Winter

Sleigh Ride, Sleigh Ride, Sleigh Ride …

/ Pam Goode / 2 Comments

YES it’s winter AND that holiday feeling is indeed coming my way. If you’re more or less my age, you may even remember all the lyrics to the opening words posted above. And I have to say that not only are they remembered each December, but yes, I still love Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Madly.

It all started when I was a young girl and has lasted prolifically as an old(er) girl. And yes, I still have a few of those albums that were sold at Firestone for decades. In fact, one day not long ago, I dragged my husband over to Firestone to ask if the albums were still for sale there. It was a long shot, sure, but I was hopeful and keen for nostalgia. The man heading the shop lifted his head toward the skies, mulled a bit while rubbing his three days of scruffle, then looked at us and said … “Nineteen … Sixty … Seven …. ” We all laughed, but I would surely have loved to hear those old vinyls again.

For me, it will always be “Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy are we, We’re snuggled up together like birds of a feather should be. Let’s take that road before us and sing a chorus or two, Come on it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!

P.S. In the early 60’s Firestone sold Christmas albums to help tire sales. I’m sure Steve and Eydie helped too.

Bears Do It

/ Pam Goode / 1 Comment

The house is de-frocked and the champagne chugged, with leftovers picked apart,  floors de-needled, the last family member waved off, and even the cat has lost interest in the sole remaining pile of boa-fluffed stockings. I celebrated the official end of this holiday season by wearing my pajamas until 4:00 and then, finally bra-ed and tee-shirted, curled into the Big Leather Sofa with my blankie for three hours of CSI Las Vegas. Hibernation Season is upon me.

If January is synonymous with Beginnings, why is it so cold, so drear, so wet, so gray, so solitary, so comfortless? The only reason I can imagine is that the universe conspires to bring us into ourselves to create an internal nest that will warm us, heal us, reinforce us for the year ahead.

I don’t see abundant evidence that the human race is so universally evolved as to view the new year as a time of introspection. Sure we make resolutions, but 90% seem to involve diet and exercise, and a look in any direction provides ample evidence that the healthy eating promise is rarely kept. On New Year’s Eve we’re all eager to ring in a new annum that “can’t be any worse than this year,” and yet we’ll almost certainly be aping the same refrain at the close of 2010. Hope springs eternal, and yet how do we actively intend to put away the old and bring forth the better?

Maybe in the case of new beginnings, we take action through inaction, by curling up like bears turning our bundled backs on the world we’ve known and diving within to seek new possibilities, new paths, new nuts, new berries. I can spend hours staring at a pattern in the carpet, the steam from my tea, or colored chunks of glass awaiting an adhesive. And oddly, it feels good, and it feels good in the same way that finally cleaning the house feels good, or throwing out half of an uneaten sugary candy bar. It feels healthy. And holy.

Here’s wishing you an extra layer of fleece, a log on the fire, and a week’s worth of stew in the crock pot. I’ll be dancing in the streets with the first spring thaw, but for a few more days, bring on the holy. I won’t be answering the phone.