How quickly do you get tired of festive music? Two minutes? Two days? Over the years I’ve built up a little collection of Christmas music that covers languages: Welsh, Russian, Swedish, French and even some Elvis. I dig them out once a year & give them their annual listenings.
does it come in green
I do favour the campy/cheesy side of things with the Beach Boys, The Ventures; special favourites Booker T & The MG’s go hand in hand with Jimmy Smith. I even have one of my family’s Christmas lp’s: Eddie Fisher. I can’t say as I have an absolute favourite though. Brenda Lee’s Rocking ‘Round the Christmas Tree is pretty close to perfect though. Plus Silent Night sung by a choir of starving children on an ice flow (just kidding).
lane way bargains
One thing I always enjoy is a A Christmas Carol beautifully read in complete – a free download – takes a couple of hours to listen to but it has spoiled me for any movie version. I have it burned to a cd along with Dylan Thomas reading A Child’s Christmas in Wales, plus the Million Dollar Man’s Christmas adventures, and (could it get any better?) Charles Laughton reading a Pickwick Christmas and (too much?) Ronald Coleman in a very abridged Christmas Carol.
red daisies
Yeah I love Christmas but I’m always happy when its over.
another piece out of the archives:
Circle
it’s hard to resist the notions of patterns
how the repeated gets repeated
the notion
that if you go back to the same bed
you leave in the morning
you have really gone nowhere
start to finish
at the same point
doesn’t equal progress
yet for many that is progress
to maintain the same pattern
to have the comfort
of ending back where they started from
I do not resist the comfort and ease
of repetition
that gives structure
funny though
how much quicker and smaller these
rituals become
the older one becomes
the aching years and summers of youth
are the all too fast and brief
flash from one winter to the next
winters coming too close together
and summers never long enough
flowers come go come go
and the gardening continues
when will the circle be broken
things are done
to keep that break from happening
the right foods for the heart
exercise avoid the sun
drinking lots of water
a few less morsels at every meal
to cut down on the burden of the waist
each a little ritual
in hopes of avoiding the break
each
to add a few morsels of days
the gift of the moment
the miracle of breath
and joy of experiencing
what there remains to be experienced
days are numbered
but no one knows what those numbers are
we don’t know
what they are going to add up to
what will remain
is rarely equalled to
what we may have done
the mark made disappears with time
I decided not to worry about the mark made
but to enjoy what there is to enjoy
to create sustain without concern
leaving a legacy
is the least of my intent
a few memories will linger
till the last of those
who remember me
are gone
that is enough for me
another of the aging details
I sometimes forget
is about what may remain
who gets what
maybe I’ll give it all way
before the break
shedding is a good stage
to prepare me for the transition
into the next one
shed all that I wouldn’t want to move with
pretend my life
is to be reduced to a single room
what would I want to keep
make it that simple
and see what
loses its hold on me
what is really wanted
and what is there merely
because I have a place for it
those things that are pleasant enough
but which it
may be time to live without
to move on
to clear and clear
make more empty shelves
and leave them empty
invite the emptiness
into the present day
to prepare me for
what may be the void
when the circle is broken
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