So what is it about this so-called “holiday season” that seems to just pump up the anxiety?  I’m thinking that no matter which holiday is celebrated, what season or what religion or culture that is involved there is a time of increased expectations mixed with feelings of insufficiencies that produce days of distractedness and disappointment.

It is the production over many generations of what “should” be done, what would be “nice”, how we want to look for others.  The illusion of finances having anything to do with personal value is astounding.  It affects so much of our lives.  If we claim a different story, like no presents, no big dinner, no holiday, not even chinese food and a movie, there seems to be a ripple in the force of others that hold that “tradition” as a fierce flag of empty meaning.

Like fingernails on a chalk board, I recognize this day is not a harmonic, but an edgy jazz tone, blue notes, minor chords, dropped melodies.  Yet I receive the gift of a warm house, a laughing partner, and the choice to slowly begin the day again.