It's All Performance Art 33

It is minus 2 degrees right now.  Balmy compared to the rest of Canada in late November.  It is going to go up maybe to 4 degrees today.  We live in the mildest part of the country here.  It is almost December.  Christmas is less than one month away.  Today is Black Friday, yet another American contagion that has crossed our border like a flu pandemic, and naturally almost everyone is going to want to go shopping today, to fill that lonely void in their lives with stuff that no one really needs or wants.  This is really a sad reflection on how disconnected we all are and how much people use money, buying and things in order to fill that void.

The day is going to be sunny.  It is going to be a hard, cold and brilliant light, like the light of truth, and it is also going to be very beautiful, if cold today.  I just heard on the radio about how lonely and isolated people are, especially in Canada, and of how disconnected everyone seems to be, and how cruel this can be around Christmas when everyone is expected to be joyful and happy and full of gratitude and bliss.  As one who is vulnerable to Christmas depression (I am generally alone every Christmas), I have come to value the importance of connecting and of making connections with others.  This doesn't mean that I am going to be particularly wanted or welcome anywhere on Christmas Day, but the question here is how much am I willing to welcome others.  I think what exacerbates loneliness is the inability, or the unwillingness,l to make the effort to connect with others.  And depression itself can be so paralyzing as to make reaching out to others all the more difficult.  So much the more important that we preempt holiday depression by already making the effort to reach out and make ourselves available to one another.

I am not going to do anything special this Christmas.  Just the usual.  I will work with my clients.  I will make art.  I will take long walks.  I will be friendly to strangers and cats and dogs (nice cats and dogs).  I will continue to attend church.  I will cook well and eat well.  I am going to bake cookies and share them.   I will continue with my Spanish.  I will continue seeing my friends, here in Vancouver and abroad my friends in Colombia by Skype.  And of course, I will continue to make art and I will continue to write this blog.

I will reject sadness and depression, and I am going to choose love, I am going to choose joy.  These are matters of choice, you know.  And we do have that kind of power in our lives.  I am not the only one who is going to be needing human contact.  Everyone around me is going to be feeling something, or trying to protect themselves from feeling.   I think this is a really important time to keep an eye on others, and to remember that this is a season of stress and difficulty for everybody.   This is also a time for great joy, and now we are going to channel that joy, and let its tiny little trickle grow into a rivulet, a stream, and soon a mighty roaring river.  That's right, Gentle Reader.  We have that choice and what better day that Black Friday to choose joy and love over sadness and selfishness?  This is my challenge today to all of us.