December 9, 2011
Friday

I’m not someone who has to be plugged into something all the time. I have an iPod (inherited from Lynn when she traded up to a larger one), but I’m not adept at using it. I have expensive headphones for my computer, purchased last year so I could watch and hear the 2010 World Series in the thin-walled workroom I had at the Vermont Studio Center. But I no longer have the computer that has all the music that is also on the iPod, so I don’t use them much. Although I once made the trip to Vermont with all nine Beethoven synphonies played twice, I have other times driven the nine hours to Bread Loaf without turning the radio on. It’s not that I don’t love music. I have eclectic taste, and my Three Bs are definitely Brubeck, Beethoven, and the Beatles. It’s just that in many situations, particularly those which call for concentration, I prefer silence.

I did, however, start a Christmas playlist on my new Xoom tablet. Such a selection of the songs of the season that I like best has been on my project list for a while, and in the first week or so of owning the new device and learning all its features, it was fun to play with the downloading of apps and tunes and eBooks from the library. So far, only “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock” have been acquired. I will definitely be adding “Gaudete,” “Veni, Veni Emmanuel,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” (I told you my tastes were eclectic.)

And this one.

Last year I endeavored to read Christmas-themed short stories that lacked predictable sentiment and treacle. They weren’t downers, just quiet and thoughtful pieces that spoke to the ambivalence this holy/holly season can produce, the joy tinged with a bit of melancholy about circumstances that are no more, or maybe never were.

This song is high on my list of those that trigger that emotion. I’ve had reunions like this, a step back into the past. In one case, the restored friendship has endured for almost twenty years. In another, it was gone quickly, the estrangement deeper and more bitter the second time around.

Sometime this season, may you drink a toast to time, and a toast to now as well, and may there be only joy in it for you.