The First Sunday of Advent

The day is done, the animals are all dreaming, my wife is soaking in her nightly bath, and I am resting until time to douse fire and candle and lamps and go to bed. To go to bed and try to sleep while dreading tomorrow. I dread tomorrow because my job is a trial and a source of much pain and stress. Sundays have been my lifelong bane, and the older I get, the more pronounced this becomes.

I am not too far from retirement age,but I am unlike most men of my age. I am, to put it mildly, unprepared. I have a paltry retirement plan. I am frighteningly under-insured. I have no skills that will protect me in the vagaries of today’s job market, especially at my age. I do not have a circle of friends. I am not well-known in my community, and among those who do know me, I am not well-liked. I walked in the woods today and saw the usual small piles of pellet-like scat, left by some lovely sleek liquid-eyed poem on four legs, and I thought, “That’s what I’m like. Here for the moment, but soon to be melted back into the earth, leaving hardly a trace that I was ever here.” Such a sentiment sounds maudlin and self-pitying, but this is not how I feel when I reflect upon my life, my situation, and my future. I feel sad but hopeful. Resigned yet restless. This is how I have always been, and it is almost certainly how I will end my days.

Yesterday, we went to an antique store to browse, and during the visit, I was transformed into my mother. I reached for a ceramic turtle my wife had pointed out to me, and I almost dropped the thing, which caused my wife to jump and flinch and utter a muffled cry.  I noticed that she was jumping and jerking and smiling extra-hard whenever I reached for anything even slightly fragile. And then I remembered. I remembered once, years ago, when my wife and I took my mother to an antique shop. She had a fine time that day, especially as she took pains to point out things of particular beauty or value. And she pointed these things out with her cane. Swooping and slashing and jabbing with it like a sword or a lance, in among delicate crystal figurines and century-old mirrors and fine china, she was a picture of geriatric delight. “Look at these! Look there! What’s this? Did y’all see these?” And all the while, swoop, slash, swish, jab, whish, whoosh! with her cane. My wife and I exited that shop at least a decade older than we’d been when we entered it. But Mother had a fine time. And she got a hummingbird print and a Dr. Pepper out of the deal. The next time we are in a shop where there are expensive, fragile things around, I think I will ask for my Dr. Pepper in advance. My wife’s hands might be shaking too much if I wait until afterwards.

When I was up in the woods today, the wind was so blustery, it made my eyes water, the left one in particular. Standing in a clearing, I could see my shadow stretching across the ground in front of me, and it occurred to me that my coat was flapping cloak-like in the wind, and I was wearing a green slouch hat of felt and carrying a long walking staff. When I wiped my left eye and covered it for a moment, it came home to me that I must have presented a tableau exactly like Odin is described in some of the poetic literature. And I thought, If two ravens rise into the air from the bare branches above me, I will laugh and laugh until someone finds me up here, and they will escort me to supper in a stark white room where there are no sharp objects.

But no ravens flew, so I made it back to my own supper table, and I ate it with a woman who loves me and pretends not to notice that I am not the strong man I once tried to convince the world I was. I love my life and my home, but the Monday that awaits me is poison for my spirit, and how can I avoid drinking it?

The older I grow, the fewer answers I have. And the fewer questions I like pondering.

We lit the first candle in our wreath tonight, and in this quiet hour before bedtime, with the wind circling the house, our dogs and cats are already sleeping in the security of the love we have for them, we who watch over them. They do not light candles or observe feast days, but they notice, and they remember.

~ S. K. Orr