angels

I started to decorate our tree tonight. I say “started” because I usually futz about with it for a few days. Ridiculous, I know, but I love it.

From the early days of our marriage — when we had nothing but love — to now — when we have nothing but love, I’ve made nearly all of the ornaments on our tree. They’re mostly made from — paper, what else??

As I unwrap my old paper friends, I spread them around me and sit among them. I sit and remember making them. I remember being happy making them. Or I remember being sad and still making them because I needed to climb into a different place in my head, a place walled off from sorrow where some kind of creative spark still flickered, however weakly.

So I remember these angels, from, oh, about 6 years ago. A terrible, sad year for us. Desperate, really.

But when Christmas rolled around I needed — felt compelled — to make something for the tree … end the year differently. Somehow. In whatever small and primal way. So I sat down one weekend with paper, paint, and scissors — like a kid — and crafted some rather naive folk-art style angels. I don’t think I moved from that spot the entire weekend. I was suspended in some sheltered place in my head where there was only snipping and brushing, snipping and brushing. Soothing, for that fleeting period of time, some remote, aching places in my heart.

Welcome to our tree, little angels. I remember you.

(just a few of them here…)