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Monday, November 30, 2009

My Sweet, Painful Addiction

Monday evening, I'm waiting on James and a hot steaming bag of Suji's, the only food I will dain to let pass my lips at this moment. I'm obviously cranky, undeniably irritable and I want to smoke a cigarette more than I want to take my next breath.
But my next breath comes and goes and many follow after it and still no cigarettes. I swear to god, this quitting thing is going to kill me quicker than the cigarettes would have.
James took Persephone with him for the walk, which is helpful because the bitch doesn't listen to me when James isn't around. I have the deepest urge to copy the word 'nicotine' over and over again, because it is all I can think of. I thought taking the time to write in my blog would take my mind off of it somewhat, but it only illuminates my pain and frustration and reminds me of the countless blogs I've written before while chain smoking reds one after the other.
SO I started watching Coraline for the hundreth time, I'm at the scene with the jumping circus mice and it has to be the coolest scene created in claymation. Actually, it isn't 'claymation' anymore, they call it something else but I can't remember what that something else is. Oh well. Memory loss must be another nicotine withdrawl.
I'll quit boring you with my addiction.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Someone slipped some Christmas cheer into my coffee

It's coming on Christmas and I'm missing Massachusetts so much, at times I almost can't breathe. I'm familiar, only, with the exclusive cupped hands of a New England winter. Where roads and sidewalks meld into one wide, white space that cars brave each day and children wake up excited, hoping to spot their own town on the blue bar that travels at the bottom of their TV screen.
It started only a few days ago, while walking Persephone, I turned to my husband and declared with a childlike pride, "It smells like winter!"
That's one of my useless talents, being able to smell the seasons, and winter has a very distinct and familial smell. Clean, fresh and new. Not the kind of store bought newness, that you find in packages and cars, but something pure and untainted, like the way newborn babies smell.
Well, I can smell winter and the coming of snow.
South Korea is known for their harsh winters and snow storms and I can only wait with a childish hope that I get a glimpse of those friendly white flakes before I leave here, it will make my long anxious wait worthwhile.
Most of our belongings are boxed and packed, our fridge looks more bare every day and our home is looking more like a house; empty and unfriendly.
Which is the exact opposite of the winter seasons I am used to. Right now, if I were living back home my mother would be filling every inch and bare space with baubles, lights and Christmassy knick-knacks; bought and home made. There would be a tree in the living room and a tree in the finished basement, the one the kids will gather around come Christmas day. Almost every night she will light a fire in her beloved fireplace and candles bought from Yankee, smelling of spices and pine, will be burning in every tart burner she owns.
Not a day will pass without the cheery voices of Bing Crosby and Andy Williams, wishing a merry christmas and reminding the entire household with a holiday boom, that THIS is the most wonderful time of the year.
When the snow has fallen and the plows have packed it against the fence, my mother will zip and bundle every child and send them out into the yard; her tailing behind them with the camera, their rosy, frosty faces a collection of memories to save for later years.
A custom, beginning with yours truly, will some year soon apply to Hunter, now the oldest child of the house. After the younger ones are tucked in bed and sleeping, he will be offered the chance to go out into the yard with the adults, while they indulge in the childlike antics that this season embodies. Sliding and falling down into the paths made by the sleds.
Maybe, just maybe some year soon, he will also be allowed a mug of the hot mulled rum cider my mother makes and even if he dislikes the taste, he will simply relish the seniority the offer. A boy becoming a man.
Something akin to how I felt, a girl becoming a woman, being included in the late night affairs of the adults.
There is so much this individual time of year brings about in me, a certain brand of memories, a certain childlike hope and even at twenty-two, it is far from diminished.
Now, as I sit in my living room, my walls bare of picture frames, the bookcase dismantled and boxed, my kitchen becoming increasingly bare, I play my Christmas favorites and the little amphora of hope I keep locked in my chest runs over with red, green and white light...speckled with silver and gold.