This past Saturday The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I went to a local Christmas festival.
It was a luminary festival which our HOA/Municipal Utility District has sponsored for years. We have never been, but now without the shuttling of children for Christmas (or their activities) and an evening on which I did not have to work, we decided to give it a try.
The luminary had been laid out along the trails around the community center and likely covered a mile or more for all of them; sadly the wind had come up and many were out. The event itself was pretty well attended, with lots of families and young children around. They had a "hay" ride, a "train" ride, activities for the kids, and a line to see Santa. All in all, it was a very nicely put together event staffed entirely by volunteers.
As we stood there in the slight cold, listening to the choir group that for the last 5 years would have had one of Na Clann in it, I was struck by the fact that there was a certain wistfulness to the whole thing.
There was nothing magical about any of it directly. The carols were what they have always been, the lights and the crowds the same as you will find in a hundred such small, heartfelt celebrations. There was no magical weather or sounds or even emotion that filled the air.
And yet it struck how fragile such things really are.
They presume a certain set of things: not only the place to have such a thing but a place free of struggle to have such a thing. They assume a population that feels safe in attending and volunteers that can sacrifice the time to make it happen. They assume generosity on the part of many and a willing acceptance of noise and a certain level of inconvenience, of children dashing in and out and things being a little bit on the edge of chaos.
They assume, in a sense, all the things that we often take for granted.
I cannot tell that there was some great revelation that occurred or I had some sort of prophetic vision of a future or even that anything original - other than, perhaps, this post - resulted. But I was left with a wistful sort of softness, a sense that things like this are not common as we think they are and that we take their commonality at our peril.
Like the lights themselves, we assume they will come ever year, based on nothing more than our belief that this is the way the world has always worked.
A thought provoking post. It's actually quite amazing how much of our lives is based on assumptions. Also on a cultural idea of "normal." It's good to remind ourselves not to take things for granted.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I do not know why this festival struck me as so. I have been to its equivalent (small town style festivals) all my life no matter where I lived. The poignancy of "what if" just struck me suddenly.
DeleteLeigh's last sentence nailed it, coming out of a period where so many activities were cancelled can generate such thoughts TB The passage of years can also do the same, there is no guarantee of tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI am trying harder to do this, Nylon12. To take each event or happening in their turn - after all, everything in our lives is based on a great deal of things going right all the time. We forget that.
DeleteWe too don't go to a lot of such things these days. By the time we fulfill all the kid related appointments and activities, we just prefer to stay home for some peace and quiet. But I suspect there will come a day when like you, we will be more adventuresome since we aren't worn out from a week of being on the go... like this upcoming week.
ReplyDeleteEd, The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I have both commented on it. I suspect it will manifest itself more as Nighean Bhan completes her graduate degree and moves out and Nighean Dhonn reaches the point where she is not coming home at all for the Summers.
DeleteAgreed. We Americans take so much for granted, we expect things will never change for the worse, until they do.
ReplyDeletePandemic is ALWAYS in the news, with threat of new or virus mutation always there. I notice getting an innoculation - shot is far more common in TV advertising. Way back, I remember it was over the counter medications being hawked. Not so today - prescription medications requiring doctor prescribing is the rule rather than the exception. Even pets !!
Anon - I suppose we have done like every major economic and world power has done: we have passed the point where a generation remembers what it was like to not have the world (economic or political or both) at one's beck and call. The system is "designed" around us. Until, of course, it is not.
DeleteI have found my awareness of sickness heightened, both by the media as well as by my own sickness last week. There is a sense that we are always on the edge of a great event - Plague 2.0 - waiting in the wings. Certainly it has changed how I view going out and public contact.
This is a sobering and thoughtful post, TB. I hope I will think about it as I go otherwise busily about my holiday things. Do you think this sort of thought experience you had is a form of "being in the moment"?
ReplyDeleteBecki, I wish I had that level of awareness when such things occur. Sadly, all I can tell you is that the thought struck me out of the blue as I was standing there listening to Christmas carols from the chorale group both of our daughters had done while they were in high school. I assume that part of brain is working overtime on such things - as Ed has mentioned before, one thing one finds as a writer is that almost every experience is filtered through "How would I write about this?". This may have taken over as an unconscious action at this point. Or to be frank, maybe it is a little slip in the time stream, a deja vu moment. These have been happening to me more and more.
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