By Gina Harlow
Janice crossed the coast highway and made her way to Cliff Drive, drawn like a current between elements. At the sight of the blue on the horizon, she felt her pulse slow. This constant magnificence, amidst all our small comings and goings, she always thought. She walked the sidewalk through the grassy fields and park benches, through the palms that towered and the slopes that spilled to crescents of sand. She descended the stairs to the beach where gulls swooped and a lone crane sat on a cropping of rocks, the water rippling with light.
She told no one when she slipped away, turkey in the oven, pies cooling on the counter. And there was something about this misbehavior in which she thrilled. On the sand, there was no scent of cinnamon, no multicolored lights, no garland or stockings, no knickknacks cluttering up the house, no piles of presents that would be soon opened, soon returned, no imperative to have a merry little Christmas. Because along with everything else that triggered her anxiety over the holidays, it was that song that played on her psyche. She had banned holiday music in the house until the day before Christmas and her family had allowed her that authoritarianism. All the melodies permeating the world before the Halloween candy was gone felt like a kind of water boarding. But it was that song with its trite fantasies that pushed her into aversion.
As the soundtrack to every errand she had to run, she thought of how it simply wasn’t true, that all our troubles would be out of sight. It was as if that old carol had suddenly become or had always been sad irony against the unmelodious state of what was really going on. At the holidays, the disconnect between the commanded merriment and the hard facts everywhere you looked seemed as glaring as the music. Like her encounter with the shelf stocker at Whole Foods who described himself, in the brief moments of their acquaintance on the pasta aisle, as a Jewish atheist, and proud of it, and who thought everyone was not very nice at Christmas. Or her friend just finding out at the most wonderful time of the year that it would be chemo for her in a few weeks and Santa was going to have to bring her a wig for Christmas.
A virgin birth, a world of beliefs and disbeliefs. In this supposed season of cheer she questioned it all.
Pulling off her shoes and digging her toes in the sand, she thought of what was left to do and how she should get back home. She also thought back to that morning when her daughter had popped up early and sidled next to her in the kitchen to help with the cooking. Her measuring out the spices to the half teaspoon, wanting to get Nan’s recipe just right. She remembered, too, the night before, her son hanging out, playing what seemed like an endless game of dominos with his grandparents, them teaching him the rules.
She looked out to the water, which always felt like church, always a reminder of everything she could never know. As she was getting up to leave, a young man in a wetsuit with a Santa hat carrying a surfboard walked by, grinning big.
“Merry Christmas!” he said.
“Oh, hey, yeah, same to you,” she said, feeling a wish for this stranger take hold in her as she made her way back home.
Gina Harlow is a writer trying to chill in the sweet California sunshine and wishing everyone peace and joy in this season.
