As I woke this morning, 'round 4 AM, I was greeted not by the wind, but by the deafening quiet. It reminded me of the quiet you could just feel in the morning after it would snow. That quiet where all sound was dampened and when you woke on Christmas morning you just knew you got that white Christmas you'd been hoping for and singing about for weeks. And that quiet, that quiet was the cue you needed to sneak into the room and stare at the tree all aglow with lights and decorations and the light glinting off the shiny paper under the tree. I could so clearly remember the tree in my child hood home and how Christmas started at our house and we'd tear into our gifts while our parents sat to the side in their robes smoking. And when it was time to exchange gifts, they always gave eachother a carton of cigarettes. Now that I am older I wonder if it was because they really didn't know eachother well enough to buy real gifts or if they were secretly trying to kill each other off.
After the morning, we'd pack everything up and drive the 26 or so miles to my Grandma's house in Chicago (despite both my grandparents living there, it was Grandma's house, like Grandpa was just a boarder there) and start the process all over again. Then we'd have a meal and the night would end after our two Christmases. Sometimes we'd spend the night while our parents would return home and I'd sleep in my grandmother's bed. She'd tell me stories and rub my back until I fell asleep. Sometimes I'd wake up in the night and look at her headboard seeing faces in the woodgrain, or I'd sneak out of bed and go into the front room to look at the tree all lit up in all its glory.
Even to this day I feel five years old looking at the tree in the dark. And that silence this morning welled up a hope in me so strong that I had to peek out my window on the way downstairs just see if there just might be snow, but I was disappointed.
Before I rose, as I sat in the cool room, cozy in bed enjoying the silence I reached over to give the cat a scratch and watch the static electricity give off blue sparks, which always makes me smile. I rolled over, putting my face full into the breeze of the fan that I need to sleep. I closed my eyes and I was a kid again grabbing a fitted sheet from the linen closet to hook around the edge of the heat run in the floor. I would throw the sheet over me, hooking it under my feet while the air conditioning would blow the sheet up like a balloon around me and the cool air would blow on my face. I would let my imagination run wild (although admittedly I was usually thinking about Star Wars) until I fell asleep with the sheet pulled tight around me and a bubble of cool wind blowing on my face. To this day, I sleep best with the frigid air on my face and the covers rolled tight around me like a burrito.
But what does this all amount to? Not much really, just some free thoughts and nostalgia of a simpler more innocent time. My thoughts turned to my own child, only half-baked and I was saddened that no matter how I try, I don't think my own children will ever experience the same kind of magic that I grew up with, that I still feel from time to time in the wee hours when I let my mind ramble on.
DIY Steampunk goggles at Makerfaire...
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