The Christmas Vial

It was at 4:56pm yesterday when I ran out of the house in hopes to catch a streetcar to work, where I was supposed to be in exactly 4 minutes. I waited 6 minutes. The ride takes about 7 minutes, depending.

The car looks full from my vantage point. It's a double streetcar, attached by a device that looks like an accordian in the waist area. It was designed to hold a greater number of passengers. The accordian was designed to be able to make turns effectively without derailing.

I stepped on, deposited a...

Prior to having lunch with my mother the other day, we had talked on the phone to confirm a time and place. We had a discussion on how I felt about Christmas:

I don't want anything and I don't want to give anybody anything.

It's not that I'm a cheap cunt, it's just that I feel I have everything I need. Everyone else in the family has more than they need. To buy something, just for the sake of buying, to give something that will inevitably go into the garbage because it's not "just right", or doesn't "fit into the scheme", filling landfills in both my country and the country immediately south of me, where none of our garbage belongs, simply to secure a contract and good relations internationally sounds ridiculous to me. Sounds irresponsible.

My friend Dirty is an interior designer and, in addition, has worked for years in a retail store selling home accessories. Chachkas. She's a very generous creature and loves to express her fondness for her friends by often wielding staff-discounted gift items whenever any of us see her. They sit and collect dust.

Once upon a time I used to collect all kinds of little items. Interesting objects. Some were found while walking around. Some were bought. The found ones are the ones I tend to keep. They tend to tell a tale of a journey taken. Since moving into my loft, a completely white, save the darkened bedroom, bright and airy place with huge windows and enough floorspace to either do 3 cartwheels in succession or to watch 2 whirling dervish dancers perform, without moving any furniture, I'd made the decision to keep my life and my surroundings as simple as possible. As uncluttered as possible. When Fatty was over the other night he said it was really calming in here. The calm is what I love best about my home.

So this is Christmas, or just about... and what do we need? What do I need?

I need food. I need to eat. I need to eat more. Personally, I'm getting too goddamned thin, which pleases my gay friends, but really, I need to eat something. Something warm. I don't like eating cold food in the winter. It makes me colder.

I explained to my mother how the advertisers start their campaigns just after Hallowe'en. They send everyone into a frenzy trying to buy shit no one needs, making retailers fat, themselves fatter, selling their souls, while, for one day, giving the populace an opportunity to stave off guilt.

It's on at 50% off.
Buy yours now.

My mother, who inherently understands me, took me out for lunch. "It'll be your Christmas present, since we're not going to be spending it together this year," she said.

At the beginning of lunch she presented a used prescription vial for my inspection. I was reading the label when she said, "No, look inside." Looking in, I estimate there were about 50 public transport tokens. She worries about me riding my bike in the winter. I told her I haven't ridden it in weeks. But she loves me and she doesn't use them anymore as she's now considered a senior citizen. Seniors pay less than half the price of a regular adult fare. She hoarded them years ago when the transit commission threatened to raise the price on them. She froze the prices. She passed the savings on to me. I love my mother. This was the best present anyone could give me. It was born out of concern. It was something I needed without knowing I needed it.

For the last 5 years, prior to my separation with Ack, the ex-husband/best friend, we had hosted Christmas dinner at our house. It was never fun, save the after dinner guests we'd invited; the ones we really wanted there. The family portion was something we were made to suffer. The banal conversation was the worst.

Stock quotes.
"Did you know x just bought another cottage?"
Future business dealings.
Piggy backing off each other.
Feeding frenzy.
Complaints of the turkey being too dry.
The same fight where my father drinks too much and gets belligerent about being "fine" to drive home.
Insults lobbed into the air.
Ridiculous current events not based in fact, but conjuered up by what the government really wants us to think (oh the Comrade has a whack of conspiracy theories).

I spend the majority of the family portion playing with my adopted twin nieces. They offer the best conversations and the most fun. At home, their sheets are Egyptian cotton with a 300 thread count. The toys they will have received by the end of business day, will survive from 1/2 hour to a week, depending on the manufacturer. The result of these gifts will be pitched into black garbage bags, thrown by the curb, by a hired hand and dumped into a waste station, processed, and delivered to wherever the city has a contract to send it to.

Christmas.

Christ Mass.

When I was a child I sang in the church choir. There is something so incredibly holy sounding about the sound small lungs and a little resonating head produces. It was by my own volition that I chose the church as a child. I loved everything about it. The reverence, the ceremony, the stained glass, the architecture, the refreshments, the boring sermons that invaribly would be punctuated by someone in the congregation farting or audibly yawning.

The music.

Musical director Roma Lynne was an ancient, frail little woman, who was both loving and fierce. Just like God, I suppose. With mangled fingers and bony frame she worked the organ like a spider weaves a web. Every appendage was active; pulling knobs, feet bouncing on the pedals that operated the lower bass registers, her whole body got into the music and it was such a beautiful sight to behold. I always wished she would play In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, but she never did.

At 13, I was baptised and confirmed on the same day, thus allowing me to receive the body and blood of Christ, something to this day kind of sicks me out, as a concept. I remember sitting in the choir's altar pews looking out at the flock and thinking, "It's standing room only at Midnight Mass. They're all trying to save their souls by being in attendance one night of the year." Heather, my oldest friend (of 36 years) and I snunk potent rum balls my sister made, with 12oz of booze, between choral sets of "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Onward Christian Soldier"; getting drunk by way of confectioneries.

I stopped going to church by own volition. Truthfully it was the Honour Thy Mother and Father thing that got me in the end. What about the abuses and the injustices parents inflict upon their children habitually? What about all the damage they've done? Just because the seed they planted, potentially out of hate, took root? One drunken night of forced rape and God has made it a sin to do less than revere and honour this creature named parent?

I said no.

I reverently placed the cross back in its rightful place. I turned in my cassock.

Ever since, I've been fighting a battle I've created in my mind. I've been fighting for my own truth.

I miss it, though.

Ah, who knows... maybe I'll deposit one of those tokens and make my way up to St. Timothy's to be another one standing, trying to save her soul.