It generally starts earlier, usually June. Christmas carols. I like to sing Christmas carols in the summer. Christmas is a fine time too, but I digress.
Generally starts with Rudolph, progresses into White Christmas, this evening it was Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – now there’s a fine tune.
Because I burst into a song of the winter season in a restaurant one night two summers ago, a friend attributes my warbling to alcohol consumption, but she is mistaken. Alcohol inhibits my secret aspiration to be a torch singer. Unrequited love – of song or Christmas season – works for me.
Why Christmas in June, or in this case, August? There is a depth, a stillness somewhere in the heart of the best Christmas songs, where a point is reached, after which there is nothing to do but trudge back from whence one came.
Something like a solstice event, when we observe the sun reaching its northern- or southernmost point, epiphany, and then…turning back. Glancing openly into darkness at the end of a spectrum, the provocative beauty, attraction and horror of domains we cannot visit while living – just a glance before the jerky carnival ride lurches back toward more familiar territory.
I joined the Colonoscopy Club this week. A screening procedure I have dreaded since turning 40. I greatly dislike induced unconsciousness – it scares me – life is already full of the stuff. The Neighbor accompanied. Since I kept flinching at the word colonoscopy we finally arrived at the perfect alternative designation…YouTube.
There comes a moment when there is no way to hold off unconsciousness – the drugs, or life – hold sway. You take it in the vein and you take the ride. In the middle of the song, someone says you are healthy, it is time to move on. The glimpse is gone, the tune winds down.
In the evening, a cool breeze blows, the moon rises above the trees in the east and my son plays Pachelbel’s Canon on the piano. Health, friends, family, all one could wish for, such gifts. Merry Christmas.
Shouldn't...but Do 
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