Clara's Window

Just a quick note from the road to wish everybody a merry Christmas! And for those who don't celebrate it, I hope you at least can benefit from some time off to relax and play with yarn.

I absolutely adore Christmas—the lights and the music and the wonderful foods and thoughtful traditions—although I must confess it also tugs at the ol' emotional heartstrings a bit. So it's wonderful but difficult at the same time. It's easy to get drawn down memory lane, thinking about what was and what wasn't, what you have and what you don't, who you thought you'd be by now and who you really are, those you loved and celebrated with in the past who are no longer here today.

Then you have a wake-up call that brings you back to the present, which happened tonight. We were driving around Boston looking at lights. Halfway down a narrow street, my brother slowed to give some people extra space to get out of their parked car safely. We got up to the top of the street and he screeched to a halt, spotting a speeding car crossing through the intersection against the red light. Had he not stopped for those people earlier on the street, we would've been directly in that car's path.

I sometimes wonder how many of these near misses we have every day without knowing it. And I wonder what finally tips the scale and causes an event to happen. Is there even a cosmic cause and effect to things, or do they just happen totally at random? I don't know. And it's too late tonight for me to come up with an intelligent answer to that question. But that's what I'm thinking about as I prepare to log out and go to bed. Hopefully visions of sugar plum fairies will replace the shadows, and all will be well in the world.

I wish you all a warm day of goodness—laughter, love, kindness, good food, and perhaps a knitting-related gift or two under the tree.