Christmas Lights

I love Christmas lights.  I walk around New York pausing every few blocks to say, "ooooohhhh, look at those lights."  I sit on my couch in my living room admiring the single strand of white lights that perfectly wraps around my little tree and then stretches across my antique whitewashed mantle.  As I write this, reclined on my bed in the dark, I am looking out my window at rows and columns of window air conditioning units wishing it would snow just a little thicker instead of looking like the last minute of a cotton candy machine--vague wisps of goodness meandering through the air.

Maybe it's good the snow probably won't stick; I left my boots at work in favor of wearing my heels home.  The memory of 50 degree weather this morning stuck out more clearly than the reality of wind, precipitation, and bitter cold that had transformed the day to night.  Still, I miss those nights I spent sitting on my couch in Utah as an undergraduate.  My couch nestled the window, and the window was adorned with a valence I had made in a post-break-up effort to feel self-worth and block out pain.  On top of the valence hung a strand of white Christmas lights.  I would sit there at midnight, journal and pen in hand, and allow myself to be mesmerized by the lamp post illuminating happy flakes on their way to pad the concrete.

The concrete will not be padded tomorrow morning.  Though I am hoping for dust bunnies, it looks like tonight will only bring dust.  And the whistling of my radiator.