Slacker Santa

I have been remiss in my daily chores. Some catching up to do.

From Santa-morphisis, Dec 25—Dec 31, 2001

Dec 25, 2001

I said I would write all day and I did not. How could I when . . . well, no excuses. Memorable pictures:

Joy’s great smile and loving words.
Anthony’s face, making visual music.
The normally grumpy people smiling.
The usually grumpy being OK.
The sometimes grumpy being a little grumpy, then smiling.
The always angelic at their angelic best.
The generous, the all so generous.
My feisty friend Scotty being his feisty, though merry, self.

It is evening. Santa has gone dormant. Only New Year's remains.

Dec 26, 2001

Mary and I have taken to sleeping in this week. Rousing slowly with coffee, books, and TV movies. It has been a long time since I stayed upstairs until after eleven in the morning.

Walked with Mom today. Visited with others at her place.

To The Tea House. Walked around the new square. Back home for reading. Tim O’Brien’s Tomcat in Love.

Candies and cordials with Joy, Pat, Raina, Jeffrey, and Robin. Then poker. Seven people playing poker. Maybe three actually know how. Dumped a bunch of change on the table and we all dug in.

Santa is melting away. All that is left is the beard, and . . . Remembering how kindness works. Just say kind things, do kind things. Redefine and refine love over a lifetime.

December 27, 28, & 29, 2001

Trimming my beard I asked my self, OK, who are you now? In some ways I still think I am Santa Clause but mostly I think I am not, at least until next year. People still call me Santa out there, on the golf course, at my Mother’s place.

Mary and I have enjoyed sleeping in. It is almost eleven and I am just getting to this. Finished Tomcat in Love, fourth novel by Tim O’Brien for me. A funny, funny book.

This is the year of September Eleventh. The economy is bad, worse than it has been in maybe a decade or more. People are losing sleep. People are depressed.

Dec 30, 2001

When did Santa Claus begin? When was he born? I think it was November tenth, after a few days of beard growth, whimsically seeing myself in a red suit, with fluted white French cuffs and some sort of fancy white lapels. I think I thought of doing this last year but did not do anything. Nobody writes anything in their mind, nobody designs anything in their mind, either. Sit down and draw. Or buy a pattern and see a tailor.

Dec 31, 2001

Significant beginnings to the past year: By January I was making monthly trips to Florida to help my sisters take care of Mom, working with Mary on ad projects, and playing a lot of golf the rest of the time. Now Mom is in assisted living, a mile or two from my house. My sisters visit regularly.

Went to Mom’s with Mary. As we walked Mom around the building, she slipped from my grip on her gait belt and fell half-way to the floor attempting to sit in her wheel chair. She assured me she was not hurt.

Came home to a nice family, kidding around, lots of that. Warmed it all up with a fire from wood I collected myself about a year ago at the golf course.

Look at Santa, driving the beverage cart with a wreath on front, across the golf course, selling soft drinks, beer, and snacks. Part of the landscape of Christmas, at least around here. There he goes at the big country club party. Taking pictures with everybody. There he goes to the day care centers, the old folks home, the mall with his son and friends, the UPS store, the company parties, the exercise group party. There he is sitting in his front yard waving at passersby. At the convenience store hugging everybody, including the man on the ladder changing a light bulb. Calling Mellow Mushroom for a pizza for Santa and picking it up. “I told you! I told you he would come! I knew it was Santa on the phone!”

There you have it; dancing with hundred-year-old women, ninety, eighty. And dancing with my mother down the hall with her walker and gait belt in place. And dancing and playing as if my heart has never been broken, like I don’t need the money, like nobody is watching. (The “like nobody is watching” part is hard to pull off when you’re in a Santa suit.)