hold me closer, Tony Danza

This year, I think I'm really going to feel Christmas in my bones, and not let it pass me by.

I've been listening to lots of good music, mostly the Postal Service lately, cranked loud enough to deafen me in my still-wearing-an-old-starter troops. I feel like a little gay boy, like all I need is a white Jetta and to be cruising around some metro some where, answering a vibrating cell phone and smoking menthol cigarettes. But I've also been listening to James Blunt, who kind of sounds like elton john and t-rex's love child, in the best way possible. And I listened to that one song I hate this morning, the one about "goodbye my lover" or some such trash, and I didn't hate it at all. I even sang along. And speaking of singing along, I bought Rachmaninov's Vespers and have been listening to Bogoroditse Devo at all levels of volume, remembering when Katie was alive and we all sang it together and you could palpably feel the Spirit of God descending on us all.

I got really scared last Sunday when I thought about Miss Kobelski for a minute and couldn't remember what she looked like. It almost made me cry, I think if I had been a crier I would have. I don't want to forget what she looks like, ever. I want to remember every little detail about her face and hugs and voice and how she walked and her laugh and the way she died. But already how her hair was cut and very specific things get fuzzy in my mind, and it makes me a little sick.

***

At the moment when you stop holding on to things is sometimes the right moment for you to let them go, or the right moment for them to come back to you. And you can never really tell which one it is until after you've stopped holding, and it all actually happens. But I am okay with taking it as it comes for a while, and seeing what happens. What happens with work, and Buddy, and my car, and Mr. Reilly. It's all good to me.