Thursday, December 13, 2012

Home for the Holidays

 I’m driving around San Francisco with the radio playing, still infatuated with this most beautiful city. On comes Bing Crosby singing “There’s no place like home for the holidays.” At 61, I’m still game for the out-the-door adventure and don’t yet feel the nesting instinct of the elders to stick close to home.

But I’m with Bing on this one. I really just want to settle into the spirit of the season. Go to the Revels, see the kids’ Holiday Plays at school and the St. George and the Dragon ritual mummer’s play the 8th grade does and sing with the kids and go ice skating with them and sing with the neighbors at our annual caroling party. I want to go the Posada party and the White Elephant exchange and eat too much and listen to the holiday CD’s and curl up on the couch with some old movies. I want to take out the Christmas decorations from my childhood, work on the family newsletter and yes, even shop and handwrite the envelopes for the Christmas cards.

Instead, I’m back at the airport, about to board a plane to Brazil. A short Orff course, then on to Buenos Aires to help my daughter Talia celebrate the end of her three and a half years as an ex-pat and help her head back home to San Francisco. But first, meet my wife in Cuzco, where thre three of us and two of Talia’s friends will celebrate Christmas. And then start climbing the Inca Trail the next day to Machu Picchu.

When I tell people my plans, they pretend to be envious, but perhaps are secretly thinking “I’m so glad it’s you and not me.”  I know I’ll enjoy it all and be glad I did it, but truth be told, I’d be quite happy just wandering around San Francisco while Bing sings to me. Instead, I guess I’ll just whistle the tune as I ascend the Inca trail.

2 comments:

  1. Hm. Somehow makes me think of green grass and fences.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you can learn the essential, totally rationally consistent metaphysical structure of the separation, it provides you with a framework in which the whole thing just fits into place. A Course in Miracles by David HHoffmeister is teaching this metaphysical structure, but it is not always very obvious. Its obscure nature tends to lead people to not even realize there is a solid "core" to the Course or that you can use this structure to perfectly explain everything the ego does, the meaning of death, and what must be true based on it.
    For example, separation from God is not possible, because you cannot be somewhere that God is absent. God is everywhere. This immediately tells us that, logically, to believe that this is possible is insanity. It also must tell us that to believe in such a separation is to believe in a dream, a fiction, something which is false or not true and not real. This is already the beginning of some very solid metaphysics, and many people grasp this basic starting point.ACIM Spiritual Community

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.