Exiled From the Saturinalia

by
Jupiter Mule

December 24th, 2012

The Christmas season has always been a troubling time for me.  I would often feel at odds with the spirit of the season, especially the joy and the serenity people would talk about and seem to experience.  That part of this holiday was opaque to me.  I knew it was there, but I did not have any direct experience of that aspect of the season. 

When I would visualize the way I felt, the way I perceived my relationship with this particular holiday; I would visualize myself on a lifeboat, alone.  It is night and it is a choppy sea; not storm tossed but a bit rough.  I was born in the Tidewater part of the Chesapeake Bay and the term the watermen would have used is blustery.  The sea was powered by the wind but it was not a driving wind.  My grandmother would have called the wind "Airish".  At worst, the conditions for me were troubling … but not perilous. 

In the distance, slipping out of the sea fog emerges a huge, garishly lit passenger ship.  It is coming from the light of day into the dark where I am.  Looking toward the ship, the horizon is lined with a crescent of dimming light from the daylight it is leaving.  In the opposite direction the horizon is dark, featureless except for the stars and a wisp of cloud.  The great ship is steady and majestic.  It is set on a straight course.  As I watch from the refuge of the lifeboat, I begin to discern a thin music and the festive lights on the great ship.  I see that it is approaching but not straight on.  It will pass me; pass me close enough so that the ship will loom large to me in my boat, but far enough off that hailing the ship will meet with improbable success.

Looming larger as it comes I hear laughter, men and women calling out their joy at the festive company.  The lilting chimes of children's laughter sounds a constant compliment to the playing noise of the older passengers.  There are fireworks off the bow of the ship and I can hear the “oohs” and “ahs” as the display entertains.  Then having been on the far margin of my perceptions, I can hear music getting louder and clearer. 

Quickly, and without a single hesitation, the great ship of celebration glides past raising rolling waves in its wake.  Then it recedes and the sounds of gaiety are damped by the immensity of the world sea I share with them, anonymously.  In a reverse of it's coming the noise and lights and music: the cheery and expectant voices of the children fades, the fireworks, having found its crescendo now ebbs, ends and the final sparks fall into the sea to be extinguished.  Shortly the majestic liner shrinks and slips back into the sea fog it came from, and disappears. 

After the ship passes I smell the brief, faint perfume of lilies.