The Holidays Are, In Fact, Totally Over

I finally feel normal again; the holidays have left and it's back to the grindstone, return to the salt mines and/or whatever the hell that big spinning wheel thing is that Conan had to push for 20 years. Or something like that. I mean, I worked last week and the week before, but I didn't WORK work, if you get my drift. It all seemed fragile and inconsequential somehow, and then this weekend I took all the holiday decorations down and bingo: back to normal. Or what passes for normal around here, which is, I grant you, not all that goddamn normal.

In Little, Big (this is my one, my all time, my ultra favorite book, which I think we have covered about a squillion times in this blog) there's a passage about how holidays exist in a self contained time frame, essentially out there on their own. There's a lot of truth to that theory: Christmases and New Years seem to follow one upon the other without an intervening year, but the minute the holiday spell is over they seem impossibly distant. I mean New Years Eve occurred on a complete different planet, I think, but I remember the second week of December just fine. I couldn't remember it last week, when I was still in holiday mode, but now it's coming in loud and clear.

I like the idea that time can be chopped up into pieces: discrete portions of time that relate to each other but not to the surrounding time. Like a photo with only part in focus - ideally, holidays make you focus on the center while the rest just slides away for a while. Of course, if the center will not hold that's a problem and things fall apart (HA! Check out those high school reading list references! And my son claims people never use their education.)which is possibly what happened this year. But time - years, decades - have passed since Christmas and I've forgotten all the stress and I think next year, when I will do exactly the same things, will be better.