Travelogue 1158 – 31 December
Echoes of Change

There have been only twenty-seven hours of sunlight here during the month of December. I have a pretty high tolerance for grey, but at last I find myself sinking beneath the unrelenting mood. This grey spell includes the longest streak since the 90s, eleven days without sun.

The gloom combines poorly with the swell of New Year’s sounds. I refer to the sound of fireworks. The cracking and booming do not communicate celebration under the unyielding clouds, but instead a kind of dread. The sounds assault the nerves. They seem violent; they remind one of war.

Losing Jimmy Carter at the end of a tough year, inheriting only the likes of Musk, it becomes hard to hold one’s head high. The low clouds are taunting us, reminding us we have been abandoned. When the crowds bowed to the orange idol, submitting voluntarily to the degradation of the “Trump Era” – the words feel dirty, - then the gods withdrew their favour. Sometimes children must experience the consequences of their decisions.

Searching the web for holiday activities, I noticed that local venues only published summertime photos. The change in seasons happens slowly so that we don’t grieve. But we evolved without photography. The contrast was too sudden for me; those photos drained my resolve. The clouds had stolen all the colour.

Travelogue 1157 – 27 December

The Tree Tries

Plastic trees have no roots. And yet, the roots of the living Christmas tree present the problem. They do not sustain the organism, and therefore the tradition. We have in the past kept our little, potted trees, replanted them and watered them, and still they do not survive until the next yuletide. How can the tradition survive when the living representative of it cannot?

Somehow, the inert green plastic we have erected in the place of a Christmas tree suffices. It does more than that; it triggers a sense of joy. This is the magic, I suppose, of the simulacrum. The actual and the breathing children singing at the base of the fake tree. My very real girls are changing year to year, and the family honours their maturing and also struggles with change itself, in acts such as this one, the raising the tree beside the bookshelves. We want tradition to stop time for just a moment. Step by step, we are losing our sweet little girls. Outside, the world we know is under attack by the unlikeliest revolutionaries in history. And for one week or two, we hang delicate ornaments from the stiff, plastic branches of our tree, in a ritual of familiarity.

The bleak weather holds. The sun I dreamt of two nights ago has not appeared. In that dream, I climbed three flights in order to find more sun but had to be content looking upon its light from within the shadow. We were attending an execution in that dream, an execution by guillotine. Oddly enough, the execution was scheduled to take place after a tennis tournament.

I write in the mornings before the family wakes. Sometimes I research into history, reading here or there, following links. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are favourite hunting grounds. Yesterday, after waking from that dream, I happened upon the story of the death of France’s Charles VIII. He was on his way to watch a game of tennis when he bashed his head against the top of a doorframe. It was April, in the first blush of spring. The plastic Christmas tree was well stowed away.

Travelogue 1156 – 26 December
The Sun Tries

We are on holiday. The sun has a chance to rise in peace. The Christmas tree stands in silhouette downstairs, its strings of lights switched off. The line of plushies underneath the tree stare vaguely from the shadows, taking form for the day ahead. The sky outside is becoming white.

Before the holiday, the sun has risen so late that we have been well along in our days. The flat has been abandoned by the time first light peeks in the window. And the choice of verb is just right, because the solstice sun is so timid. It has hidden behind mists all Christmas week. Light drizzles have fallen on us on every family excursion, though that has not stopped us from going out. Not has it stopped many other last-minute shoppers and families seeking some sweets for an afternoon.

We went for a plastic tree this year. It stands fully my height, which is a luxury for us. Without a car, we have been limited to potted trees that could be held in one’s lap on the Metro or gripped while cycling. The plastic tree came in a box with a handle. The girls fell upon the box immediately on its arrival home. They would not rest until the tree was assembled and every ornament or trimming hung. They even found precarious perches for their Christmas earrings. They did well; the tree is pretty. It stands proudly in its stance of tradition against change.

The sun shone in my last dream before waking. I encouraged us to climb to the third floor of the structure in my dream, hoping for more sunshine, but the structure itself put our faces into shadow, no matter how high we climbed. The land around us was bathed in warm sun light. That would have to do.

Travelogue 1155 – 6 December
Summer Furniture

Sinter Klaas has gone. As though in mourning, the skies above Rotterdam have released waves of showers that surged all night. This morning, the winds gust loudly. The roving air clings to night, seems to ward off day with its child-like caprice.

I’m as sad about the old man’s departure as the girls. For all I know, this may be the final time before he evaporates into the disillusionment of maturity. It may have been the last time I get to impersonate the fulfiller of dreams, the last time I get to sneak around in the early morning, leaving gifts. I feel grief.

There’s been a tune in my head, something from my childhood, an old Cat Stevens song I had forgotten about, a song I heard recently at a café, unexpectedly, randomly revived from deep memory. It opened a door in my mind, like opening an Egyptian tomb and releasing the air that preserved ancient things. The papyrus turns to dust instantly. I was flooded by impressions hearing the song at the café. Childhood was vividly present, and then it slowly sank back into its place under the desert.

I thought of my eldest brother. Somehow the song is linked to him in the crypt of memory. Long ago, I visited him when he went to university. We listened to music. He wanted to know what songs I liked. The lyrics of the song were mournful. I liked that.

As a child, I worshipped my big brothers. They were heroes; their characters were pure and good. In my teens, they let me down: they became human. We quarrelled. I was heart-broken, and I blamed them. I blamed them for years. I didn’t intend to, and I thought I was smarter than that, but the resentment settled into a section of the crypt for a long occupation. That there could be heroes was a keystone in the arch of my innocence. Nothing wounds us like our own innocence.

The night’s winds have blown through the open mezzanine and balconies of the complex, tipping over summer furniture, knocking plants over, sending empty flower pots and light plastic chairs skittering along the pavement. There will need to be some cleanup.