Rambling...

There was an old magazine we used to have when I was little. It was one of those with the sturdy, paper pages, hardy like a book and not the flimsy little slippery magazines we're used to. It was some sort of Christmas publication, with what were most likely lots of heart warming stories of soldiers coming home for the holidays and crackling fires and all that.

I remember the pictures. I just absolutely loved looking through those pictures.

Now I wonder why, why oh why are some pictures so memorable? It's so funny, the things that make themselves so immovably at home in our memories. This one particular memory I've singled out, but it's inseparable from others of driving around random neighborhoods known for the numerous strands of lights hanging across the streets, caught in branches and lining eaves.

Maybe it's that my childhood was safe, and the holidays especially. Traditions are a source of security. Whatever it is, whatever it was, something makes those memories stand out as connections to a joyful state of quiet enjoyment.

That's another thing, I feel like things are much more enjoyable in silence. It's like making a motion or a sound of release lets all the air out and the joy becomes flat. I've come to enjoy doing some things and going some places by myself, just so I don't have to make some comment or judgment of whatever the experience happens to be. I got to hear the Vienna Boy's Choir last year (someday I am going to hear them in some wonderful old cathedral, I'm convinced) and I went alone as it was last minute and no one was available to come with. I'm so glad I was, I didn't have to say anything until long after the music was over and I'd gone home, and the exhilaration in my spirit lasted quite a long time. God loves beautiful things.

Now I'm rambling, but it's my blog, and that's just what happens when you don't have an editor. At least, I'm assuming that had I an editor they would be slicing through my paragraphs like Edward Scissorhands. I've never had an editor, so I can't say this with authority. And then, maybe my editor would enjoy rambling along with me. It can be nice, unless you're reading Les Miserable, and then the name of the book just seems a bit too ironic. Like Maureen Dowd, but not as entertaining.

You know this all started just because I was reading Dickens. He's a bit rambl-ey and grandiose himself. It's the Micawber in him. I guess I have a Micawber side to me as well. There are worse things.