I’ll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents by the tree
I got out two frying pans and a mixing bowl along with the bacon, eggs, and brioche and asked Alexa to play Christmas music. The first song to play was the Bing Crosby version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The irony wasn’t lost on me. He crooned, “Christmas Eve will find me / where the love light gleams…” This year, for many Americans, we’ve had to redefine what being home for Christmas looks, sounds, and feels like. We’ve had to search a little deeper for where the love light gleams.
After cooking my slightly decadent breakfast, I turned the music off and skimmed articles and headlines while I ate. One of the recommended articles was about what Scott Kelly, the astronaut, learned about isolation after spending a year in space. I didn’t read it – I might later. Sitting at the dining room table with no presents under the tree, no Christmas morning commotion, and only catnip filled cloth carrot for the cat, the juxtaposition of the song and the article and our current times gave me pause. Like nearly all astronauts, Kelly is hailed as a hero, a type of national treasure. I kept thinking about his dedication… how he willingly left everything behind – in service to job, country, science, ambition. It made me feel more than a little inadequate to not have that type of dedication. I know we need people like Kelly. I also know that I am not cut from the same cloth as those people. I don’t think I’d want a job that took me away from my immediate family (spouse or children) for long periods of time. Yet people do it all the time (salesman, contractors, military).
Because this is usually a season of reflection, I went back to the things I had written last year. I was very much missing my ex and doubling down on my belief that the connection we had could overcome our distance and time apart. I think I wrote five or six different blog posts between Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas. I posted a few sentimental music videos, some poems, a picture of the Christmas card I bought and didn’t send, and a few thoughtful quotes on love. Looking back, those posts feel a little over-the-top in their sentimentality. In that moment, I was declaring what I worshiped, what I wanted to believe, where my dedication, above all else, could be found.
I still believe that connecting with others is among our highest pursuits as human beings. I still believe that there are some connections that are rare and magical. I’m still moved by the notion of home – the comfort and absurdity of it. I’m still fascinated by how it can mean different things to different people – how it is a place full of departures and returns, each giving meaning to the other. I still think of the world as being full of unexpected turns, chance encounters, meaningful connections, and one in which we can always return home, create anew, or find somewhere comfortable in between. This morning, I’m reminded of the Ram Dass quote, “we’re all just walking each other home.” And while not exactly a Christmas poem, the song, the story about an astronaut’s dedicated isolation, and the searching for where the love light gleams… reminds me of a Stephen Dobyns poem, “Freight Cars”
Once, taking a train into Chicago
from the west, I saw a message
scrawled on a wall in the railway yard—
Tommy, call home, we need you—
and for years I have worried, imagining
the worst scenarios. Beneath the message
was a number written in red chalk,
although at eighteen who was I to call
and at forty-six who is left to listen?
But Tommy, I think of him still traveling
out in the country, riding freight car
after freight car, just squeaking by
in pursuit of some private quest.
That’s the problem, isn’t it?
Coming into the world and imagining
some destination for oneself,
some place to make all the rest
all right, as we cast aside those
who love us, as they cast aside others
in their turn, and all of us
wandering, wandering in a direction
which only our vanity claims to be forward,
while the messages fall away like pathetic cries—
come back, call home, we need you.