Notes from Maine - 2023/12/24

I’m thinking about having a taco party today. It might be a party for one, and that’s fine. My father used to come down and stay a couple of days around Christmas. The two of us would chop celery, onions, and potatoes to make the Christmas dinner a little easier to prepare. Back when I lived up in Belgrade, I used to cook for my grandparents. After they passed away and I moved down here, Dad and I moved the annual meal to this house. 

Christmas Eve caught us both off guard a number of times.

Sitting in the living room, my father would come to a realization.

“Say… Is Todd going to be here tomorrow?” 

“Yeah, Dad, he lives here,” I would say.

“Shoot. I didn’t get him anything.”

“That’s okay, Dad, he doesn’t expect you to. I’m sure he didn’t get you anything either.”

“Still…”

It was usually midday that he came to this epiphany. About that same time, I would realize that although I had been planning for Christmas dinner, I had given no thought to what we were going to eat for Christmas Eve. At some point, we started another tradition—we would get tacos and Dad would go to the bookstore to get Todd a book he would never read. Usually, Todd would go too and he would get my father a book that he would never read either. 

It was a good tradition.

I miss Christmas Eve tacos. 

So I was thinking of getting some later today. The dogs don’t get each other presents, nor do the horses, so I won’t have to stop at the bookstore. 

I’m happy to spend holidays alone. They feel like found days. Nothing is expected of me, aside from the usual chores, and I can’t go to the feed store even if I want to. I’m free to stay at home and work on whatever I want to work on. I’ll pick something that I’ve been putting off—a low priority project that doesn’t typically earn a spot on my list. The horses will get carrots and peppermint cookies. The dogs will get chew toys, which will change hands over and over. Finn will sit down with whatever bone is in front of him and chew for a few moments until it bores him. At that point, Albert will sneak in and whisk that bone away to find out why it was so enticing. Later, Finn will discover the bone that Albert abandoned and the process will start again.

I wonder if kids today feel the anticipation that I did when I was young. Birthdays and Christmases were magical opportunities to break the boring routine and get something new to play with. But nobody is ever bored anymore, so it doesn’t seem like there’s a monotony that needs breaking. Later in the day, if I have time, I’ll shake my fist at clouds and yell at people to get out of my yard. 

For all the waiting that I did when I was young (waiting to be able to drive, finish school, leave the house, etc.), I was terrible at it. Now I’m really, really good at waiting. At the dentist’s office, I won’t touch my phone. I like to sit perfectly still and look straight forward without blinking. I want to stay perfectly motionless for the ten minutes it takes for the hygienist to announce my name and then I like to look surprised, like I thought the wait would be longer. I’m sure they think I’m an enormous weirdo. They’re probably right. While I wait, I study the other patients in my peripheral vision. Constantly fidgeting and worrying over what they’re scrolling past on the phone, they occupy all their attention until the moment that they’re called. Obviously I scroll on my phone constantly too, I just choose to abstain when I’m waiting for something in public. It’s performance art, I guess. 

Maybe the thing that I’m bad at now is not waiting. When I don’t have anything on the immediate horizon, I’m not sure I make effective use of my time. I set artificial deadlines in order to feel pressure to finish things. I’m sure a lot of people have that same issue. 

It’s nice to have free time, but terrible to feel like I’ve squandered an opportunity.

This is as good a time as any to make a list of what I want to accomplish in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Priority Number One: Obtain Tacos for a Taco Party.