Dec 21, 2015
Dear Readers:
Because we are now in the season for finding love and acceptance in our hearts, I am sending you this excerpt from "Nowhere Else I Want to Be."
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"That ain't enough balls and stuff."
"And only one box of tinsel?"
"Ain't you bought none of that shiny garland?"
The residents, anticipating the Trim-the-Tree party scheduled for Tuesday, survey the bags I’ve just dragged in from the car. I stop, unbelieving. Last year, our first Christmas, the women and most of the staff had said the tree was too bare. So this year I've gone to Ames, the local value store, to purchase what seemed to me more than enough to supplement the donated decorations. Really, it all looks pretty tacky to me. I cling to the memory of my family’s Christmas trees – fine ornaments handed down through generations, popcorn-and-cranberry garlands, tastefully arranged decorations – and am pretty sure this tree will look nothing but cheap. I even bought a box of tinsel, which I personally thought untidy-looking scattered on a tree, not to mention how it fell off, got tracked all over the house and then wound around the vacuum cleaner roller.
"All this? It's not enough?"
Certainly not.
So I go out to get more, glad that prices are so low at Ames. Under the beginnings of a niggling shame at my snobbery, I decide to stand back and let the community have at it.
Tim assembles the artificial tree on the Tuesday night before the Wednesday decorating party. He winds a couple strings of colored lights on it then comes upstairs to tell me that the women want more. "Is that okay?"
I tell him I’m staying out of it. My way of doing things seems to ruin the fun and if they want more lights, put up more lights. But the budget allows for no more decoration expenditures, so we check in our own closet. Tim grabs a string of colored twinkle lights from our supply, and returns to the living room. Next day in house meeting, several of the residents thank Tim while I squelch a stirring of envy at how easy it is for him to get approval.
After house meeting on Wednesday, I bring out the huge can of flavored popcorn and the five-pound box of candy donated by my mother, a gift she's made to the community both Christmases so far. I put a pot of mulled cider on the stove, set out chips and dip, veggies and dip, sodas and ice, cookies and brownies, then go into the living room to check out the tree decorating.
The room is in a state of disarray that requires some effort on my part to ignore, but I had suffered enough teasing after the fourth of July barbecue during which I’d run around with the Resolve and a cloth, attacking red juice stains on the carpet. I focus instead on the women around the tree.
"Put this Santa on the top."
"No. Angels go on top. Ain't we got a angel?"
"Got a bunch of small ones to hang on the branches. The Santa is for the top."
"We gotta put the tree skirt down. Where is it?"
"Here. It's pretty."
"Girl, move aside, we gotta fill that bare spot right … there."
"They put out the food. You should go get a plate."
"You mean, I should go get a plate and you’ll eat off it."
"So?"
"Where the tinsel?"
"No, don't put tinsel on yet. Tinsel go last, after the decorations and the garland."
"This look just like the tree my grandmother had in her place."
"We got everything on it? No more decorations?"
"The boxes is all empty."
"Get the garland."
Finally, satisfied that no more bare spots were to be found, the tree-decorators join the house-decorators in the dining room to eat so much candy and popcorn and snacks that no one wants dinner that evening.
At ten o'clock, on the final walk-through before ending my evening duty shift, I pass by the living room where a few of the women sit in the light of the tree. I pause, struck by the uncharacteristic quiet at a time when normally the TV would be blaring and a resident or two would be clattering around the kitchen making night-time snacks or preparing for the next day.
"Hey, Miss Carol, come sit with us."
I sit on the couch next to Sasha to listen to the low conversation and the silence from which it unfolds.
"I ain't had a sober Christmas since I ain't know when. Didn't know it could be so beautiful."
"Nor remembered my kids' presents or nothin'. My mother done all that for me."
"All I remember is tryin' to hide from my uncle. He was … nasty." The women nodded and were quiet for a while.
"I'd be dead by now if not for Miriam's House." Nods again. More silence.
"See the way the lights make the tinsel shine?"
"It so peaceful like this. Wish it could be this way all the time."
"Makes me want to put a little tree in my room. I hate the dark."
"Put on that Yolanda Adams CD, the one with “Oh, Holy Night.” That's my favorite."
We listen. The tree branches sag under the baubles' weight. Santa lists on his precarious perch. That garish tinsel, scattered willy-nilly and reflecting the colored lights, trembles in the draft from the ceiling vent above, and all of it so beautiful as to make my heart ache.
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However you celebrate this time of year, I wish you love, acceptance and the full measure of peace your heart can hold.
Carol