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Friday, December 14, 2018

Mindful Holidays

Met the ex-wife and her boyfriend this morning for coffee. They'll be heading back to Australia tomorrow and not back in Bali before some time in January. Wayne, the boyfriend, seemed in good spirits and in good health. He is receiving cutting-edge treatment in Australia for an aggressive cancer (neuroendocrine)--like chemotherapy but without the attendant deathly ill feeling associated with the usual regimen, happily for Wayne. He also brought me a tube of a different type of skin cancer cream which he had used in the past (having also had problems with skin cancer), so I'm excited about trying that out. Imagine that. At this season of the year, I used to get excited about receiving Christmas cards in the mail, or boxed presents from relatives, or carolers in the neighborhood. Now I get excited about cancer cream. Ho, ho, ho. 

So I will be on my own this Christmas. But now that I think of it, I've spent the last few Christmases alone--for even when I was married, my wife was out of town on recent Christmases. Moreover, she was never much on Christmas anyway. At best, it seemed a stressful day for her. To be honest, I've not had a really Christmassy Christmas since my parents passed away, roughly 20 years ago now. 

I remember working with a guy named Phil, just out of college. We both worked for the now defunct Oregon Journal newspaper. Phil had long been estranged from his parents, though he never explained why to me. So estranged was he that he took the effort of changing his last name to Smith. He did not care to be associated with his parents in any way. For this reason, Phil did not celebrate Christmas. It was to him, he said, just the same as any other day. Sad for him, I thought--and yet convenient for me, because that meant that he would work the Christmas shift at the paper, leaving me free to enjoy the holiday at home. 

Like Phil, now, I have no family with me. Moreover, I am living on an island where Christmas is, in fact, just another day. And yet, I keep it in my heart. It does not pass unobserved. There are no trees, no presents, no feasts, no mistletoe, but there is the kiss of eternal love in the air, for which I find myself, every 25th of December, especially mindful, and therefore joyful.   

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