By Charlotte K. Jarmy
Suddenly, I am in an old Western movie, and the wagons are circling around me. The sinister evil in this scenario is Time. We are barreling toward 2006, and I am being undone by the relentless turning of the pages of my two calendars. I need to take a deep breath and remind myself, “Charlotte, you are in control here.” I am?
There are holiday cards to be written, but I haven’t yet created the yearly letter that goes into each envelope. Unfortunately, I have put myself on deadline to finish this column and say something worth saying. I refuse to rant and rave about 2005 and its lunatic flood plus an earthquake that created images of dead bodies floating in muddy water. The sad faces of all those children remain with me.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells.” Maybe if I sing that song the world would stop spinning. We took “The Polar Express” all the way to the end, but I still can’t believe in jolly Saint Nick rushing around the skies, choking on all the cookies left for him near the fireplaces. Don’t they know he has to take that little blue pill to quiet the rumbling in his belly? Poor Santa!
It’s quiet in the house now. What next? Where are the gardeners? They’re hiding under all the yellow leaves blowing down from my neighbor’s tree. Pretty soon the friendly housecleaner and his unmerry female helper will enter and force me to keep moving from room to room to avoid their dust cloths and the noisy vacuum. I’ll have to say, “Buenas días,” because I’m reluctantly studying Spanish with Howard, an ambitious student, who sits in front of his computer repeating words that I’ll be hearing the rest of the day. It’s almost noon and we’ll stop to watch the Charlie Rose program. Will he have some handsome actor hoping to explain that he really did kiss the other actor in “Brokeback Mountain”?
In early January I will buckle down to teach a writing class to a lively group of adult students who expect me to turn them into Frank McCourt. Why Frank McCourt, you ask? Because I am in love with the wit and skill of this man who wrote about teaching New York kids for 38 years. That’s why. He is pulling me, protesting all the way, that “I can’t write another book until I sell more of my current book (”Reflections: A Columnist’s Journey Through Time”). That was sneaky of me slipping in my title, wasn’t it? Anyhow, I may write to McCourt and ask how he remembered the names of all those kids. When I write my book about teaching, I’ll have to make up names because “those kids” from my 20 years of teaching are getting older every day. They are the last of the Baby Boomers, they and won’t turn 60 for a few more years.
The man in the moon played a trick on us this year. You may have noticed that Hanukkah, a lunar holiday, and Christmas bump into each other, both starting on Dec. 25. Oh Lord, there’s another trick of old Father Time: I haven’t wrapped one gift yet. Perhaps this year, I’ll find that I bought too many gifts and need more people to make up my list. No thanks, you don’t have to volunteer.
What can one say about another year with serious problems like Iraq, the looming business of putting taxes in order and the melding of Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Kwanzaa? What a perfect way to end this column. May we all have a peaceful holiday and a better year in 2006. Oh, no, the wagons are still circling around me!
