Hand-me-down
written by: Richard Stimac
I hang
my memories
on the brittle branches
of a Christmas tree. I never tire
of the yearly ritual of exhuming the cardboard box
from the basement. I brush the collected dust with solemnity
and unfold the crisscrossed flaps to expose the remains of the past:
an elf of multi-colored yarn scissored and bound into arms and legs and head:
oven-baked clay in the shape of a stubby snow man with hand-drawn eyes, nose, mouth;
a silver-glittered pinecone with each scale like the petals of a nebula saturated with stars;
a nativity-themed Hallmark card with a hole punched in the corner and a thread strung through;
garlands of tinsel that snake around the trunk like a serpent sneaking through a walled garden;
a string of colored lights, the old kind, where you had to test each to find the broken circuit.
There is a pattern to follow, a sequence, what is first, what is last, what is done in between.
But nothing is written. There is no missel of liturgy with prescribed prayer and gesture.
I work by memory, of what my mother taught me, and her mother her, the way things are
to be done. Yet, I admit, each year, the order of things changes, though I am certain
I remember exactly what I did the year before. I trust myself that what I think
is my past, my memory, my life, is my past, my memory, my life.
Otherwise is chaos. It’s not written word, but speech, action, example,
that makes a life. With repetition, no new year is ever new. In the end,
I wait too long, far past New Year’s Day,
when I reintern these hand-me-downs
and set the yellowed cardboard box
on the same basement shelf
for another season,
another winter
solstice,
another
remembering.
- Hand-me-down - December 29, 2024
