Opening Day of the Season

With Friday my last day of work before Christmas I feel like now the season can really begin. The fact that I actually have all my shopping done makes it easier to get into the spirit, since I don't have to contend with the hordes of holiday shoppers.

This morning I had a simultaneous experiences that I hope will set the tone for the Holidays. I was sitting and watching what may be my favorite Chiristmas movie. No not It's a Wonderful Life. No not Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story. I was watching (am watching actually since it is still on in the mext room) The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young. Based on a book by an unfortunately forgotten, or at least neglected writer, Robert Nathan, who wrote a slew of these sort's of light fantasies back in the 30's, 40's and on up through the 70's. Probably his best known book is Portrait of Jennie (I own a very nice first edition in jacket), and also a wonderful movie, starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotton.

Anyway The Bishop's Wife (for those who don't know it check your local listing, since it should be in heavy rotation for the next week), of course features Cary Grant as an Angel sent to earth to assist a burned out Bishop (Niven), who is neglecting his beautiful wife (Young), and caught up in his administrative duties, particularly the fund raising for the building of a new Cathedral. I was watching the scene early in the film when the Bishop has promised to take his wife Christmas shopping, but a day of dreary meetings has caused him to cancel. Cary Grant by contrast arrives full of energy and enthusiasm not only for his duties as Bishop's assistant (the prospect of organizing the card file fills him with joy), but simply with joy in the people around him and the wonder being alive in the world.

It's a very infectious enthusiam, although the Bishop hasn't caught it yet, and sitting on the couch I look up to the window in the dining room where my black cat Jet is on her ledge looking out the window and it is snowing outside. Her tail is twitching with excitement (actually her tail is almost always twitching) and she is watching the snow with a coiled intensity. Her head whipping back and forth watching individual snowflakes as they streak past the window. I watch her for a long while as she sits and just watches it snow, soon I look past her and I am also just watching it snow. I let my mind empty and the try to become as catlike as I can (far from empty headed however) and my cat and I sit together and watch the miracle of snow as it happens for our own amusment.

This I think (losing my catlike state of mind) is the way I want to be this Christmas. Like a cat. Like an Angel just come to earth. Open and full of wonder. Looking at everything with fresh eyes as if I'm seing it for the first time. Not just the snow, but also the people, especially the ones I have seen many times before. Reaching out to them with an open mind and a heart full of wonder. It's worth a try.

Then I come over to the computer to type this, and while I am typing Jet jumps up on the diningroom table behind me and knocks down the big plastic tub of bunny pellets onto the floor where the rabbit is now feasting on her pellets, which I suppose I should go pick up before she eats herself sick.