Christmas 2005

Stacks of steam rise over the cityscape, lost angels hovering over the urban landscape. Lights in windows far away twinkle at me, watching behind my window. I wonder who is in there at this hour. Industry never sleeps. Someone is in there, creating, cleaning, or closing. Are they looking out their window back at me? Are they wondering who is behind that window? Who lives in a third floor flat near Lafayette Square?

If they could dive right into my space, what would they think? Off to the left I have my Christmas tree. I only turned it on three times; all three times when my daughter wanted to see it. Since she has returned home the tree has stood there, quietly, patiently, waiting to be illuminated. I moved it from one corner to the other, a little more out of eye sight. Now it is after Christmas and the tree knows its fate. It will not be illuminated again until next year. It will be stripped of its decorations, folded up neatly, and pressed into a box, and buried with other items that no longer serve their purpose.

In the space between our windows cold air settles gently over everything. It sits on tree branches, it glides past windows, and it binds the dark corners together, and whistles where no one can hear it. I press my face to the window and seep through and glide upward into that void. The stars come into clearer focus and draw me to them with their magnetism.

I wondered how it would feel, to be in the middle of that darkness that joins everything between it. Would your senses stretch out like a tendril into all things? Would you expand to fill the space and then know everything? Would it fill you with sorrow or exuberance or both? For a moment I am whipped between windows of people creating, cleaning, and closing.

The light in the window is switched off and the circuit is broken. I am back in my flat. I find the box for the tree, and lay it down. I take the decorations off and place them into their own boxes. This tree’s purpose was to entertain my daughter and now she has gone home. So I lay it down in the box, and shut the top, and place it behind old coats in my closet.