Celebration

In the March sunshine at mid-day, four mid-life women shared a picnic. It didn't look a thing like Renoir's party, but it was still great fun. A theme of our conversation was celebration. We all need more of it. It feeds us, keeps us going, gives us strength. Play is a powerful thing. I didn't always get enough celebration in my childhood.

A month after our family moved to Cabbagetown, here came the Christmas holidays. Tinsel, lights, wrapping paper, gaiety. Dad wasn't having any. Mom announced that we were going to her parents' house for Christmas; Dad got on a bus for Chicago. When he came back, it was the beginning of his first deep depression. Days, if not weeks, in a darkened room, with the quilt up to his chin. Mom's next announcement was to us: "well girls, it looks like we're going to have to choose between having Christmas or having a daddy, so we'll have to give up Christmas." I was a year old. We didn't celebrate Christmas again in our home until the divorce, 13 years later.

Birthdays soon went the way of Christmas--Dad decided they were too materialistic, and we weren't going to celebrate them anymore. So the only birthday celebration that I remember from my childhood, at least the only one that we didn't have to sneak away for, was when I turned 6 at Hidden Springs. You saw the picture of my grandmamas there. I'll never forget the cardboard dollhouse that Janet and her friends made for me, with lots of rooms, all painted peacock blue. I thought I'd bust with happiness.

Dad left for the woods right about that time. It was his first disappearance. He was gone for weeks, and we had no idea where he was.

So now, as a result, I have a missionary-like zeal about celebration. I love to be silly in front of crowds, knit silvery scarves, and fling them around my neck. I love to bake birthday cake and give presents. I love to turn the music up loud and dance in the kitchen. And perhaps most of all, I love the lights of Christmas. The simplest Christmas tree of all (like the first one Mom and I had in 1980, when we cut our own tree in the woods and hand-made the God's eyes to decorate it), takes my breath away.

I am alive, and I love to celebrate it.