merry christmas, girls and boys.

i've been feeling like it's christmas since october. something thin and sweet in the air, like the taste of mint or the way cold water looks in bright light.

this year i insisted that we all go out together and saw a christmas tree down, like we'd done when i was little. i even volunteered to saw, though i'd never done it before. on my knees in the mud, leaning under the branches, the strong sticky smell of pitch thickening around me, something like a prayer to tradition. back home, winding the bright multicolored lights around it, hanging the red shiny round ornaments and the hundreds of others, the toilet paper roll angels and the fragile handpainted glass, the wooden elves missing legs, the stuffed mice wearing horn-rimmed glasses and coats, the classy ceramic santas and the strange things like felt pigs with suckling piglets. turn off the lights and all that matters are the multicolored shadows, fanning across the ceiling under the pineneedles. i used to sit behind the tree and look at the wall for hours, loving those shadows.

i got better.

then i got sick again. now i'm full-blown sick with a bad head/chest cold. i feel so gross. at least it's better than being sick while i was at school. if i lay around all the time here, there's no problem.

i'd write more but my brain's in a nasty fog right now.

i spent five minutes carefully seeding a tangerine, so i could savor it while i read. the first section tasted like some kind of strange perfume, tart, heady, and dark. so i stuffed the rest of it into my mouth all at once and nearly choked on juice and amusement and tangerine fibers.

there's a sense in which that, too, is savoring.

here's the deal, folks.

thank your lucky fucking stars that you live in this world.

it's the most beautiful thing imaginable. because it's the only thing imaginable.

today i sat down on the sidewalk outside of a vacant lot and cried in the sun, because i was just overwhelmed with all of this.

the taste of anise candy and the sounds of stepping on leaves. the weight of my purse as it swings. the way the light creates foil stars in all the creases of that candy wrapper. the shiny ribbons of a downed balloon wrapped around a chain link fence. the shush and rattle of the wind in the trees and fire escapes. the way feet fall one after the other when you're walking, stepping the time away moment by moment. the way your mind coalesces around each object, wrapping it soft and carefully, like a child wet from the swimming pool in a warm towel.

this life is a whistle hanging around your neck. it's an engagement ring worn on the index finger of your right hand. it's the touch of your lips against the quiet sidewalk.

this is it. this is it. this is it.