Our world is just so very eventful. I play catch-up on Christmas Day as Rowan sorts photographs and we sit in front of a hissing, if not roaring, fire. The day is grey and glistening, and the news of James Brown’s death is filtering through the news services. They’re trying hard to put a good face on the day, but the weather and the pervasive cold that everyone seems to have is getting even the newscasters down. They focus on the war and the economy and tips on operating your new electronic devices over Christmas carols or coverage of great lights displays or anything more seasonal. The war and the weather’s just got everyone down, I suppose.
I normally really Love Christmas, but this year there’s too many things out of place – too many things sort of weighing on my head – and I’m not taking as much joy out of all the sparkles and smells. I normally even Love the malls, just because of how alive they are, but this year I think I’m canceling on Christmas, tapping out. I’ll let you have my 32nd birthday, make the sacrifice of staying 31 for another year, and let THAT be Christmas instead. Got that people? I’m canceling Christmas. Christmas in February please.
Friday afternoon I was working with Rowan at the House of Musical Traditions when two gunmen came in and lined us up behind the counter. They calmly had us empty the register, they calmly emptied a wallet or two, and then calmly put the five employees and two customers into a back closet as they calmly left.
Ten minutes out of my Life that stretched on for a very long time. Tense minutes, angry angry after. I hate being so very helpless. I worked up at MICA for so long in Baltimore City and never dealt with a gun. Having two of them in one day was a bit much. Some of us were shaky, most of us were calm. By the time we stepped back out of the closet, there were customers already looking at merchandise and wondering why my wallet was spilled on the ground. We sat down for a moment and called the police and then sold some jingle bells and a CD and info rmed everyone that I’m afraid for the moment at least it’s only credit cards and exact change cause we’ve just been robbed.
I got tired of my name being a verb very, very quickly.
When the police officer came in ten minutes later, he wasn’t sure he was in the right place – he told us we were the calmest group of hold-up victims he’d ever encountered. We continued the day, taking one person off the floor at a time to give statements to the police, and went home exhausted. Rowan did a television appearance with the local news, and we started getting phone calls almost immediately.
It’s touching to see how many people care – we’ve gotten phone calls and visits, people dropping in to give us business to help us make up our loss. Takoma Park is a tight-knit community, and this sort of thing doesn’t happen often. Christmas Eve we couldn’t move for cookies, hot chocolate, cider and baklava. Dave Eisner, the owner, wasn’t there for the robbery, but has been concerned and caring, even to me who’s only worked at the store a couple of days – there’s a real feeling of family and Dave in his role as patriarch has been spectacularly supportive.
But it’s still affecting. I called a friend Friday night to talk about it all, and she seemed pretty rattled – she told me she felt lucky to be talking to me – and maybe she was – but no more than she is every day… it’s important to remember that every moment we have IS lucky – a friend of mine wiped out on the highway on the way to her parents’ today. She’s okay, but she’s driving slower. I’m lucky every moment I don’t lose a friend to a drunk driver, or a sober one who’s just not looking. We lose our friends in stupid ways, to undiagnosed pneumonia and diagnosed cancers, to sleeping too late on a day when the gas doesn’t shut off or to slipping on the front porch and hitting a stone with your skull. To spider bites and tripping on tree limbs and to heart attacks and poorly chewed food. We Live in a treacherous world and we are fragile creatures. We’re lucky very moment and it’s important to step back and remember that.
I don’t really have a lot of fatalistic belief that things happen for a reason, but I have a couple of friends who are wondering about the message being sent. In all honesty, as robberies go, this is about as good as it gets – I personally lost some money, but not a huge amount. No-one was hurt. We had a lot of very calm people in the store. For those people looking for a “why”, well, maybe the message wasn’t meant for us in the store but to the ones who Love us, to remember that every moment is precious, and that losing the ones close to us can be a good deal more frightening than losing ourselves.
My mother is still in the hospital. She’s been downgraded from Intensive Care to Intermediate Care and seems to have the average number of nurses and doctors, some of which seem competent and some of which are telling me that since she’s been here for two weeks since her colon had been removed that she really ought to be up and about by now… I didn’t seem to make much of an impression with the news that actually it that it had only been seven days since her GALLBLADDER had been taken out and that I really hoped there were people who DID know who my mom was.
Audrey and Rick came by and we sang her “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” which is my mom’s favourite Christmas song and I made plans to visit her the next day with a Slurpee in hand. There’s not much that a Slurpee can’t cure.
And so, Christmas, perhaps, in February. I’m not in the mood for it now. I’m curled up by the fire like a kitten in a pile…
Rowan has dismantled one of his favourite guitars to reshim the neck. It’s kind of startling, like walking in on your mother patiently dismantling the rest of your family with a carving knife.
