of great ones, "December is the crown."

Christmas takes a long time getting here, but it's over in the wink of an eye. It's over. 24 sixty-minute hours made up of sixty-second minutes, but the day went by so fast it made my head spin. On Christmas Day, we live in hyperspace. I could almost see the clock hands spinning around and around, and it seems as though the chimes were ringing every few minutes instead of on the hour.

It's over, but December is the crown.

December 25 will forever be the crown for Belle's best friend Bess and her husband Matt, whose long-awaited baby was born Christmas morning. My daughter, and my daughter's best friend, are, even in the midst of their separate lives and hundred-mile-distance, the ultimate definition of kindred spirits. Honestly? Anne Shirley and Diana Barry had nothing on Belle and Bess. I love this child unconditionally, just as I love my own children, and I plan to help spoil the new baby, too.

Baby E might have her own opinion about a Christmas birthday, but that'll come later. :)

Einstein was right: it's all relative. Days like today yesterday go so fast. Christmas Day has the same shelf life as any other day, but it's always thus with the things we love most: time passes so much more quickly when we don't want it to. If only we had the power to slow time down a bit when wonderful things are happening. . . but then, when wonderful things are happening to somebody, someone on the other side of the world, or the street, is weeping and broken-hearted. It's all relative. And when we know something lovely is fleeting, we tend to appreciate it more.

We are all fleeting. Therefore, let us all try harder to be kind, and honest, and considerate, and helpful, slower to pass judgment, quicker to assume the best of people, more inclined to work hard, braver, more trustworthy, and cleaner*, so that anyone and everyone we encounter is encouraged by our lives. Let us all try to pay attention to each other, and bolster each other, and do our fair share and then some, and extend a helping hand whenever we possibly can. Today, it's someone else who needs help. Tomorrow, it might be us.

*Clean scouts smell better.