|
Over the winter solstice holidays many are moved to press squeegee and sponge to the frosted windowsills of myth and magic. These are shorter days when human energies will by nature clutch less assuredly to the speedy wheels of modern living and hover down slowly before certain otherworldly anticipations, imaginations, and desires.
December's evening air grows crisper with that elfin toe-nipper Jack Frost, and Father Time, for his part, slows with sickle and hourglass the seasonal fog of our minds. Even the dazzling though treacherous Snow Queen of the Danes, thought to be as beautiful as ice crystals, now descends secretly in blizzards sent from the arctic to seduce all world-weary travelers like a siren of winter.
Yet in whose heart of hearts do the heavy imprints of Santa Claus not still linger? That is, once stripped of the tiresome realism and cynicism that seems to accompany this undiagnosed malady we call "adulthood." Surely the spirit of fondest first remembrance still clings faithfully to the softest quilt of the soul? Does not that sweet whiff of morning pine still resonate like stardust through our primal senses? Brothers and Sisters, why not make some peace with it? The world's splendid underside still delights in these oven-fresh cinnamon pies of innocent wonder!
Longer nights and shorter days surely do aid in the great undressing -that is, of our misplaced 'grownup complex'. The "I-know-better-than-to-feel-this-urge-to-weep" emotion that, contrary to our deeper instinct, we try to dispel as mere puerile sentiment. How else to explain the miserable epidemic of aborted cheer we call "Holiday Blues"?
A solstice darkened by denial. The 'Glorious Day' of Christmas comes and goes now for so many without so much as a single tear dropped to mark the tragic failure of Santa's return. But Santa has not come again, as promised. Forever our collective belief in magic resides in the frozen angst of waiting. One need only search one's own soul.
Try to deny it, but a certain primary shame accompanies this sad travesty to all that is fundamentally good; it numbs even the dry handsome noses of Prancer and poor Rudolph. Though no one dares speak of it, the abandonment we feel is of mythic proportions. In fact, it marks the very death of myth in this barren age. The corrupted tale is stranger to no one:
Tender pre-egos left behind, indeed, abandoned (on their road to object constancy), by no other than The Great Golden Beard of the Fragrant Spruce-a fate so cruel that even decades later all hope of mystical union with an altruistic benefactor remains buried beneath sharp icicles and impenetrable permafrost. We no longer believe in Santa Claus.
Tragically, The Grandfather for whom a full year we are good remains unaccounted for. Does he no longer care? Has he moved on to better things? One simply shivers in the face of it, unless, far colder still, one has fallen victim to the bluest of all modernist revelations: SANTA CLAUS IS DEAD. There, I said it.
It is the one unspoken truth that unites all modern adults in their suffering. Experience has taught us not simply the loss of innocence, but far more demoralizing, the loss of relevance accorded a compassionate and playful emissary of love. He is a lie, he is a big fat lie (experience has shown), which curiously and reflexively we ourselves conspire to re-invigorate like some traumatized Stockholm Syndrome victim of "kidnapping" who now identifies with the unconscionable mission of his own perpetrator. And to think… we perpetuate this crime of deceit to those most precious and dear to us, our own children.
How we still live with ourselves in this cross-generational cycle of sacrilege explains the modern proliferation of that four-lettered, guilt-sourced, substitute-Santa we surreptitiously call: The Mall. Let's admit the ugly truth now, America: Santa Claus is Dead and (to add insult to injury) in his beloved place We Have Been Malled! (Would it be more honest to call it "The Maul?"). Regardless, we must now come to terms with this mushrooming aberration.
Recent aerial photographs of the North American continent confirm this appalling phenomenon beyond a shadow of a doubt. Thirsty shoppers expand outwards on mall lot floors in geometric progressions like self-spawning manic desert ants in Nike running shoes. Subliminal cues entrained within Bing Crosby's timeless voice now croon through the pipes in seven-minute intervals alternating with The Mormon Tabernacle Choir; they induce us to adrenaline states of unabashed purchase-fervor. A sheer frenzy of neurotic compensation.
In this age of consumption, 'gifting economics' has replaced the Mystery of Chimneys. Elected officials implore us to "get out and shop" as a matter of civic duty. Reindeer have been Bulwinkled, much as Elves are enshrined with Elvises. The writing is on the multiplex wall: Big Red Is Dead. He was replaced in the night by an opiate of the masses. The fallout is incalculable.
Long ago, when the Flat Earth paradigm was scientifically eclipsed, sure there was some initial unhappiness, adjustments in cosmic perception were needed, etc.-- but these paradigm-assaults pale by comparison to the realization of Big Dead Red.
When newly discovered continents were named for Amerigo Vespucci (The Wino), and local red-skinned peoples were mistakenly thought fluent in Sanskrit, such initial misattributions were eventually realized, corrected, and later integrated into a more cogent and factual worldview. The point is we moved on. We came to terms with it. We moved forward. We dealt with it. If only our current idiocies were so easily redressed. But surrogate shopping malls posturing as the Spirit of Christmas? The thought is absurd if not repugnant, and until recently, unthinkable.
Perhaps even more curious today is the extraordinary resiliency of what charitably has been called "false memory syndrome." How we clutch desperately, say the doctors, to the memory of what never really happened in our kitten years, but to what we profoundly wished had happened, or feared could happen. "Now emanating from the planet's northernmost pole," we are programmed from our first cognitive "December moment" onward (and yes, every person taller than a yard embraced it to the bone)--"Santa Claus is coming tonight!" Wowww! Just imagine it. He even knows where we live! And he cares about me! Me! He would descend tonight from the northern skies by flying-sled and reindeer to land with perfect prescient accuracy-- through our chimney shafts-- and down into our very own living rooms bearing wondrous gifts.
This was pure religious experience. What more could one ask for? And who better than a red-suited, pink-cheeked, bellowing, soup and cookie snacking, white-haired fat-guy-with-a-beard to deliver this most marvelous and fantastic miracle of all! Yes, we believed. Of course we believed, my friends, in our sweet beloved Santa.
And we continued to believe, even as the years rolled on and we suspected things were perhaps not as they seemed. We believed in a special portal of our souls, even as Santa's choice in toys did not exactly correspond to our own. Our faith was the innocence and wonderment of divine magic, and so the myth survived, and survives even today--that is, if we were mature enough in mind and spirit to again contact that living portal now buried so deeply beneath the shopping centers of our minds.
Because we remain injured children pretending to be adults who no longer believe-- we are, in consequence, mythically-conflicted humbugs back-pedaling before the reality of primary magic. Because, in truth, we still have access to the forgotten sanctum yet fear the cost of its re-entry--sadly, I daresay tragically, every year we lunge forward to flex our massive muscles of denial to pull the red-striped ties and dappled reindeer scarves ever tighter around our fattened necks in feeble attempts to shed not a tear. They being those long salty tears of Christmas.
But the mythic realm is real as antlers and mistletoe. Though we feel abandoned by the true Saint of Snow, He indeed lives within us (if only we had the courage to unshovel him). We were never betrayed by Santa Claus, not really, but by ourselves when we lost our faith in the real world of myth and magic. Thus we now compensate in our mad dash to the desecrated graveyards of Christmas Past to empty our embarrassed wallets in penance for disbelieving. Oh dear Santa, won't you ever rise again? Say, what's that crooning I hear in the pipes?
Art Rosengarten
|
|
