Once each year I am again startled to notice the powerful annual frequency in which we are all immersed during the winter holiday season, spiking around Thanksgiving and Christmas. This frequency asks us to be merry, and to care for one another, during the dark of the winter night. How many eons has this particular holiday frequency been invoked? A frequency which, however, is woven through with another, opposite frequency, a sort of sadness, bittersweetness, or even, for those who don’t feel cared for, depression, even despair. The bittersweetness comes from memory — comparing this holiday to others years ago, during which we were happier, caring and cared for. Depression, however, is a deeper difficulty, signaling that PTSD at some point in life, usually childhood, has stopped the love frequency that runs the universe from flowing through. For some people that blockage — which feels like a hole, an absence — may even have its root in the womb, or in another life. The longer it has been there, unaddressed, the more difficult each holiday season becomes.
Yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving, I caught up on the phone with an old old friend from high school; someone I’ve known since then as well, in a number of capacities. Our talk was intense, lasting about an hour. To my admission of addiction to screens, root addiction since five years old to “the news,” plus recent attempts to counter that, he himself countered: “I tend to sit back and observe.” Well, yes, that is the goal, I thought to myself. But then he continued to speak of his view of just what he is observing: his sense of the the inevitable downward slide of our civilization, comparing it to Rome and long lost empires. His historical knowledge is breathtaking; and he does sit back and observe, not judging, just realizing, just feeling like a privileged witness, that he should be alive to witness the inevitability of this closing human drama.
This old friend, by the way, never got caught up in phone or ipad screen mania! Has a computer yes, but still relies on books, newspapers. His favorite? Still the NYT. He does watch TV however, certain series on Netflix, movies etc.
I told him that I stopped watching TV when I recognized that an actor in one series I was watching, House of Cards, was actually playing himself. That there was no difference between the sleazy, lying, power-mad pedophile Kevin Spacey was playing and his real life. I just knew it. Spacey was not acting. Then, I later discovered, my intuition was correct.
Ever since then, I told him, I just can’t do it. I want to do it, I want to watch certain movies especially, but I know too many of these actors, Hollywood celebrities, are utterly corrupt in the most disgusting way, and it has soured me on the entire enterprise.
My old friend heard me, evinced surprise, and didn’t press the point.
Next, from the decline and fall of our civilization, we went on to focus on our own bodies. (Both the same age, at or around 82). He started talking about covid, how glad he was that he got all the shots, because the three times he got covid “would have been much worse without the vax.” (He didn’t mention the pneumonia he also had this year, nor a horrible heart scare of some kind two years ago.)
Well, I’m sorry to say, but I just lost it. Instantly triggered into an awful rant. I remain, 24 hours later, stunned that a man so wise could be so, forgive me, stupid. Or rather, so dangerously misinformed, since his only sources were mainstream news!
At one point during my rant, he did wonder, incredulously, “you haven’t had covid?”
“NO. I take care of my own immune system. And furthermore, I live around vaxxed people, who have had covid and been otherwise sick.” Did my response strike him as odd, at least? I don’t know.
Please forgive me, those who have experienced my righteous judgment, my wrath! And thank you so very much, for being in my life. You show me just how much I still have to learn about caring for others while in this body, on this planet, in this lifetime.
I sense it’s very good that he and I were not sitting across from each other at Thanksgiving Dinner today. I’m still too raw, and I imagine he’s still probably feeling the sting. I love him, I will always love him. The holiday frequency has me, as does its opposite!
