What I did on Christmas 2023

Wednesday 12/27/23

I don't want to delay with this any longer--it's very difficult keeping up with this journal in between doing my actual writing--because we have prose offs to get to, entries in the Everything wrong with publishing series, entries about writing, and much more, but I'd like there to be a record of what I did on Christmas Day 2023 for when I have occasion, at a much different point of life, to look back.

I had mentioned the blood. I kept the bits of paper towels up my nose and went to City Hall long before the dawn to run what ended up being 3000 stairs. I feel like it's a good indication of my fitness that I was able to do so, no problem, with my nose stoppered up. That was quite the look: my face smeared with snot, blood, and sweat. But no one was out, of course.

I did make it back in time to watch Rankin-Bass's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. "Meals don't fall from empty tables"--it's a nice line from Father Mouse. Following "Holly Jolly Christmas," I'd have to say that "Even a Miracle Needs a Hand" is my favorite song from the Rankin-Bass universe. And what a vengeful prick Santa is in this special; he's like this angry god who needs to be appeased.

I came up with a Beatles idea.

I came up with a Nick Drake idea.

I came up with a Yardbirds idea.

I came up with a Bob Dylan idea.

I worked on a new op-ed in my head.

I worked on "Eye of Green" and "The Quiet Chickadee" (both for The Solution to the World's Problems), and a project that is a secret.

I came up with ideas for four stories, two of which I've since began work on.

I thought about Rockport. Once at Christmastime I was standing on the wharf there that is across from Motif #1, which is what everyone calls the fishing shack which visually symbolizes the town, though for me there are many things there about which that can be said. It was cold that time. Cold and still and quiet. And that space felt like holy space to me here on earth. I've come close to giving in lately. So I thought hard about standing there that time. When we don't give up--and when we don't give up when anyone else would--it's for a number of reasons. Can be, I mean. But one of those reasons is how mindful we've been in fortifying ourselves with all that we can, for when layers are worn away; there's another layer behind the layer that has been cut out of us. You must regenerate yourself in order to deal with the worst things there are with which to deal. For me to keep going, I must always be creating the next layer.

I listened to the five-part Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar Christmas episode, "The Nick Shurn Matter." Lovely. Thank you, Bob Bailey.

I listened to the annual Christmas episode of the A Podcast to the Curious podcast, which was about Louisa Baldwin's ghost story, "The Real and the Counterfeit."

I watched It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, and A Christmas Story. Also, A Flinstones Christmas Carol; Barney and Wilma with those blackened eyes of death. Watched a bit of Celtics-Lakers.

I did 300 push-ups. So, by doing 300 Saturday, 200 Sunday, and the 300 on Christmas, I made up the 400 I missed, maintained a 100 average, with an extra 100 to spare.

Downloaded this stellar set of 13th Floor Elevator material and a package of the Small Faces' BBC sessions.

I came up with an idea for a book: a profile, history, analysis, of a certain number of Christmas carols--say, thirty--and how they have shaped, impacted what Christmas resonates as, what Christmas is. Then I thought, why stop there? A four-part Sounds of Christmas book series--which could ultimately come out in a box set in a handsome case--could do wonders. You'd have another on popular songs, another on jazz, blues, gospels, spirituals, and the fourth on spoken word recordings, so things like the Johnny Dollar episode would be in there and Dylan Thomas's "A Child's Christmas in Wales."

I walked ten miles.

I went to Bova's which is always open, and bought some cinnamon bread (a nod to the Cinnamon Bear?) and a loaf of Italian. They seemed appropriate for the day.

I walked past Old North church and looked into the window of the parish office. There were these frumpy chairs that were probably once elegant--chairs that could have been there since 1870; a book shelf; and then a kitchenette visible beyond this room with a kettle and a glass container of teas. These struck me as rooms that could have been in Dickens, and I was glad to see them. No one out. Again, the quiet.

I stood and I imagined all of the people who had been in those rooms, with them probably looking virtually identical to what I was seeing on this Christmas. Some of those people must have had their faith tested. I'm not talking about God. You know what? God is never big enough for me. Does that make sense? There's this thing and it's this just isn't big enough for me. I feel the more. A more? I try to have faith. That I am not here, able to do what I can do, solely to suffer. Or mostly to suffer. Or to ultimately suffer at all, really.

I kept walking, and literally around the corner--actually literally--I heard a heavily accented Boston voice say the word "Motherfuckah" from out of the open window of the fire station, where men were sitting at a table, hanging out between calls on this Christmas day.

I thought of Shane MacGowan again: "I sat for a while by a gap in the wall/Found a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball/Heard the cards being dealt and the rosary called/And a fiddle playing 'Sean Dun Na Ngall'..."

And I walked some more.

I came to Caffe Dello Sport and read an Edwardian ghost story, where Louis Armstrong's "'Zat You, Santa Claus?" played over the sound system, and I thought about this thing I am going to have to do--which I don't really want to do--with this lying bigot at The Smart Set, which is going to be very ugly--not for me, but for her and will always be there and follow her around. But I've been left with no choice.

There were many people at the cafe--not an open table. At one near me five elderly men laughed with each other. I wondered if this was a tradition of theirs, gathering at this spot, or some spot. And if so, how many years had this gone on? Perhaps I was witnessing installment #40. Or more. They drank toasts--Schnapps. I smiled as I raised my hot chocolate to my lips.

I thought about Christmases when I was a boy in Mansfield. The magic of the place. The woods. My mother. My father. Or what the magic of the place was to me, anyway, what I saw and found there, as I was becoming what I am now, as I am still doing every day, but in such different ways than then. But it's all a part of what I am, in the mastering of myself, these forces within.

I even thought of my biological mother and what her Christmas was like. What it looked like on this same day. We were told that she was a remarkable musician. I wondered if she would be playing anything on the day, what she'd think as she heard what she heard in music I, too, might be hearing. I can't say I think about her very often. I can't say I have a desire to. But I so very easily could not have been right from the start; there was an immediate obstacle to overcome. And then there I was: alive. I was helped in that, for how little I've been helped--for all of the stones put in my passway--since. And that is something, and worth at least calling to mind on Christmas.

On we go.