Unknown: Puzzle jug (c. 1750)

"The chestnuts, alas, were inedible after roasting."

For me, holidays mainly exist in my anticipation of them. Before they occur, I feel perfectly free to imagine them becoming anything. Once they arrive, my degrees of freedom when anticipating collapse into one or two definite outcomes. By the end of the day, not even that was left: a kitchen filled with dirty dishes and some lingering puzzles about what that was supposed to be about. They were never any different. The jolly tends to leach out a day or two before the mistletoe engages and seems scarce on the actual day of. The day of becomes more focused on producing tangible results, inherently less satisfying effort than anticipating ever was. Stockings hung hold enormous potential. Once filled, they become more or less has-beens until the following ultimately hollowing season.

The absence of the need to be preparing eliminates what had been my primary motivation. It had been what had been getting me up mornings. The morning after, I might just as well sleep in. Nobody depends on me then. I feel suddenly unemployed without my familiar old hassling deadline prodding me along. I do not feel even distantly filled with song. The air starts escaping from my balloon, and I lose buoyancy. I sense myself going down. I might not end up in full-blown depression, but it sure feels depressing to be stuck near the beginning of Winter without a compelling purpose for anything. The year's accomplishments already seem so over. Whatever comes next seems so distant as to feel over already, too. What's an erstwhile reveler to do?

I catch myself rhyming my couplets when not intending to be constructing couplets at all. This should properly continue for another week or so, an unavoidable side effect of creating my annual poem cycle. This year's efforts produced nine almost fine examples of this curious art. Some years, I manage to produce more, and a few years, even fewer, but nine will do for the purposes for which they were intended. This year, since we were finally home for Christmas and the pandemic was temporarily at bay, The Muse and I delivered a few poems in person. I stood before each victim and recited the piece ad nauseum, as intended. The gift portion of each performance came when the poem gratefully ended.

I miss the days haunted by my self-imposed deadline. I pine after the annual search for citron and goose. The Muse and I have been together long enough now that we somehow know what belongs each day leading up to Christmas. I suspect that not even a life extended centuries into any future would ever figure out what to be up to in the days following even the very last Christmas. No amount of prior practice ever allows anyone to master nothingness as it descends like a dark angel from what until then had convincingly started to seem like firmament. The sun sets so early that I've hardly gotten to breakfast yet. It rises so slowly that it’s almost noon before I can read my watch by the resulting light. This postseason brings non-fat light and leftover stuffing, nourishing enough but definitely not feasting. The actual feast left me grateful I'd prayed for Pepcid® in my stocking. The chestnuts, alas, were inedible after roasting.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz