I recall a night in cold December 1980 after the trees had thrown down their leaves, breath steaming the air. Our large clan, seven in total, plus the canine and three cats, all looked forward especially to Christmas Eve, when a gigantic six foot Italian submarine sandwich, a full half foot in diameter, dominated the formica countertop in the kitchen. That evening, the seven humans, cousins and aunties, plus some of our close friends, would gather, sip, chew and jaw.
My mother’s sister, always dressed to the nines, with perfect makeup, filled the air with snarky, feminine chatter. The men talked about the teams and the players. I had my guitar out and was playing some Jim Croce and Gordon Lightfoot. A little something for everyone.
In the livingroom, my mom always went for a seven or eight foot blue spruce, with a dirt ball on the bottom. After the holidays, it would get dropped in the backyard near the cliff. Today, this tree is thirty feet tall!
Our tree was always draped in silver tinsel, with copious blinking red, green and white lights, festooned with an ornament hanging from every possible branch. Under the tree were something like 100 wrapped presents taking over the room slowly as others arrived.
What I remember most was the trip in the car, after the Hors d'oeuvre, when nearly every street in our town was lined with paper bags full of sand and a lit candle. Christmas eve was the night of the candelaria. The streets looked like runways to Heaven, the soft brown light of each bag made a scene simple and beautiful. Some of my siblings wanted to head home after a while, but I wanted it - then and now - to go on forever. “Just one more street,” I thought. In fact, after we headed home, I took the car and went back out. But by then, many of the bags had folded, candles out.
It was quiet and beautiful that December night. The air was cold but still soft. I was possessed of that sense of infinite promise, the grace held by the young. I had yet not had my soul tempered by the occasional ignorant cruelties offered by the hurt people we all encounter on our paths through life.
I thought about this scene the other day while out and about in my confused blue city. I had ventured out to a store to purchase vittles for my slinky Maine coon cat, Nala. The store was a mere three minutes away. I parked and walked to the door.
The energy was mechanical and unwelcoming. It was somewhat unkempt and slightly odorous, even though it was a major chain satellite store. It looked as if every restocking project was halted at some point by some undefined interruption. I found the vittle for the kittle and headed to the register.
While on the way, I had to side step a young woman with blue hair, who was slowly working on a box of restock, but not making much progress. I said, “excuse me” pleasantly, and she turned to look at me as if I was something unexpected and not welcome. It was not as if she was being mean, it was as if I was only partially there. As I got to the register, still sporting, like some bodega in the South Bronx, a wall of plastic between me and the clerk, I encountered the next one. This one too, had some thing off about him. His eyes lacked color, his face was mostly frozen of movement. A sparkless, unfeeling, unreacting intercourse ensued, devoid of even the most tiny fireflies of human feeling.
I felt completely separate from them. No brain waves coursed back and forth in the great mindstream. He lived in another realm.
His face was disturbing, like those pictures of the camps in Poland. The feeling of it reminded me of Edgar Cayce’s trip to the elevator, where he encountered four people standing motionless and with no soul. He stepped back and let the elevator pass. That elevator crashed on its way down and all of them died.
It was not until I was back in the car that I thought about the candelaria lining the streets on that December night, everyone glad to be together; a nest of human warmth exchanged and freely given. The contrast was afull, and in fact opposite.
It was then I realized how often I had seen this kind of dead interaction since Covid. It dawned on me that the souls of the two in the store were absent, and they were, like depressed hellbeings, going through their hell tasks, after all human feeling had fled them.
Have you seen this kind of thing? Let me know in the comments. And share with others and let’s see.
“Social Distancing” policies should go down among the most destructive policies inflicted on humanity.
A friend noted to me that in his visits to the Blue City, that he encounters numb people in the stores who do the absolute minimum.