“One morning Lucinda received a message that the Mother wished to see her, so she walked over to the room, with the stunning view of the river and mountains, where the Saint usually sat. At a sign from Meera, everyone in the room other than Lucinda departed. The visitor sat at the feet of the […]
Continue reading“After a few minutes, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé sounded from the red-nosed Magnavox stereo. This music enthralled her. In it she heard the world awakening from its dark-night slumbers. The composer had somehow managed to eavesdrop on nature herself, so that he could audibly portray her first twinklings of dawning awareness, the hypnopompic images that […]
Continue reading“Christmas is family; it is a colorfully illuminated tree and a glowing plastic Santa; it is cards containing warm words and boxes containing hoped-for gifts. Christmas is mom carrying a tray of hot chocolate, a table spread with a pitcher of orange juice and a tray of oozing cherry turnovers; it is banter between siblings […]
Continue reading“The evocative, cherished sounds of the traditional Christmas music with which the children had grown up created the aural holiday mood every night. The albums themselves were the actual ones that had been played over the years: Mantovani, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Depending on when one was in the living room, […]
Continue reading“Another ritual the children anticipated with impatience was the trip to Lazarus, a large downtown department store in their hometown. The family rarely went downtown and the fact that this trip took place at nighttime added to its mystery and romance. A seventy-five-foot-high Christmas tree made out of silvered electric lights blazed across the front […]
Continue reading“On Christmas Eve, they took both cars to St. Dunstan’s for the candlelight ceremony that in the latter years had survived, with Easter, as the only occasions when any of the family attended church. Heavy snow fell as they drove, transforming the earth and its accretions in the celestial fashion that it often does. For […]
Continue reading“Supremely-anticipated Christmas Eve finally arrived. Snow fell that day and all the neighborhood kids gathered for snowball fights and snowman construction. He wore black-rubber boots with metal fittings that snapped in and locked tight, a heavy woolen coat, a knit scarf, and mittens that made it difficult to use his hands. When covered in snow […]
Continue reading“He watched with silent fascination as his mother opened the boxes containing the invocatory ceremonial utensils, as holy for him as any shining on a church’s altar. There was the small Christmas tree that one wound up and set spinning. As it rotated holiday music emerged from an internal mechanism, invisibly, as if by magic. […]
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