Christmas Is All Around Us

I’m sitting here pondering, trying to conjure up an idea of just what has compelled me to begin this blog. Here, now, at this point in my life when everything seems poised in a beautifully delicate balancing act. I suppose it has something to do with my need for self-expression. Since graduating from art school over a year ago I have lost something that I had readily available for six years. I still draw occasionally, I still think about art constantly. But I no longer show my art to the world (or some very small part of it). That fire of creativity still burns within me, and affects everything I see and do in life. It’s time to reclaim my ability and my privilege to show what I see and tell what I know.

Because I find I have a lot to say. Because I see the world in a unique way and because my solitary nature renders it unlikely that you will ever know these things I write of unless I put it here for you to see. Because I’m a good writer, and I want to be better with practice. Because I could improve my ability to be open and honest. Because, after perusing the blog of someone I hardly know, I find that openness is appealing, and healthy, and a way to connect with other people in unpredicted ways.

Because my life as I know it hangs in this delicate web; balanced for the moment, full of promise, but never a promised thing. I feel the need to capture what I can of it, not for the sake of looking back but for the sake of seeing it NOW. Of knowing, realizing, that it’s there and I am here and I am spinning, suspended in a spinning universe.

Because I am easily amazed by Big Thoughts and Little Things. Because the way a flower transforms into a compact living packet of seeds within the course of a summer can render me speechless. Because my terrible mood can be transformed by a momentary sighting of local wildlife. Because ideas move me, and art moves me, and music moves me, and writing causes me to be shockingly aware of everything I have inside of me.

************************************************************

So, being unreligious in the conventional sense, and certainly not a Christian, it may seem strange that my blog name includes the word “Christmas”. I have mulled over whether or not to let this remain a mystery, but then I remind myself that one purpose of this blog of mine is to pull back that shroud of mystery that I so often clasp about myself. The truth is, I came up with the phrase a couple of years back while working on a project for an art class. It is something of a personal philosophy: this idea that spectacular things happen every day; that I have an obligation and a sheer need to notice and grasp every moment that causes each day to be special. Christmas time is a time of thoughtfulness, awareness, love and gratitude, reflection, gift-giving and receiving, and looking forward to a new year a clean slate. I know people who say that they don’t believe in Christmas, but rather they believe that any day is it’s own excuse to give a gift, receive a gift, visit someone you haven’t seen in a long time, send a card, give to charity….all of these ideas and more are summed up in my belief that Christmas is all around us. But when it comes down to it, I just want to be aware and appreciative of every pleasant surprise, no matter how small, that may happen across my path on any given day.