Most people no doubt missed the celebration on Sunday, January 21st. Not to worry. It was neither a religious or a patriotic holiday. It was one that went unnoticed for most except a couple of my Facebook friends who are ‘in the know’. What was special about this past winter Sunday you ask? It was National Squirrel Appreciation Day. So there. Who knew? Who names these days continues to be a mystery to me. But on the new calendar I opened for 2024 graced by the art of someone I much admire and have followed for some time, the date is clearly marked and honored. National Squirrel Appreciation Day was lifted up by David M. Bird as a part of his whimsical images of acorns turned into human-like figures doing all manner of precious things. If you have not seen his work, I commend it to you. https://www.davidmbird.com/gallery

So it is time for confession. Squirrels are often the bane of my existence. The ways in which they get the birdseed I place in the feeders is maddening. During tulip blooming time, the way they knock the blossom off the tulip without even eating it has, on occasion, caused me to run from the house chasing them back to their safe perch on a fence or tree limb looking back at me like the crazy person I must seem. So it was a good reminder that, at least according to this calendar, there is a day to appreciate these little beings with long, fluffy tails. 

And while I may not always appreciate them, I can say I always have a certain admiration for the ways they live in the world. Watching from the deck on a summer’s day as they scurry along the wires like acrobats fills me with awe for their balance and agility. Watching them propel their gray furry bodies from wire to limb to the metal pole of the bird feeder is quite impressive to say nothing of their speed in crossing a street safely.  Gazing up at the bare winter branches and seeing their nests, their homes, gives me pause on these bitter, windy, winter days. Is this appreciation? I hope it is. Maybe there is some absolution in that. 

Of course, there is also their playful nature which is something I wish I could emulate more often. The ways in which they run and jump and chase one another brings laughter to my heart and I hope some kind of squirrel joy to them. That playful quality is echoed in a poem by the equally playful poet Bill Collins in a poem titled Palermo:

It was foolish of us to leave our room.
The empty plaza was shimmering.
The clock looked ready to melt.
The heat was a mallet striking a ball
and sending it bouncing into the nettles of summer.
Even the bees had knocked off for the day.
The only thing moving besides us
(and we had since stopped under an awning)
was a squirrel who was darting this way and that

as if he were having second thoughts
about crossing the street,
his head and tail twitching with indecision.

You were looking in a shop window
but I was watching the squirrel
who now rose up on his hind legs,

and after pausing to look in all directions,
began to sing in a beautiful voice
a melancholy aria about life and death,

his forepaws clutched against his chest,
his face full of longing and hope,
as the sun beat down
on the roofs and awnings of the city,

and the earth continued to turn
and hold in position the moon
which would appear later that night

as we sat in a cafe
and I stood up on the table
with the encouragement of the owner

and sang for you and the others
the song the squirrel had taught me how to sing.

While one could say that National Squirrel Appreciation Day has passed for this year, I suppose there is nothing to keep any of us from appreciating them any day we think of it. Appreciate and salute their agile abilities…their jumping…their leaping…their scurrying…their courage…their resilience…their  playfulness…their song.

Slowly the remnants of what held the Christmas holidays is being dismantled. My Mother took our Christmas tree down on the day after Christmas. No Boxing Day or Twelve Days of Christmas for her. Time to begin a new year and get the living room back to normal. I tend to linger over the process. It is a slow practice of putting things back into boxes and then into the attic. First the small Santas and trees that line the mantle and tabletops. Then the various pictures with Christmas and winter themes that have been hung on the wall for these December days, to be replaced by others that hang there at other times of the year.

But the Christmas tree is the last. I can’t seem to let go of the light that dances from its branches during these dark days. In the last years I have appropriately, I think, named the emotion that accompanies this necessary act of removing the tree: Grief. There is a certain amount of grief that rests on the removal of the ornaments, of the tree. Just as there was the bittersweet feeling of each colorful bauble out of storage, remembering where they came from, when they were purchased or received, allowing the memory of it all to make its home on the branches of this tree that literally gave its life for our enjoyment. When the ornaments are removed and placed again in the red and green box, those same memories are tucked away for another year. Much will happen between this season and its arrival again in twelves months. The way in which our hands reach for them again will have another year of living etched upon them. So there is the grief of letting go of what has been and the uncertainty of what experiences will shape their removal when the time comes again. In so many ways this act of decorating a tree carries with it more than the experience of festivity. It can be, if we are awake, a yearly marker of our life. 

Yesterday as I removed the ornaments from our tree, I lingered a bit over a few. There are ones with names printed on them. Gifts from friends and family members. We continue to hang the ones with my husband’s name on them even though he left us four years ago. So those carry special meaning. There is one given to me by a five year old, a small guitar painted in Christmas green and red, her name printed by her Mother who also left us this year. This five year old has become a sweet friend/sister/daughter over the years and I always send a quick photo to her of the ornament to remind her of how long our lives have been entwined. And there is the oldest on the tree. A gift from my grandmother’s friend it catches the heat and shine of the lights sending its wheel whirling. It was a fascination for me as a child and became the same for my sons. 

Yes. There is much that happens in the decorating of a Christmas tree. Beginnings and endings. Memories both beautiful and raw. I was pleased to read this poem by Jane Kenyon called “Taking Down the Christmas Tree”:

“Give me some light!” cries Hamlet’s
uncle midway through the murder
of Gonzago. “Light! Light!” cry scattering
courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,
it’s dark at four, and even the moon
shines with only half a heart.

The ornaments go down into the box:
the silver spaniel, My Darling
on its collar, from Mother’s childhood
in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack
my brother and I fought over,
pulling limb from limb. Mother
drew it together again with thread
while I watched, feeling depraved
at the age of ten.

With something more than caution
I handle them, and the lights, with their
tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along
from house to house, their pasteboard
toy suitcases increasingly flimsy.
Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.

By suppertime all that remains is the scent
of balsam fir. If it’s darkness
we’re having, let it be extravagant.

A bit of the scent from the tree lingers… mostly in the needles that seem to appear no matter how much I vacuum. In the endings of last year and the beginnings of this one, there is the darkness and the promise of light that will replace that which shone from the tree. May they, may we, live on in extravagance. 

Over the last two weeks, I have been witness to flying…people flying. I am not talking of the many airplanes in the sky that I observe over my house which sits quite near the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. I am talking of humans lifting off the ground and flying…like birds. The freedom of it is still thrumming in my spirit.

The first was at the performance of Peter Pan at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts. This reworking of the story that first inched its way into my life as a small child was pure magic. Though I knew the actors were not really flying, I could not see the wires which lifted and catapulted them into the air. The exuberance and delight on their faces and those in audience lifted me above the ordinary of a late December evening. As Peter urged us to clap our hands and say “I believe.” to bring Tinkerbell back from the brink, I knew I was also saying I believe in the power of flight.

Then in yet another tale meant for children but with messages for adults to ponder, the movie Wonka also had characters taking flight. Some of them were exercising their power of imagination and fancy while others were sent up in the air as a kind of time out for bad behavior. Sitting in the darkened theater I again felt that sense of freedom the idea of flying brought to me.

The truth is I have been captured by the idea of flying more than once in my life. When I was just a young child, perhaps three or four years old, I was in the upstairs of my grandparents house with them and my parents. They were moving something up into the second story of the house and had the window open to allow its entry. While they were busy talking I walked to that window and saw my opportunity. I stepped up and was just about to launch myself off the ledge when my Dad grabbed megrim behind and pulled me back. Since the night before we had watched Mary Martin flying as Peter Pan on the yearly broadcast of the movie, I believed I could fly and I was going to give it my best shot. Clearly imagination and reality collided.

For many years I had a recurring dream in which I would be in a situation in which tension was high and I wanted to escape. The situations differed but the feeling was the same: Get Out of Here! In the dream I would begin running and then I would use my arms in a swimming motion and soon…very soon I was lifted above the ground and was hovering over whatever was causing me such turmoil. I had escaped because I could fly.

It is a new year and though I am fairly certain the ability to fly is not in the cards for 2024, I was delighted to see this excerpt from a Mary Oliver poem: 

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.” 

I am not much for resolutions in the new year but this lovely, playful poem seems not too bad to shape an intention for the year. Many people are remarking that it could be a tough year given all that is happening in the world and the political climate in which we find ourselves. Perhaps imagined flying could be a gift. So…Noble. Light. Frolicsome. Beauty. No fear. 

As though I, as though we, had wings.