TAKING DOWN THE TREE

TAKING DOWN THE TREE or

THE TREE IS DEAD – LONG LIVE THE TREE!

Today is January 2nd. At last, the holidays, which began some five to nine weeks ago, are over (depending on whether you started counting on Halloween or Thanksgiving). This is our traditional day for taking down the Christmas tree. It is the death knell of the old year. Time to put the ornaments back down in the basement, put away the holiday dishes and the cute little mugs with Santa’s sleigh on them. Time to take down the beautiful green wreath and carefully put away the big, red, velvet bow that graces the Christmas wreath every year. These are melancholy tasks. The saddest moment of all is when we have to drag our seven-foot evergreen out the front door, down the steps, and cut it up into pieces small enough to be placed in the green dumpster on the street for recycling. It hurts my heart.

I tell myself, of course, that the tree was dead to begin with. When it comes right down to it, we buy ourselves an enormous cut flower arrangement every year which graces our living room for several weeks. By cut flower standards, that’s an eternity. And we are so lucky to have had this one for as long as we did. Every year when we finish decorating the tree I tell Art that it is the most beautiful tree we have ever had, and every year it is true. I think that’s because every year I come to appreciate the tree and its symbolism more and more.

Every year at exactly the same time the world celebrates the birth of a baby. Even Jewish people such as myself find it hard to resist the pull of such a holiday. It’s not just the festivities, the gifts, or the Christmas tree, but it’s the much deeper meaning of the celebration. It is the celebration of the rhythm of life. It is the acknowledgement that even in the dead of winter, there is hope. We can afford to be generous, because life is bountiful and replenishes itself with the dependability of the earth’s orbit. Winter heralds spring. And that’s where the evergreen comes in. We see the fulfillment of spring’s promise summed up in this sturdy little tree, which offers soft green pine needles and a heavenly aroma – just when we need it the most. The tree is sacrificed so that we can be reminded every year.

So we celebrate a baby’s birth just as it looks like everything is dying around us. This year, with the tragedy of the tsunamis, it couldn’t be more poignant.

But this year when we take down our tree, as every year, she will shed her pine needles all over the carpet as she is carried to the street. The smell of Christmas will be with us for months to come. We will vacuum the floors, but the essence of the holidays will linger until next Halloween, at least, when we will begin thinking about Christmas again.

Yesterday my sister and her “significant lover”, Jesse, were married in their home. There was a beautiful Christmas tree prominently displayed in front of the window. The whole house was decked out in flowers in various shades of dark red and burgundy flanked by greens. A fire blazed in the hearth. The atmosphere was relaxed and guests ranged in age from twin girls of eight months to the family matriarch, my mom, who has asked that we refrain from citing her age. As the winter sun sank in the west, the windows were open to the cool breezes off the ocean. As I knew I would, I wept throughout the ceremony. The feeling was one of overwhelming love, not just between Michele and Jesse, but overflowing from them to the families, and from the families back to them, and from Jesse’s family back to our family, and from our family back to Jesse’s, until there was a complete, happy circle of love all around. It was the end of one life and the beginning of another.

I imagine that like us, Michele and Jesse will be taking down their Christmas tree soon. The one they bought when they were single will be recycled, but next year it will be reincarnated in all its splendor as they approach the first Christmas of their brand new married life together. They couldn’t have picked a better day for a wedding.

© 2005, Robin Munson

EARTHLY REINCARNATION

They (yes, the infamous “they”) say that every seven years all the cells in our bodies are replaced. In other words, every seven years we get a new body. Think about that. Every organ, every muscle, our lungs, our heart, our brain – everything is constantly turning over. What appears to be permanent (at least after the age of 15 or so) is actually ever changing. Of course, the cells have “memory”, so if you had a lazy eye seven years ago, it’s a good bet that you’ll still have a lazy eye. Hey, I’m just the messenger.

But this idea intrigues me. I mean, it’s kind of like we are reincarnated within the parameters of our life here on earth.

I look at pictures of myself at various ages, and I do see many different people. The little girl of three or four who wanted to be a movie star may have contained the seeds of the grown woman, but she is an entirely different entity from the young actress of sixteen, the songwriter of twenty-four, the family counselor of thirty-five, the middle-aged woman in her forties and fifties – still trying to decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

I do envy people who make a decision about their lives at a tender age and are able to follow through. There is constancy to their lives. Each decision builds on the previous ones in a neat, orderly fashion. My younger sister was that way. From the time she was about thirteen, she knew she wanted to be a physical therapist. She had a calling, a passion, to help people who were injured and disabled. Every career decision she has made since then has been the next logical step in that progression. Today she has a thriving private practice as a physical therapist, as well as a co-existing career as a yoga practitioner and instructor. Each track of her career feeds the other. Her life has a steady – if fast-paced – rhythm.

My older sister knew from the time she was a very small child that music was her calling. She was a child prodigy before she had any earthly idea what that meant. She studied theory and composition in college. It seems she was jet-propelled into a life of music and has steadfastly refused to even entertain the notion of any other type of career, even when the going was very rough. She is now an established composer and songwriter with legions of admirers, especially within her industry. She has worked exceedingly hard and, as mother says, when you combine hard work with a God-given talent, you have a winning combination.

Then there’s me. The middle child. I admired both of my sisters so much, that I think I tried to emulate them at different stages of my life.

I so wanted to be a musical “phenom” like my older sister that I followed in her footsteps, studying piano and voice. When it dawned on me that I didn’t quite have her abilities, I took a side step into theater. I loved theater, but was not psychologically suited to the life of an actor. So in college I majored in French. No rhyme or reason there, except that I wanted to be like Audrey Hepburn in Charade – an interpreter at the U.N. Yeah, right. If only I had been a native speaker of about five languages, I might have had a shot.

There was a protracted venture into songwriting (age 20 to 32) which was interrupted by a career as a family therapist (age 32 to 40) – the part where I tried to be more like my younger sister – followed by a deeper exploration of songwriting (age 40 to present). But now I also consider myself a writer of prose. Sprinkled in with all of these careers have been many jobs that have sustained me financially while I explored my more far-flung aspirations. I was a legal secretary for about twelve years. That one job carried me through a divorce, two years of graduate school and internship, my entire career as a licensed therapist, the beginning of my current (happy) marriage, and several years of helping Art to establish a small business.

So anyway. My point is this: You may think that things are the way they are. You may think that you are stuck with whatever choices you’ve made, or whatever choices have been made for you. You may think you are too old to learn new tricks. You may think that the “die is cast”. It is not. Remember: Every seven years you are an entirely different person. Be like Madonna, if you want. Go ahead and reinvent yourself.

They say there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. But there is one more certainty in life: Change. And remember that Change is the essence of Hope.

© 2004, Robin Munson