Life after Trauma

Simple, uncomplicated Christmases

To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult every year.

E.B. White 

         Yukon winter (flickr)
          
Good or bad, we've all survived another Christmas. To be honest, this Christmas was pretty good for me. Parts of it were even wonderful.  Other parts, like the hectic last minute preparations and the sadness about not hearing from my daughter, weren't so good. However, as lovely as Christmas in Vancouver can be, it can't compare to Christmas in the Yukon. In the Yukon, you don't have to fight to keep your Christmas simpler and less commercial because, unless you live in Whitehorse, it just is simpler. Outside of Whitehorse, there are few places to go shopping, no traffic jams, no noisy shopping malls. Well, you get the picture. For those of us who delight in the simpler side of Christmas, the Yukon is Christmas paradise and, for me, bring to mind the words of one of my favourite Christmas carols, In the Bleak Midwinter. "In the bleak midwinter . . . Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone/Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow/In the bleak midwinter, long ago."

 

In 1990, I spent a wonderful Christmas in Ross River - a tiny community in the Central Yukon. It was just me and my husband and our two cats and our wood stove. We cut a Christmas tree ourselves, as we always did and put up it in the dining room so that it wasn't too close to the wood stove in the living room and decorated it with the small selection of ornaments we owned in those days. We went to the school's Christmas concert, which everyone in Ross attends, and on Christmas Eve we went to Midnight Mass at the log church nestled amongst trees not far from the river. The priest had a small organ that he played for the hymns and a voice that would have made the sled dogs he kept staked out near his house howl, if they could have heard it. As I remember it, there was something about the out-of-tune enthusiasm of his singing that was truly endearing. 

              Wood stove, Gord McKenna, flickr

Mostly, though, we cocooned at home by our huge old cast iron wood stove. When this stove was stoked, it cranked out heat that penetrated clear to your bones.  We cuddled up to the stove and played game after game of Scrabble. We also took "bedroom" breaks and afterwards lay in bed listening to the the sounds of ravens calling, if it was daytime, or a truck passing far away on one of the village's few roads, if it was night. In my memories, it is just us, the wood stove, Scrabble, and love. It was perfect.

 

                Quebec City, Helene Villeneuve, flickr

Meanwhile, about a decade before my perfect Yukon Christmas, a friend was spending her perfect Christmas in Quebec City where she lived in an adorable little apartment with narrow windows that overlooked the garden of a convent. Sometime before Christmas, she had discovered money in a bank account that she had forgotten about and bought a splendid red wool coat that was both stylish and warm. On Christmas Eve, she and several friends gathered at her apartment where they enjoyed homemade eggnog. Then they put on their coats and walked through the convent's garden in softly falling snow to go to a concert of Christmas music. "Every part of that evening was pure and simple," she told me recently. "It was filled with humble, shared pleasures and the joy of high-spirited youth."  She also told me that, try as she might, she's never been able to duplicate the simple beauty of that Quebec City Christmas. We both agreed that part of the secret was that both Christmases took place when we were younger. Also, because both Christmases were spent far away from our families of origin, there were few expectations. We were free to do what we wanted to do: no one cared what clothes we wore, what we said to our "sibling, mother, father, aunt" (feel free to fill in the blank here) or judged the presents we gave.

I'm not suggesting that Christmases without family are the best. In fact, one of my other favourite Christmas memories is of the first Christmas my son spent at my parents. There was a small "herd" of similarly-aged cousins to run around with and everyone was there: my parents, my three siblings, their significant others and children and my aunt. My childless sister gave noisy presents to the children and my mother wailed in dismay, "And what I want to know is who gave these children kazoos."  Our son - then 18 months old - almost choked on grapes when he snuck back into the dining room and began cramming grapes into his mouth one after the other without chewing them. Thankfully, my husband discovered him in time and made him spit the grapes out. Even though that was a joyful Christmas, it can be healing and wonderful to also have those quiet, low expectation Christmases that many people remember so fondly. 

What is your favourite Christmas?  Why? What was special about it?

 

Winter Solstice - the return of the sun

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

                                                Joseph Campbell

                      Winter sunrise, Sweden (from flickr)

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year or, depending upon how you look at it, the longest night. After living for over a decade in the Yukon, I am still acutely aware of the lengthening and shortening of days.  Today, the sun rises in Whitehorse (the capital of the Yukon) at 10:09 a.m. and sets at 3:47 p.m.; the day is 5.5 hours long plus some spare change. That doesn't seem too bad, except that when the sun rises around 10 it won't usually get above the mountains until 11 and is already behind the mountains by 3. So, actual daylight only lasts about four hours. Yukoners regard the winter solstice as one of the main winter holidays, along with Christmas and New Year. 

You go to work or school in the dark and come home in the dark and only see daylight at lunchtime or on weekends, unless you're lucky enough to work from home or not work at all. Needless to say, all that darkness can be depressing, although the nights are more beautiful in the Yukon than in Vancouver: northern lights, stars, moon, and snow illuminate the darkness. Still, there's no getting around all that darkness. When I lived in the Yukon, I imagined that I could feel the darkness pressing at the backs of my eyes and it could be hard, at times, to force myself out into the dark and cold. 

Many northern cultures celebrate the Winter Solstice. For people of European ancestry, the best known solstice celebration is Yule. At Yule, the Oak King and the Holly King do battle. At the Winter Solstice the Oak King wins and then the days lengthen again. At the Summer Solstice, the Holly King wins and the days begin to shorten again. Today, some people roll both of these figures into one who they call The Green Man. Both pagan figures are associated with greenery such as holly, ivy, and conifer branches. 

The Winter Solstice - and the Summer Solstice - celebrate the natural cycles of darkness and light. I celebrate the return of the light not just because it is a beautiful natural phenomenon. For me, it is also a symbol of rebirth and healing. People who have survived trauma, or are recovering from grief, go through similar cycles of light and dark.  First there is the darkness and then, as the impact of trauma and grief begins to lift, a person can feel themselves turning toward the light, as they heal.  However, reminders of what we have lost can also throw us back into darkness. I have found that to be true in my own life. My doctor calls that having good days and bad days. She said that I'll probably always have bad days because my traumas happened at such an early age and were prolonged enough that complete "recovery" seems unlikely.  So, when I have good days, I think of them as being filled with light. The solstices are potent metaphors for the periods of dark emotions and withdrawal that I experience that alternate with periods of happiness and calm. Ideally, these periods of "light" become longer and the periods of "darkness" become shorter, as healing progresses. However, anniversaries and other triggers can play havoc with this cycle and so when I'm going through a period of light, I celebrate it. Sometimes, I tell myself, Carpe diem. This time of year, however, I tell myself Carpe lucem - seize the light. Here's a great quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. to leave you with: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."  Carpe lucem and celebrate the return of the sun.

 

 

Do you experience good days and bad days?  If so, how do you cope with these ups and downs?