I turned my face away and dreamed about you

Fairytale Of New York – The Pogues

Christmas is a borderlands between memory and imagination.  It is a time for reminiscence, for thoughts about those who have passed, for simple mornings full of wonder and anticipation.

It’s a beautiful day because it allows us to look backwards on our past selves: who were straining desperately against the bonds of time to push forward into the great unknown. Having now traversed that space, we could so easily turn a cynical eye on the whole thing.  There is so much pain to come, so much ill-understood.  The innocence of that past joy could be darkened by wizened understanding.

But the beauty of human beings is that we can somehow escape that spiral.  There is something outside of the terrible dialectic of nostalgia (sophomoric and insipid) and cynicism (nihilistic and cold).  Where pain that lies ahead is accepted, without allowing that knowledge to dull the memory of our hopefulness.

Merry Happy, everyone.