Christmas

Well, it's almost 1 pm, it's 80 degrees outside and I've already eaten multiple servings of a salmon avocado pasta which served to keep the leftover salmon and aging avocados from going to waste. I figure the tamales I brought home from a work potluck will last until tomorrow so I don't need to try and finish those today. I can't freeze them because the freezer is full of meats, frozen dim sum, pierogis, what have you all purchased in bulk on sale. And the overall carb load would likely induce a sugar rush food coma. Such is the state of my Christmas holiday.

At least I didn't have to work today. Juggling various part time jobs with one that has me on a 6 day work week on the swing shift during the holiday peak season has really disrupted my sleep schedule. As it was, I only slept through an entire night on my two days off each week and on the other days I've slept in staggered 2-4 hour naps throughout the day and I've managed to be functional. But I've made an effort to go to sleep earlier during the holidays and get more rest and I've actually been averaging more than nine hours a day. I imagine that going for decades on an average of only six (6) hours a night took its toll without my realizing it. 

I suppose that's as good a segue as any to describing my overall mood which is much the same as it was during the fall: contemplating changing seasons in my life going from autumn to winter with things being a little more poignant as we observed the winter solstice earlier this week. Recognizing that my body is continuing to... age (I vacillated between using the terms change and decay) prompts me to ponder what goals and expectations I've had that require reevaluating. But that can be postponed for a day. Today is the day we traditionally celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, even though the Bibilical account suggests that he was actually born in early spring, and due to a monk's error in tabulating the length of a certain Roman governor's time in office, it's actually 2028 instead of 2022 as Jesus was actually born in 6 B.C. I like to think so, because then the "star" that the wise men followed would have been the alignment of the moon, sun, Jupiter & Saturn within the constellation Aries. But I digress. From Luke chapter 2:

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”[d]

That last verse is worth contemplating. There's not a whole of peace going on. That would suggest that God's not particularly pleased with what's going on right now. 

Reacher

     Reacher is the name of a fictional character created by author Lee Child. Tom Cruise made a couple of movies portraying the character, but many fans of the novels objected that Cruise was not physically an appropriate match for the character's depicted size, etc. and Child, who has become successful by catering specifically to the tastes of his readership responded by selling the rights to make a video series to Amazon featuring this character. Season one of the series was released earlier this year. The main character Reacher is supposed to be about 6'5" & about 250 lbs. They cast well when they chose Alan Ritchson, but he had to gain 30 lbs in muscle for the part. But I digress. 

I've developed a habit of bookmarking specific scenes from movies, TV shows, etc, and rewatching these scenes from time to time. I've come to recognize that I'm motivated to do so because there's some sort of emotional harmonic resonance with something I'm carrying around but have yet to name and/or identify. 

There's such a scene I bookmarked in episode seven of season one. The scene is a flashback to when Reacher is still an adolescent living in Okinawa. His father is in the military and has been transferred to Germany under unusual circumstances and while packing, his mother says something to Reacher and his older brother:

"You look so confused right now. You see good people being punished and bad people getting what they want and don't understand why. I'm going to tell you something that won't make sense right now. Hopefully it will one day, when you're older."

"Joe, you don't need to solve all the world's problems. Solving some is more than enough."

"And Reacher, you have the strength of three boys your age. What are you going to do with that strength, hmm?"

"You're going to do what's right."

On her deathbed, their mother reveals that in that moment she recognized and was affirming the goodness that she saw in their natures.

As I continue to process through my mother's passing away, I can start to define a basic shape to a piece of baggage I still carry around in terms of how... unknown I felt in relation to my mother.  And I suspect that this is the kernel of my belief that who I was and what I was capable of accomplishing would always be obscured to my detriment, so this is going to be really not so fun to come to grips with.