2006-12-23 - 11:29 p.m.
Well, welcome me to the 21st century (or is it the 22nd? I seem to have lost count)! This is so cool, here I am in the motel where I like to stay when I come up to my father�s (where I�ve come for Christmas), this is now the fourth time I have been here and each time I have brought my laptop, but until now I had never turned it on. I knew that the motel had WiFi, but I figured I needed a wireless card, so didn�t bother to check it out. However, after my November visit, I decided to go ahead and get busy and get my computer �wireless ready� and lo and behold, the iBook already had an Airport card in it. I had had it the whole time, dummy that I am. I had vaguely remembered when I ordered this computer opting out of some connectivity thing, but it ended up that what I had opted out of was Bluetooth; the Airport card, however, is a given.
So I love this, I simply put the computer on the table, turn it on, and voila, free wireless connectivity! And for some reason, this seems so much faster than my DSL line at home. Of course, I know there are systems faster than DSL (T1 lines, or whatever), so that must be it. But this makes me want to make my home network wireless, now. For one thing, I�d be able to use the laptop in bed, something I like to do, but I�ve had to forgo Internet connectivity over there because I am still wired. Why do I have a network at home? I have a Dell PC desktop and an Apple laptop, which share the DSL line, my All-In-One (color printer, scanner, copier, and fax), and my 350 GB network automatic back-up drive. They�re all connected via a Linksys router which is often a pain to deal with, as it is a static hound that every other day or so requires unplugging and plugging back in in order to work. I�d love to get rid of it...well, maybe 2007 is the year that I do.
My drive up here was quiet and pleasant, not much traffic, really, and most blessedly, VERY FEW TRUCKS! Interstate 5 has a 70 mph speed limit, but for trucks it is 55, 65, or something, not 70, and there are only two lanes, and the left lane is supposed to be used for passing, not steady 70 mph driving, which means that when there are trucks, you are forever having to change lanes in order to pass every truck you come up to. How nice it was this time to simply set the cruise control to 70 and sit back and enjoy. I didn�t even turn the stereo on, but enjoyed the absolute peace and quiet.
One thing odd, though, there were hardly any Christmas decorations. Well, I hadn�t expected much on I-5, which is all farmland, gas stations, fast food restaurants, and motels. But once I got off onto 580 and went through Tracy, Livermore, Oakland, the East Bay, Marin County, I expected lots of decorations. But no...only a few Christmas trees made of lights in front of a county library and a hospital, and there was ONE house in Oakland viewable from the freeway that was decorated to the nines, but that was about it. Well, Northern California is so liberal, I wondered if they banned Christmas altogether. That is one thing I will say about L.A., THEY DECORATE FOR CHRISTMAS!
On this drive up, I was thinking about what it is, and was, that makes Christmas memorable to me. What do I remember as a kid, and then when I was older? It�s interesting, that while PRESENTS seem to be a requirement as an underpinning, when all is said and done, the presents aren�t what are remembered at all. And yet, I don�t think you could do away with them, for if you took away the proton in the nucleus, the electrons would all disperse away.
I know that as kids we got incredible things, things that we all liked a lot, certainly, and yet so much of Christmas beforehand is that anticipation of what will be under the tree and what is in all those packages. You could dream endlessly over the mystery. And yet the real event of opening everything was, well, not really a let-down, but somewhat anti-climactic. The actuality NEVER equalled the dream, which may be true of all actualities in comparison to all dreams..
But there always was this magical atmosphere in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas--the crackling, fragrant fire in the fireplaces, the living room all darkened except for the sparkling colored lights of the Christmas tree, the Christmas music playing throughout the house, the baking of cookies or cracking open of nuts, the bright colors of the reflective gift wrapping and the abundantly curled ribbons and exciting gift tags with our own name on them, the misty chill in the air outside, the atmosphere of shopping at the Stanford Shopping Center, or in the little stores in Menlo Park, or in downtown San Francisco where the Salvation Army bell ringers would be on practically every corner (when I was in high school, I and some friends would take the train up to the city from our local Atherton Southern Pacific train station, an adventure just in itself). The day of Christmas Eve was just too much to bear, so Mom would drop us all off at a movie to help pass the time more quickly. By the time the movie was over, it would be dark outside. We�d always go out to dinner on Christmas Eve, and then afterwards take an extensive drive to see all the Christmas lights. There was one street in Palo Alto, temporarily christened �Santa Claus Lane� every year, in which every single house for block after block would be heavily decorated according to a unified winter wonderland theme. If just seeing that, and knowing that Santa Claus was going to come that night wasn�t enough to make you explode, nothing could!
Then when we got back home, we�d each be allowed to open just one present that we kids were giving each other, and then it was to bed...as if we could sleep!
I think there is something extremely real in that, whatever it is that goes on inside the heart, mind, and soul of a kid that night. If you could bottle it up or harness it, you�d have free energy for a lifetime. If you could record it, you�d have a sacred literature that would put to shame every Bible, Bhavagad Gita, Talmud, Koran, Tao Te Ching, or any other pale imitation of genuine spiritual REALITY. And it ISN�T materialism, greed, false belief in magic, or any other deplorable thing, but more that for one night every year, each child connects with the very engine of the Universe, like the huge wheels in the main Engine House that pulls all the hidden cables that run around under the streets of San Francisco and pull the Cable Cars up and down the steep hills. It is a visit to what is INSIDE all that is loving and giving and good and abundant. And it is the getting IN there that is real, the core, and what is important, not the outer surface of the resultant works. And so that is why that magic continued year after year even though externally it faded away halfway through December 25, because the true meaning of it all wasn�t the bicycle or the doll or the toy train or the Playstation (or the new car or the diamond ring), but that spirit of wanting, yearning, hoping, anticipating, appreciating, giving, loving, caring. These forces must be the human version of the hydrologic cycle of evaporation and rain, or, the carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange between plant and animal, or the Krebbs Cycle of metabolism, or, or, or any other scientific cycle of need, life, attraction, and mutual exchange. Is it true that every thing feeds off of every other thing, and this is not an expiring and a sacrifice, but a blessing and a covenant? The night our SAVIOR was born so that we have may have LIFE more ABUNDANTLY, and all that HE did, YOU can do, and MORE.
There�s a mystery there, that�s for sure, but every kid knows it and feels it in the deepest inner core of Self. Oh holy night. We ARE all a part of it. It�s not just one story, it�s everybody�s story. We need a little Christmas, and we need it now, and always.
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