'Twas the Night Before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
was a maze of packing boxes, no room for a mouse.
No stockings were hung by the fire with care,
no tree, no lights; had the Grinch moved in here?

The movers would come in just a few weeks
so Christmas had taken a gloomy back seat.
As I lay in my bed, attempting to sleep
I suddenly sprang up and leapt to my feet.

I would go for a run and work this thing out,
I couldn’t let the Grinch fill me with doubt.
As my husband lay nestled all snug in our bed,
I pulled on my runners, grabbed a cap for my head.

Outside the moon shone lustrous and bright
and it lit up my way on this cold Christmas night.
I ran all the way down to the cove by the sea
and I couldn’t believe the view I did see.

Out on the bluff a strange sight did appear,
a jolly old elf with eight sturdy reindeer.
And nearby a sleigh, piled high with new toys
was ready to deliver to good girls and boys.

 

I shook my head slowly, wiped sleep from my eyes
but the vision remained, I’m telling no lies.
The jolly old elf was so lively and quick
and I thought to myself, could this be St. Nick?

He was chubby and plump, just like in the story
and I laughed when I saw him in all of his glory.
His eyes--how they twinkled! His nose like a cherry!
And he winked as he waved at me, gleeful and merry.

Then he chuckled and shouted, called his reindeer by name
and more fleeter than eagles on the wing they came.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle
and I was left dumbstruck as they flew like a thistle.

I still was in wonder as I made my way back
to my house which now stood with the moon at its back.
And way up above me, I heard a merry “ho ho ho!”
and in a blink of an eye, it started to snow.

Renewed with the spirit of Christmas and hope
I skipped back to my home, there was no time to mope.
And as I tiptoed back in to my mess of a hall
I knew this would be the merriest Christmas of all!

Wishing you all a magical Christmas!

The Time Traveler

 "There is something magical about running;

after a certain distance, it transcends the body.

Then a bit further, it transcends the mind.

A bit further yet, and what you have before you,

laid bare, is the soul."

- Kristin Armstrong, Writer and Runner

I love the way each and every run takes you on a different journey. Like today, for example, I had been running for about 25 minutes and found myself in my old neighborhood of Eagle Harbour. By this time I was deep in “the zone” when I saw my mom. She was walking towards me, brown leaves falling all around her and she was smiling.  We didn’t speak, or embrace, but our breath mingled and hung in the air. Time stopped, somehow, and an unspoken conversation was had in that moment. The message I got from her was “yes” and now as I sit at my desk thinking back on that moment, I’m wondering what “yes” actually means.

You see my mom has been dead for 33 years. The anniversary of her death is approaching...December 11th...which might be one of the reasons she is on my mind. She died of pancreatic cancer when she was just 40-years young and I was 18. Her death was quite sudden on the grand scale of things...7 months from diagnosis to death...and left a huge, terrible abyss in our family life which I still struggle with 33 years later.

It’s not unusual for me to see her ghost from time to time, but today’s encounter was more like a trip back to a different time passage...back to 1978, before she died. Maybe it was because the moon was full last night, or maybe it was because I was so deep in the zone that the echoes of the past simply drew me back. But still I wonder, is it my thoughts that bring her back, or is there something back here she left behind? 

Now I’m not one to live in the past, life is too short for that, but wouldn’t it be something if we could “travel back” to a different time passage when ever we wanted or needed to. If you could somehow slow the beat of your mind and find yourself sitting across from auntie Madge, who passed on some time ago, sharing a pot of tea and swapping stories. Would life be any easier? Would we find inner peace?

There have been times when I’ve gone through sticky patches, alone, and I’ve searched for her to guide me through. You could say that I’ve continued to lean on her all these years even though she’s in another time passage. But my “moments” with her are always on her terms, not mine, and even though I know she is “there” somewhere, she is always the one that chooses the moment to show herself and surprisingly it’s not always when I am at the end of my rope or dealing with some dramatic event in my life. When I really think about the times that I’ve seen her or felt her presence, it’s usually after a storm has passed, not during it. Maybe the lesson here is that there are no shortcuts in life and though the road is well traveled by those before us, we need to experience each and every step on our own solo journey and to weather a few storms along the way in order to grow as human beings.

Afterward, I think of much I could have said, but didn’t. Words are not needed. It’s the energy of her presence that I am left with and the positive conveyance of her message. Somehow, the changes I am going through now in my life must be good. And it’s comforting to know that I am never really completely alone, she will always be there, just out of sight, in another time passage.

I miss you mom.

 Marjory Atkinson

August 24, 1938 - December 11, 1978