Thoughts on a Wintery Christmas Night

      A borrowed fireplace, borrowed Christmas tree, borrowed kitchen. Someone else's house, yet all the same recipes, and some of the same memories, filling the space with their familiar scent. Funny how you can make your own reality and even believe in it, then turn right around and feel overwhelmed that the world that doesn't want to help make your life exactly the way you want it, even when you know full well that it's your job and not the world's to construct these things. And you're the best guinea pig for the job, because no one knows better than you do what you'd like to see your life be. Better to experiment on yourself and find out if it works than to observe the results in someone else and find that they made off with your success, and then get miffed that it should have been you.

      Sometimes it takes a holiday alone to realize you're equipped with what it takes to make the holiday right, even without the hoards of people you call relatives surrounding you on all sides with their unmistakeable volume and fantastic chaos. Out in the world alone I was released, fully equipped to create the same beautiful mess, like a newly divided cell, an exact copy; being festive is in my DNA. 

      Even in the quiet of somewhere else, with just me and my man, side by side in front of the fire, I can feel the steady vibrations of that Northern Noise: home. When there's no sound at all, yet the ear still perceives a faint buzzing that seems to come from no particular direction, I take comfort in it, knowing it's the hum on the home front, a small reminder that even when we're miles apart, quietly pondering the conifer strung with lights, in spirit we're connected; even in silence my family and I are talking to each other at maximum volume, all at once.