I woke up alone on Christmas morning. I made coffee, ate an apple, laced up my shoes and started walking. It seemed like the thing to do. I needed to think.
Christmas isn’t often a marker for self-reflection. Most distract themselves with a veneer of merriment, mountains of sugar, buckets of butter, oceans of alcohol and heaps of meat. We gather in groups, often family groups, laugh (sometimes at, sometimes with), eat, trade gossip. Self-reflection, if it comes at all, is typically the province of the New Year’s Day hangover.
I’ve been this person. Maybe you were this year. But a solo Christmas forces you inward. If you’re not careful, you may find yourself stewing over the hurt you carry. Love unrequited. Jobs lost. Friends fallen. Family broken and and torn by pettiness and strife. Things you long for, but seem impossibly out of reach.
I have done much of this in recent weeks. But I was determined to rise on Christmas morning and think not about the hurt I carry, but about the gratitute — and about how that gratitude might steer me forward.
No particular route guided me, only a vague desire to see the Mississippi River on this gray, weirdly warm day. It rained the night before, a rarity in a Minnesota winter. The world was a cat dropped in a bathtub; surprised, soaked, sullen.
Smells hung in the air, languid and in no hurry to alight to the heavens. Rotting leaves, then maple syrup. Pancakes? Another block, and the unmistakable aroma of smoking meat. No one stirred except the squirrels, fat and multitudinous. They are the lords of Highland Park.
A white squirrel — a rarity — caught my eye down a side street, so I decided to walk that way. She disappeared, a magic trick with no snow on the ground, so I walked on.
As I neared the river, tidy, compact houses with lights hung just so gave way to a wildland of apartment buildings. Trash decorated the streets. The squirrels seemed fewer, warier. A rotting Winnebago with fogged windows told the tale of one Christmas morning. A block later, an Airstream only marginally less dilapidated told another, only slightly better; it at least had a power line stretching to the nearby building. Electric-heater Christmas is better than a clammy wake-up on a garbage-strewn alleyway.
A different smell: masa. Steam. Tamales. Two men emerged from an apartment building speaking Spanish. “Feliz Navidad, señores,” I called. Looking mildly surprised, one gave me a “Feliz Navidad” back as they clambered into a Pontiac.
I heard arguing in what sounded like Russian barking from the windows of another apartment. Nearby, a basement studio sported a deflated plastic Santa outside its only window, left slightly ajar, a little cord snaking inside. Festivity vs. warmth.
A child could be heard shouting behind the windows of another apartment: That’s not what I wanted! “Petulant brat” was my first, uncharitable, thought. But it set me to thinking about gift giving.
Gifts are a fraught business, at least to those who matter to you. The saying that it’s the thought that counts is as true a thing as there is. A real gift requires thought. Will this person like it? Does it suit them? Will they want it? Because the best gift is something someone wants, not something someone needs. A missed mark is sad, but a thoughtless gift is no gift at all.
I smelled something I did not expect: The smell of freshwater fish, which, if you’ve smelled it, you know is distinctive. But there were no fish around. And then I saw the river, far below the bluff I was standing on. The Mississippi flows slow and sleepy in December, especially with so little snow. A flock of mallards muttered to each other, no doubt talking about the weather.
Everyone was, including the lone human on saw on my walk, a gray man in a torn puffy jacket, soiled wool beanie and a bike that held those things most precious to him. He grinned: “Isn’t it marvelous?” I said yes, it all is. Neither of us were talking about the weather.
I had walked through the tendrils of any number of different Christmas mornings on my walk, and Gray Man made me think of the Christmases of others in my life. Some are, like me, alone for the first time. Some are sucking the marrow from moments spent with loved ones who will not see another Christmas. Some spend so much time caring for others at Christmastime that they find themselves frayed and fragile at its end. When do they get their own holiday?
A great many sleepwalk through gatherings and get-togethers, eating cookies and chit-chatting and touching each base like they might open the cardboard windows on an Advent calendar. They smile wanly at angry, drunk uncles and try to change the subject. They endure the sometimes palpable Christmastime seething that can blossom like carrion flowers as the holiday closes in.
A few, however, are surrounded by family they actually, genuinely love and whose company they relish as much as cranberry sauce and spritz cookies. These are the truly lucky. Some even know it.
I turned away from the river and walked uphill, back towards the highlands that are Highland Park, let my mind slip, and just like that, began to feel sorry for myself.
I am alone. I woke up alone, and will fall asleep alone. I have lived solo less than three years in my entire life. It’s hard. I ache for companionship.
I dream of a Christmas where I wake up next to the woman I love. Maybe she’s awake, maybe not. Either way, I tiptoe out and make coffee for us. I know exactly how she likes it. Maybe we drink it in bed, maybe we shift to a comfy couch, surrounded by blankets. Maybe she makes me muffins, you know, the ones with all the crazy hippie stuff in them she knows I like so much. Maybe we just snuggle and do puzzles together. Later a long walk — maybe a cross country ski? — a hot shower, more snuggling, maybe a nap. Then I make a proper Christmas dinner for us. Perhaps a grouse. Maybe venison. A whole fish? I do the dishes, and she serves us dessert by the fire, once again cocooned in the cozy, as the long night settles into us.
It is a daydream, a fantasy, a pleasant fiction. A scenario unlikely to happen anytime soon. Where will I be in a year? Probably here, probably solo. Changed, because another year will have passed, but still.
I walked, stewing on this, and then I saw something on the pavement. An inscription sunk into the concrete sidewalk; there are many dotted throughout this part of St. Paul. I stopped to read it.
What hurt you today
was taken out of your heart
by the meadowlark
who slipped the silver needle
of her song
in and out of the grey day
and mended what was torn.
I stood for a while, rereading it. Meadowlarks are not frequent visitors to Highland Park, but I had been saying hello to all the singing birds I’d met along my walk; I am known to do this. They rarely answer, except for the crows.
The whole way back home, several miles, I ran this poem through my head over and over. (When I returned, I found it’s by Margaret Hasse, a Dakota native living in Minnesota.) My courage, my reason, returned: Think about it, Hank: You are free to do as you wish today. Your life is your own. And even though you are physically solo, there are people who love you, who are probably thinking of you right at this moment. You have family who loves you, too, even though they may be distant and few. You live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood. You have a community of readers who find you useful, that most valuable of virtues. I literally counted my blessings as the miles clicked away. There are more than seven.
Paths worth traveling are rarely linear, and often long. They are filled with steep climbs that test us, and for every gentle hill there is a screaming cliff that leaves us as frightened as we are exhilarated the moment we step off it. And yes, there are long stretches of just… nothing.
Someday that Christmas dream will happen. I don’t know when. Maybe it’ll be years. And that’s OK. Because when it does, I will hold her a little closer, be a little more attentive, a little more thoughtful. A lot more grateful. And that’s worth the journey, don’t you think?
Merry Christmas, everyone. I am grateful for you, more than you know.
Merry Christmas Hank! You are a wonderful writer and we are grateful for you.
Hank, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about your feelings on this subject. So much has changed for you this year but it is clear from your writings that you are healing and most importantly looking forward with hope. Loss of an intimate friend- no matter the circumstances- is a soul shaking event but using your prodigious writing skills to address that pain has benefitted you and every reader. All the best in 2024. T