Over the Fields We Go
It's December in Maine and my daughters and I cut our Christmas tree down this year. If you know me at all, you know we've had a little *trouble* in years past; years when it wasn't even 2020.
Except this year, I was prepared. We had plenty of daylight, and I brought my own saw. I even brought extra twine to lash the tree down nice and tight. Because this time, we were an hour away and I couldn’t risk another tree trying to make a run for it.
It was an unseasonably warm day for the end of November, and the tree farm owners let us bring our pup to walk their beautiful property. It was outlined by sprawling rock walls and a long reaching brook that fed into a pond. With over a hundred woodland acres, you could walk off the edge of their land and on to a trail that takes you all the way to Canada.
For those of us who had just watched Little Women for the third time, it felt peaceful. Magical. Maybe even perfect.
We needed this.
We looked out over the field -- a sea of conical spheres -- and I felt certain that, this year, we'd find our tree quickly and with ease.
"This is the most beautiful place I've ever seen," said my eldest, running through the pines, racing our dog to the edge of the brook. Now 16 and taller than me, she possessed a childlike wonder that day.
Meanwhile my youngest, at 14, is the embodiment of the holiday season. Her enchantment with it is almost fabled with the countdown beginning in early fall, and it's not unusual for her to utter "I miss Christmas" while at the beach in July. I find her enthusiasm unparalleled for the giving and receiving, for anything resembling a winter wonderland, and even for the shorter days marked by less sunlight.
If Hygge were a liquid, you’d find it running through her veins.
Everything about the Christmas season is the stuff of which her childhood dreams are made.
I breathed in the fresh scent of the pine forest and followed my daughters, sunlight spilling over the edges of their dark forms, the outlines of their hair gleaming like spun gold. I felt at that moment what can only be described as contentment. Maybe even joy. I felt it in the smile spreading across my face. I felt it in the center of my chest.
An unclenching.
It's been a hard year. For everybody. The impact of COVID-19 and its varying degrees of lockdown are something we collectively share. And then it seems, piled on top, there’s the personal wreckage. Loved ones lost, divorce rates up, businesses shuttered. For many, the life circumstances they once knew have been replaced by loneliness and anxiety, isolation and depression.
My inventory feels a bit long to tabulate, but the items perhaps underlined with a Sharpie are not one, but two frozen shoulders which led to a drawn out diagnosis of Lyme disease, lying with our sweet dog under the apple tree as our veterinarian sent her spirit bounding into the cosmos, and a few days later, my fiancé suddenly packing a duffel -- and driving off into the sunset.
And that was May and June.
So, this feeling, the unwinding of my nervous system as I walked down into that field, that I began to feel in my body on that sun soaked day, it was so welcome. Like a warm and fragrant cup of coffee, filled almost to the brim. I was simply craving ordinary fun, unexceptional adventure, time in nature with my kids on a beautiful day.
It didn't seem too tall an order.
As we reached the first stand of trees, my eldest pointed to one of the closest and said, "How 'bout this?" To say she's generally unsentimental about the cutting of the Christmas tree is a gross understatement. So I glanced over at my youngest and observed her squinting her eyes, measuring it up.
"No," she replied, moving on from where we were standing.
I shrugged and followed, and we came across another. "How about this guy?" my eldest asked. "He's cute."
I glanced at my youngest. "Are you joking?" she asked. "It's awful."
I felt my shoulders drop half a centimeter.
"Okay," I said. "Let's keep looking."
And yet -- it was rinse and repeat.
This one?
No.
Okay, this one?
No.
Eldest teen was pissed. I remained hopeful. Youngest had grown quiet outside of her staccato responses.
We finally settled on a tall beauty, so I asked and then asked again, "Are we sure? This is the one? Everyone happy?" and was met with nods of yes, all good, and other mild niceties. I cut it down without incident -- ‘twas a friggin’ Christmas miracle -- and the farm owner ran it up to our car and soon we were making our way home, the sound of music filling the space in between the silence.
For the most part, it was an hour filled with warmth and laughter with only a slight chill coming from the back seat. I looked in the rearview mirror to see my youngest, her gaze focused outward on the skyline. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine.
Sigh.
Can we just do this one simple thing? I thought to myself. Can one tiny thing go smoothly this year?
Once home, we carried the tree inside, stood it in its base, and the three of us slowly backed away to take in the view.
Goddamnit.
The tree was... well... a bit gaunt. And maybe skimpy on branches? Was it short? I couldn’t quite determine what it was, but it looked skinny and sad and naked. It looked like it missed the farm.
(To be clear, the fact that the tree fit inside the car should have been my first clue. But we've been over this in my personal blog posts, the cutting down part is NOT MY SPECIALTY.)
I turned to look at my youngest, so tenderhearted, who so diligently wrote out a Christmas checklist, who had a running holiday movie lineup in her head, and who, for weeks, had methodically planned out the gifts she would give to her family.
She pins so much hope on this season.
She turned quickly to go upstairs, where I heard a door close loudly and a thump on the floor overhead. Message received.
My thumb naturally reached out, a nervous habit, to twirl the ring on my finger before it remembered, only a slight imprint remains.
Sigh.
Eldest teen broke my thought with, "Mom, no tree was going to meet the standards."
She's right, I realized, and I could feel something behind my heart, like a rubber band pulled taut, and the heat rising up from my body and into my cheeks. A wave of anger, so accumulative, started building inside of me.
Because a beautiful bucolic scene is not going to ‘make’ your holidays. Your day. A terrible year. For any of us. It's not going to make up for the remote learning at home, for the constant barrage of COVID coverage, and election reports. For the number of cases rising, for small businesses closing. For the loss of income, the loss of sharing a meal with a friend or celebrating a birthday with a grandparent.
For all the parts that have topped over like dominoes.
This. has. been. hard.
And yet still — here we stand.
So, for a moment after this thought, this flooding, I took it personally and was therefore profoundly irritated.
it's JUST A TREE...
you get what you get...
do you know how lucky we are?...
I marched up to her bedroom, knocked on the door, ready to right what I'd perceived to be her wrong and she opened it, her eyes red and sniffles aplenty. Her tall lanky body crumbled into mine, and I held her there for a long while. And I was reminded.
Reminded that this kid was simply seeking out the beauty and comfort that I sought out that very morning. She was mining this one experience for normalcy, for joy. For relief.
For something that felt foolproof in a time of frailty.
"I'm a horrible person,” she whispered into my shoulder, and the ensuing sobs echoed off the ceiling while her shoulders gently shuddered in my arms. This had nothing to do with the Christmas tree, I knew, and everything to do with the lack of available traditions, the lack of closeness that usually comes with community. And from the empty spaces within our family. I felt a swell of compassion, another loosening of tension, as it seeped into my chest.
Compassion for her -- and also for me. I’m missing it, too.
"You are not a horrible person," I said.
She looked at me.
"You’re not," I said. "I think you’re seeking a way to control something — which is a pretty normal response in a really abnormal year.”
She smiled.
"I just wanted this to be a good Christmas," she said, wiping her tears. And I understood. I hugged her tightly and whispered, "Despite it all, it already is."
And so we catalogued, like a million times already this year, the many things for which we are grateful. Our warm and toasty home. Our four-legged floofs. FaceTiming with friends. The many ways we can enjoy the outdoors.
Soon we made our way downstairs to light the tree and decorate its branches. And as we stepped back to inspect our work, my youngest said, "I’m going to call him Tiny Tim. He was a little bit broken, and he needed a home -- and I think we needed him."
And truth be told, once Tim was dressed (and pruned), he really was a sight to behold.
There’s no sugarcoating it, it’s been a tough year for so many. For me, I’ve given up on planning. On forecasting. I’ve given up on anything close to perfection. I know that now. Co-authoring the Take Two Journal triggered some of my deepest insecurities like the desire to have my voice heard but to do so without being seen, without showing any imperfections or flaws.
And yet the Journal was released during a period of deep grief and physical pain and so the questions started swirling.
Who am I to guide someone through a challenging time?
Who am I to help someone heal their discomfort?
And yet there’s the rub — to be human is to experience both/and.
Because the work we share in the Journal, it’s an ongoing process. It doesn’t solve problems, it provides framework for the parts that feel hard. It’s not a dredging of your stories, it’s a filtering. It lends a name to your feelings — to the clenching and unfolding, to the sorrow and joy — and gives those feelings a purpose. Because if there’s one thing we’ve all learned, it’s that when experiencing a challenge or the deepest of sorrows, the only way out is through. And the only way to do this is with compassion for others, and also for yourself.
I can grieve the death of my dog and the loss of a relationship, and I can also lend kindness to a friend. I can expose my tender parts and still be someone who shows up to witness the tenderness in another — for it’s through sharing, and shared experience, that we create intimacy and connection.
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Wishing you all a happy 2021 with more kindness, more inclusiveness. More laughter.
With more unclenching.
xo Ellen
Take Two: A Journal for New Beginnings offers you seasonal journal prompts and a 28 Day Resilience Program to guide you through a process of reflection, self-compassion, and manifestation.
Published by Chronicle Books.