Incandescent
A remembered dream or something like it.
The house is no longer ours. Its walls have forgotten us and its corners have been rearranged by strangers who never knew what they were undoing.
I think back to the first Christmas we spent there, when it was filled with bodies and laughter and warmth. When I first fell asleep to the sound of a crackling fireplace. When I first saw snow and made ice cream out of it with my aunt. When the colored lights of the Christmas tree seemed to beckon and coax me, making me want to shrink and crawl into the tree and become one with the lights. Thinking if only I could live in there. My bedroom above the living room with an open view. I can still feel being put to bed, knowing the adults downstairs were awake and I can hear them slowly trickling out as the clock ticked by. I can still hear the quiet whispers of a private in depth conversation between the last two standing. I wanted to be there, to know what they were discussing. But I reveled in the coziness of feeling safe and of knowing that they were in a private and intimate conversation, that they also felt safe enough to discuss whatever big life questions were occupying their minds. I fell asleep to the sound of the fire dwindling, everything dwindling down until the only sound I could hear was the light snowfall outside and the promise of a beautiful next day filled with all of it all over again.
December now arrives each year with a painful, excruciating melancholy…like a fog that won’t lift. It hurts so good. The way my heart feels a literal crushing sensation, like someone is sitting my chest and forcing me to watch a scene that I would rather not, saying, “LOOK! Look how delicious this was! Look how safe and cozy it was!”.
The incandescent colored lights everywhere. The old music playing around you. Just remembering a time when there was nothing to do except be together. The delusions of a child who couldn’t see the full picture. If I dwell too long, the memories become torturous - ghosts of people, places, moments I’m not even sure were real.
The house is no longer ours. I think about whether this new family runs their hands along the wood walls as they pass through the hall. If they have secret, conspiratorial meetings with their siblings in the far off corner rooms. If they look forward to the sound of their dogs running through the small door, tracking snow into the house that everyone ends up stepping in. If they gather around the kitchen for hours even though the comfortable living room sits right there. If they look out of the window into the deep dark snow and relish the feeling of isolation without any sense of fear.
The house’s heart was the fireplace. A burning, beating, loving heart where we all gathered. Where you could always find someone zoning out, staring deep into the flames continuing an ancient tradition, older than memory, older than language. It was made of stone; strong, sturdy, unmovable. It sat big and centered in the middle of the open living room and kitchen. It beckoned to us, called to us. It said “Come sit by me. I’ll heal you and warm you and transport you.”
The house is no longer ours. And the occupants tore down the heart. They took the heart of the home and bulldozed it tearing it piece by piece, tearing the memories and love away piece by piece until there was no longer a centerpiece, a core, a tether.
The house knew all seasons, but it came alive in the winter. And though it is no longer ours I imagine it still glowing in the darkness, a beacon of light against the snow covered mountain that held it tucked in.