The Littlest Things

How is it possible to feel one single hair on your elbow? How is this Christmas ornament still with us?

I have a CSA share and they’ve sent some stalks of brussel sprouts recently, small green globes on a big stalk. They’re so pretty I actually take pictures of them, and when it comes time to cook them, it’s always sad to dismantle the art mother nature made.

As I sat down to write this post, I felt a strand of hair on my elbow. I couldn’t find it by looking, you know how you have to grab the air and finally snag it? It struck me as astonishing that I could feel it, that almost nothing bit of hair, and it wouldn’t matter where it landed—hand or ankle or across my nose, I’d still feel it because we have so many nerves. Amazing.

This ornament is at least 50 years old. It’s glass and I feel like I’m cursing it a little by mentioning that it has survived for decades. I remember it hanging on my grandmother’s tree, and then she gave me it to me along with a bunch of others when I got married. Only one other has lasted. It’s made of plastic, so it will probably still be floating around a hundred years from now.

This one, though. I’ve always loved the stars and comets on it, the blue background. I painted it with gel medium when I took it out of the box here to try to save it from flaking any further, and hung it tightly on a branch, bending the wire around twice to make sure it won’t fall off. I try not to be too attached. As Seneca (or maybe the Buddha) said, “the cup is already broken.”

For now, it gives me pleasure, hanging in my new house, as it did in the many iterations of my grandmother’s trees. It hung on the live pines we drug in when the kids were small. It shimmered in place, comet shooting out into the sky, while we made cookies and decorated them, while we opened presents and played games sang along to Christmas radio.

Like so many of us, I have a few issues around Christmas. My first marriage fell apart right at Christmastime, and for years something about strings of lights sparkling against the night made my skin feel like I’d fallen in a cactus and was covered with invisible, painful spikes. That first year, I couldn’t stand the old traditions, couldn’t bear to go to a Christmas tree lot alone (there is a scene in Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue that comes directly from this moment), not even taking out the old ornaments. I bought a fake tree, chile pepper lights and red balls and that was that.

After a time, I fell in love again. Things got better. I moved back to my hometown. I started enjoying the rituals of the holiday again.

Life, however, never just shines. My father died a few weeks before Christmas. The following year, a family crisis arrived, again at Christmas. The old cactus wounds came alive.

I just couldn’t find it in me to do much about Christmas. I blamed my gluten allergy for not baking as much as was my habit. My old tree fell apart and I bought a new one, but didn’t put it up. I blamed Covid, then a big renovation, and then last year, everyone was scattered all over, so I just didn’t bother.

The new tree, 9 feet tall with fancy lights, sat in the box for three years. In honor of fresh starts and getting over myself, I made myself take it out this year. We lit it up and it shines through the front door like something out of a movie—honestly, I can’t believe how pretty it is. My neighbor commented on it when she brought over some cookies. I bought some new sea-themed ornaments at the shops downtown, and dug out the very few remaining ornaments I have left. Like the comets. Like the antique felt candy canes I found on Ebay.

Things break. Beloved coffee cups. Homes. Arms and legs. Lives. Entire countries. Eras.

They also survive against impossible odds. Thanks, little ornament. I appreciate you.