An Old Fashioned Letter

By Haden Ware

December 17, 2024

Merry Christmas Mom,

This isn't quite a story, but as I mentioned to you, I thought I'd start writing you letters. I've been feeling that time, and our personal introspection, as been compressed due to the way we communicate. Emails, by their instantaneous form of delivery, arrive with an implied demand for a quick response, or at least a timely one. This isn't the fault of the email, it was just born this way. Emails work great for, "Hey did you see this?" or "Would you like to meet up tomorrow for coffee? but they don't encourage silent contemplation over days, weeks, or months, the way letters used to.

I love our FaceTime chats on Fridays, but these, being weekly, subconsciously reduce the building materials at hand to only that which was delivered in the past 7 days. Important materials, no doubt, but as our weekly trees pile up, I feel the forest missing.

I'm not referring to your forest. When it comes to people we interact with, whether it be family people we love or strangers on the street, we take the trees they provide us with, whether many or few, and use our imaginations to fill in the gaps to create their forests. Some have magpies and toadstools, others frogs and swamps. Regardless, we're destined to paint a landscape that is very different from the one they've painted for themselves. No, it's not your forest I'm missing, it's my own.

So I thought I would start writing you letters. Letters allow me to talk about the day-to-day within the perspective of the year-to-year or even the life-to-death. More than anything they provide time. Time to think about why the falling leaves in autumn bring me clarity. Time to lay my daily, sometimes mundane, activities on a table to see if I have a common purpose. Time to reflect on, enjoy, and digest the life I'm living before shoveling more down my throat.

So here's my first letter...

The bare trees this time of year really do bring me clarity. It's like the forests have opened their curtains allowing everyone to peek inside. Taking the dogs for walks, sometimes we'll just stop on an elevated ridge and sit there looking down on the make forest, the dog's eyes darting between chipmunks and squirrels courageously continuing to play their games without the understory's protection. It's like leaving the last show of Autumn's Broadway musical and seeing all the actors standing on the sidewalk, without their costumes and makeup, waiting for Ubers. Winter just feels naked, raw, real and clear.

This time of year, Nicole and I will take drives down random streets in Roxbury and Washington just to look at the houses. Tucked back from the road and hidden for most of the year behind landscaped forests, during winter they now expose themselves like Victorian ladies behind transparent shoji screens. "Hey Dustin Hoffman, we can seeee you!!!"

It's quiet too. No motorcycles and classic car rallies driving by the house. No birds chirping or leaves rustling in the wind. There's no shame in staying indoors with a cup of tea and a book never feeling guilty for not being outside on a lovely sunny day. My knitting shop closes in summer. Apparently, people don't knot in nice weather.

I'm reading a book about Alaska right now. In the northernmost areas, the sun doesn't rise for 70 days during winter. The Inupiat People of this region would have a festival on the day that the sun returned, dancing and singing at the sight of a sliver of light on the horizon. It was their most treasured and joyous day of the year. Interesting how joy is the child of loss.

I spoke with one of our local farmers yesterday about the year and his plans for the winter. He said he doesn't get much of a respite with maple syrup season right around the corner and next year's seedlings need to be planted in the greenhouses. I asked how he managed through his year; 's drought, which was one of the worst on record, and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "No one to blame that's just the weather." I wonder if he sang and danced when we finally got rain last month. I'm sure he did. We don't blame the weather but we do thank it.

We had a Christmas tree lighting ceremony on the town green last week where Bus, who, at 84 is the oldest member of the fire department, recited The Night Before Christmas. He does this every year and he's great at it. Lat year we had around 200 people there but this year, due to it landing on a bitterly cold evening, there were only 50. No one to blame, that's just the weather. Fingers crossed the weather is better for next year's event and more children show up to enjoy Bud's performance. This will, no doubt, bring him joy.

Yes, winter brings clarity. Like actors quietly going through their lines backstage before a show. That's winter. Or when you finish a really good book, rest it on your chest and close your eyes to reflect on the story and how it impacted you. That's winder. It's the before and after. The space we fill with the loss that will one day birth our joy.

Love,

Haden

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