Christmas Displaced
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink
the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
Anna sighed in relief as she finally settled into her island
home. She had waited too long in the day on December 24th to seek out her
transportation back and had to find a motel in Midland because of the Christmas holiday. The
motel had a diner and she had ordered Christmas dinner and watched A Christmas
Carol on TV with a sparsely populated crew of truckers. Then she had retired to
her room and scrolled through social media on her phone care of the very
unpredictable wifi connection. She hadn’t worried about being lonely on Bear Island
but the detour had been unpredictably depressing, and she was very glad to be
home on December 27th.
Anna would simply celebrate her solitary holiday a few days
late. She baked cookies the first day and a small chicken the next to have with
mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and a bit of gravy. It was a vast improvement
on the diner turkey meal, which she suspected was a frozen dinner slid onto a
nicer plate. Her cousin, who co-owned an amazing little diner in Saskatchewan , would have
been appalled.
As Anna got into her tin of cookies after supper she looked
outside towards the abode of the other resident of the island. She still hadn’t
met the guy who’d left a note on her door and kindly closed it. It was
becoming slightly absurd and she worried perhaps a little rude on her part. She
took out a smaller container and put a little gift of cookies inside and then
snapped the lid on before sticking a little bow on it. She dug around for a
card and scrawled a greeting after a few moments deliberation. Did she say
Merry Christmas? What if he didn’t celebrate it? And technically the holiday
itself had passed because of her delay. Finally she just went with “All the
best! From Your Neighbour Anna (Because the squirrels are, in fact, terrible at
baking)”
With a little chuckle she pulled on her parka and stepped
into her boots and began her trek through the woods. Anna pulled off her mitt
and raised her hand to knock on her neighbour’s door and then got hit by a sudden
wave of crippling shyness. Stealthily she placed the baking in front of the
door and backed away into the darkness. Her footprints in the snow were the
only evidence of her attempts aside from the small Tupperware container of
shortbread.
Comments
Post a Comment