Category Archives: nostalgia

On Koricancha

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Koricancha, or the Incan Temple of the Sun in Cusco, Peru, or at least what was left of it after the Spanish built the Dominican convent of Santo Domingo on top of it, is a must stop if you have gone to the trouble of going all the way Cusco and Machu Picchu. Cusco was an original Inca city and a major axis within their empire during both the 14th and 15th centuries. Koricancha, or "Courtyard of Gold" was a major shrine within the Incan empire, and its walls were lined with gold, gold that was eventually looted by the Conquistadores, but not enough gold to save the last Incan emperor, Atahualpa. Only a few walls of the original temple are still left, but they do bear witness to the exquisite craftsmanship of the Incan masons whose elegant work far outstrips the clumsy common blocking of the Baroque style convent that rises above the ramparts of the original temple. The temple, or its remnants, is an icon of an empire that totally collapsed under the invasion of the Spanish. The scourge that is colonialism--invade, conquer, occupy as much space as possible, strip out everything of value, redefine language, laws, and religion, isolate the locals outside of the circles of power, redefine all cultural values--is only too obvious in the baroque church built on top of Koricancha, essentially putting it under erasure, shoving it out to the margins of history. I understand how offended my modern post-post-modern post-colonial sensibility is, but I don't condemn the Spanish for doing any of what they did because they were doing to the Inca what the Inca had been doing to other cultures and societies up and down the Andes. Invade and conquer, it's an old story in human history. The "Leyenda Negra" of the Spanish has long since been chucked on the ash heap of world history, but their colonial legacy as a fallen empire still echoes within Peruvian society, and the Conquistadores (i.e., white Europeans) are, with a few minor exceptions, still running the government in Peru, and the local indigenous people are marginalized into slums in the urban areas or super-marginalized in the rural highlands where modern social amenities--medicine, schools, housing, utilities--are rare, lacking, or non-existent. Indigenous incomes in the high mountain mesas are almost nothing at all. The role of indigenous people working in the numerous Peruvian mines is particularly troubling, boasting a horrific safety record of numerous deaths and injuries. Koricancha is a kind of synecdoche for the entire Spanish enterprise in the "New World." Of course, the Spanish did the same thing in Iberia when they kicked the Muslims out of Córdoba, building a Gothic cathedral in the middle of the famous mosque. Carlos V actually built a palace in the middle of the Alhambra. The Visigoths built a church on top of a Roman temple in the same place. Invaders have always felt it necessary to exert their power over the conquered by building their own temple on top of the sacred space of those they have conquered. So when you go to Koricancha you will be assaulted by conflicting images of Incan art and architecture within the context of a Baroque Christian church. The conclusions that you draw about this odd juxtaposition of cultures and technologies will be your own. All of the involved parties have long since turned to dust, and the caretakers of the site today are only the genetic shadows of the movers and shakers of 16th century Cuzco. The important thing about Koricancha is to go there, see it, experience it, and be a witness, albeit four hundred years after the fact.

On Koricancha

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Koricancha, or the Incan Temple of the Sun in Cusco, Peru, or at least what was left of it after the Spanish built the Dominican convent of Santo Domingo on top of it, is a must stop if you have gone to the trouble of going all the way Cusco and Machu Picchu. Cusco was an original Inca city and a major axis within their empire during both the 14th and 15th centuries. Koricancha, or "Courtyard of Gold" was a major shrine within the Incan empire, and its walls were lined with gold, gold that was eventually looted by the Conquistadores, but not enough gold to save the last Incan emperor, Atahualpa. Only a few walls of the original temple are still left, but they do bear witness to the exquisite craftsmanship of the Incan masons whose elegant work far outstrips the clumsy common blocking of the Baroque style convent that rises above the ramparts of the original temple. The temple, or its remnants, is an icon of an empire that totally collapsed under the invasion of the Spanish. The scourge that is colonialism--invade, conquer, occupy as much space as possible, strip out everything of value, redefine language, laws, and religion, isolate the locals outside of the circles of power, redefine all cultural values--is only too obvious in the baroque church built on top of Koricancha, essentially putting it under erasure, shoving it out to the margins of history. I understand how offended my modern post-post-modern post-colonial sensibility is, but I don't condemn the Spanish for doing any of what they did because they were doing to the Inca what the Inca had been doing to other cultures and societies up and down the Andes. Invade and conquer, it's an old story in human history. The "Leyenda Negra" of the Spanish has long since been chucked on the ash heap of world history, but their colonial legacy as a fallen empire still echoes within Peruvian society, and the Conquistadores (i.e., white Europeans) are, with a few minor exceptions, still running the government in Peru, and the local indigenous people are marginalized into slums in the urban areas or super-marginalized in the rural highlands where modern social amenities--medicine, schools, housing, utilities--are rare, lacking, or non-existent. Indigenous incomes in the high mountain mesas are almost nothing at all. The role of indigenous people working in the numerous Peruvian mines is particularly troubling, boasting a horrific safety record of numerous deaths and injuries. Koricancha is a kind of synecdoche for the entire Spanish enterprise in the "New World." Of course, the Spanish did the same thing in Iberia when they kicked the Muslims out of Córdoba, building a Gothic cathedral in the middle of the famous mosque. Carlos V actually built a palace in the middle of the Alhambra. The Visigoths built a church on top of a Roman temple in the same place. Invaders have always felt it necessary to exert their power over the conquered by building their own temple on top of the sacred space of those they have conquered. So when you go to Koricancha you will be assaulted by conflicting images of Incan art and architecture within the context of a Baroque Christian church. The conclusions that you draw about this odd juxtaposition of cultures and technologies will be your own. All of the involved parties have long since turned to dust, and the caretakers of the site today are only the genetic shadows of the movers and shakers of 16th century Cuzco. The important thing about Koricancha is to go there, see it, experience it, and be a witness, albeit four hundred years after the fact.

On going home

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What do you consider "home"? The place you grew up? Where you went to school? Or were you a wandering soul that never put down roots? "Home" is a very difficult concept to define with any kind of objectivity or certainty. I would love to idealize this all out of proportion, but that would be too easy. The truth of the matter is highly complex and chaotic. One can spend an inordinate amount of time in a place and never feel at home, but even just a few days might suffice to convince you that a new place is really where your heart is at. I think that home must have something to do with the heart or the soul or some other ephemeral and subjective criteria that is completely irrational and totally inexplicable. We know we are home when we get there, and we also know when we are long way from home. Perhaps the concept of home is forged in our hearts when we are young and impressionable, when we are vulnerable and need protecting, forged by a sturdy roof over our heads and a warm meal on the table where we are always welcome any time of the day or night. Or maybe it's none of that. At some point in our lives we forge an identity, we come to recognize ourselves as proceeding from some place, and when asked where we are from, we name a place. We spend most of our lives leaving home, moving out, living far away, yearning for that comfort and safety that we felt as children when we were being watched over. The nostalgia we feel for home is never felt so keenly as when we most go to some place foreign for work or school or whatever avatars and caprices befall one in the normal course of a life. We spend all of our time trying to get away from home, remake our identifies as adults, take our philosophies new and unknown places, make a living, create a new home for our family in an unfamiliar setting. And we live our lives far away from our homes. I often get the feeling that contemporary society is less and less concerned with a person's hometown, an idea which is being washed away by the increasing mobility of every level of society. Many, many people no longer identify any place as home, which makes me wonder, have we gained a more universal identity or have we lost something very essential, something important. Paradoxically, going home is a risky venture if there ever was one. One is a child at home, and as one moves away, one establishes a new identity, but as we go back, we put on our old clothes and become a child again. Of course, we also run the risk of realizing how small our home town really is, how short the buildings, how narrow the streets, how tiny was the house we grew up in. The nostalgic golden age of our youth probably never existed at all except as an over-idealized dream constructed in our minds in a moment of loneliness and dread when yearning for another time and place was easier than facing the cold, harsh realities of a new place. Going home will always force us to see the realities of our childhoods, for good or for bad, and we must examine who we think we are, which may be different than the constructed personality we present to the world on a daily basis. Going home is about facing our most base fears about our short-comings, our failings, our lost dreams. Yet going home can also be about the people who made us who we are today, who shaped us, who educated us, who raised us and put us the road to adulthood, who made us successful, who forged us in the flames of childhood, once and for all times, making us who we are today. Going home is about looking in a mirror, darkly, and taking a good, long look at the truth about ourselves, and that might not be entirely a bad thing at all.

On going home

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What do you consider "home"? The place you grew up? Where you went to school? Or were you a wandering soul that never put down roots? "Home" is a very difficult concept to define with any kind of objectivity or certainty. I would love to idealize this all out of proportion, but that would be too easy. The truth of the matter is highly complex and chaotic. One can spend an inordinate amount of time in a place and never feel at home, but even just a few days might suffice to convince you that a new place is really where your heart is at. I think that home must have something to do with the heart or the soul or some other ephemeral and subjective criteria that is completely irrational and totally inexplicable. We know we are home when we get there, and we also know when we are long way from home. Perhaps the concept of home is forged in our hearts when we are young and impressionable, when we are vulnerable and need protecting, forged by a sturdy roof over our heads and a warm meal on the table where we are always welcome any time of the day or night. Or maybe it's none of that. At some point in our lives we forge an identity, we come to recognize ourselves as proceeding from some place, and when asked where we are from, we name a place. We spend most of our lives leaving home, moving out, living far away, yearning for that comfort and safety that we felt as children when we were being watched over. The nostalgia we feel for home is never felt so keenly as when we most go to some place foreign for work or school or whatever avatars and caprices befall one in the normal course of a life. We spend all of our time trying to get away from home, remake our identifies as adults, take our philosophies new and unknown places, make a living, create a new home for our family in an unfamiliar setting. And we live our lives far away from our homes. I often get the feeling that contemporary society is less and less concerned with a person's hometown, an idea which is being washed away by the increasing mobility of every level of society. Many, many people no longer identify any place as home, which makes me wonder, have we gained a more universal identity or have we lost something very essential, something important. Paradoxically, going home is a risky venture if there ever was one. One is a child at home, and as one moves away, one establishes a new identity, but as we go back, we put on our old clothes and become a child again. Of course, we also run the risk of realizing how small our home town really is, how short the buildings, how narrow the streets, how tiny was the house we grew up in. The nostalgic golden age of our youth probably never existed at all except as an over-idealized dream constructed in our minds in a moment of loneliness and dread when yearning for another time and place was easier than facing the cold, harsh realities of a new place. Going home will always force us to see the realities of our childhoods, for good or for bad, and we must examine who we think we are, which may be different than the constructed personality we present to the world on a daily basis. Going home is about facing our most base fears about our short-comings, our failings, our lost dreams. Yet going home can also be about the people who made us who we are today, who shaped us, who educated us, who raised us and put us the road to adulthood, who made us successful, who forged us in the flames of childhood, once and for all times, making us who we are today. Going home is about looking in a mirror, darkly, and taking a good, long look at the truth about ourselves, and that might not be entirely a bad thing at all.

On Barney Fife

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The first time I saw Barney Fife, I thought he was the least-prepared man for law enforcement I had ever seen. Not that Mayberry needed a lot of law enforcement. Crime was not running rampant through the streets of this small town, but Andy Taylor did need a deputy to help keep his town in line--they did have at least one drunk, and you never knew when someone or something might escape from the big city of Mount Pilot. And, of course, there was always traffic trouble in Mayberry, but it was never clear that they even had a stoplight to run. What with all the gossip going on the Floyd's barbershop, one had to work hard to keep up with local gossip, but Barney was always hanging around trying to be useful, earn his keep, so to speak. Perhaps what was most appealing about Barney was his complete lack of ability in law enforcement. Barney was not tall, skinny to the point of boney, nervous as a cat in a rocking chair factory, brave but not tough, not skilled with firearms (he wasn't allowed to put a bullet in his gun). He knew the letter of the laws, but it was always Andy who did all the implementation and actual law enforcement. Yet, there was an ideal innocence to Barney which made him the perfect deputy. If you could believe that Barney was a deputy then you had to believe that there was always hope for the human race. Barney was an Everyman, a man that has existed through the millennium who has always acted in good faith, is loyal and supportive, is a friend who you might invite to your house or perhaps even let date your sister. Barney's great failing, if one might call it that, was his inability to recognize evil when it stood right in front of him. He always thought the best of people as if he had never really known evil at all. To meet a completely innocent man, one free of cynicism and malice, one who's heart is pure even in the face of a decadent society. In this way, he is a totally unique character to be admired and contemplated. His main job, however, was comic relief. His character in a deeper sense was that of clown, a janus with two faces--one laughing, the other crying. Barney is about the hopes and dreams of everyman who has a job and is trying his best to make a go of things. His desire to be a good policeman caused him to suffer a great deal of anxiety even if he never understood that crime in Mayberry was not a pressing problem. He had difficulty in carrying himself off as an authority figure, and his fellow citizens often laughed at him as he tried to carry off the gravitas necessary to be a good deputy. His attempts at being serious frequently led him into silly situations where his pretend bravado was often funnier than just acting normal. Not much of a lady's man, I was intrigued by the women he dated, but then again, in Mayberry bachelors probably came at a premium. Instead of problematic, I realized that although Barney did not reunite the requisite qualities of a stereotypical lawman, he did bring a uniquely human perspective to the job that gave him a special edge as deputy. It wasn't that Mayberry needed a strong-arm law man, but they did need a man who understood the question of being human, which for them, was much more important. Skinny, trembling, nervous, Barney Fife was ideal in almost every way for helping to maintain law and order in the thriving metropolis of Mayberry.

On the past

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Spilled milk, water under the bridge, a crumbled cookie, all metaphors for things that have already irremediably happened for which there is no recourse. The past in a different country for which we lament and think fondly. In light of current circumstances we often feel encouraged to idealize the past, change it so the present feels less painful. In the past, people who may have been lost in some tragic way are still alive and we are still happy. I think all of the time travel stories in which people return to the past so that they can meet up with people who are long since passed away. The past can often be an illusory refuge, a temporal mirage, when we were happier, or more complete, or less lonely. There is almost always a time in the past that we idealize as some sort of golden age when everything was better, when the food was tastier, the wine, sweeter, the people, still alive. Current circumstances, often clouded by job, pressures, bills, circumstances, people, fears, and conflicts, never seem to bring together the requisite parameters that form that strange state we might call happiness. We fight deadlines, difficulties, and dead ends, we rage against the machine, only to find it is not the machine but the ghosts in it that make our current lives difficult. We risk everything by living in a past that never existed because it looks more appealing than getting up on any given morning and driving off into the rain. This is, of course, an illusion. The past is an illusion. Seldom are we either honest or sincere about how difficult our lives might have been in the past. We repress the sadness and the difficulties of the past without truly examining how problematic nature of the past. There are some who try to alter the present by invoking the past, especially when it comes to social change and the attempts by some to keep change from happening. Change is the only constant that links the past with the present, and change is the only unalterable facet of both the past and present that will continue into the future. People hate change, but change is inexorable, unavoidable, inevitable, like taxes and death. By trying to reclaim the past as some sort of golden, idyllic era of perfect values or ideal behavior, some people falsify what the past was all about. The problems that people might have today, they have always had--greed, envy, hate, jealousy, insecurity, ire, pride, sloth. Our oldest stories, even Cain and Abel, are about the those kinds of problems, and the story of Eden is the grandest venture into nostalgia that has ever been written or imagined, a perfect place which is never hot or cold, where the food is plentiful and tasty, where nothing is ever lacking. Nostalgia is phony prison of badly remembered times and reformulated memories that chain us to a fake existence that never really was in the first place. The only way the present is tolerable is if we see it through a clear crystal lens, rejecting rose-colored glasses and dark mirrors which change and deform the past in ways that change and deform our present. To live freely in the present, the past must be analyzed honestly and critically, and one must be willing to accept the change inherent in the passage of time. Yearning for a past that never really existed only serves to frustrate and weaken our sense of the present. So the past is past, and nothing can be done about changing it, but looking at it with a cold eye of objectivity may bring it to life and inform our present.

On cemeteries and graveyards

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What could I possibly say about cemeteries that has not already been said? Seriously creepy, still, morbid, sad, pastoral, cold, lonely, desolate, the destination from which no one returns but the gravedigger and the clergy. You can call the local bone pile anything you want, but it never stops be exactly that: a bone pile, a pile of bones. That which is left when we die, the mortal combination of bone and flesh, unmoving, unfeeling, unseeing, is not but the leftovers of a life that burned brightly for a short amount of time before the soul took its leave, leaving only ash and emptiness behind. I am not convinced that there is any point in burying bodies in the ground. There are health issues for doing it, but the mortal remains of any person are only what remains after death. In spite of what Dr. Frankenstein might have alleged at some point in the past, bodies cannot be regenerated or reanimated once the end has come. There is a limit to what modern medicine and empirical sciences can do with the spark of life, but then again cemeteries are monuments to defeat and the inevitability of death, an inevitability that gives us all energy and passion, knowing that all mortal things are finite. Cemeteries are clearly about memory, creating memory, creating a monument, mourning, loss, the past, and leaving it behind. We build cemeteries because we fear death and need to put it inside an official area where we normally don't go. Yes, we go to cemeteries to leave flowers, mourn for the dead, and to leave the newly dead, but otherwise our legends and mythologies are designed to scare away the curious and the foolish. The living know only too well that death is only always too close, but that by isolating death in a special place, death is far away and removed. The tombstones are iconic of both death and memory, and although they carry the names of the dead, the stones are a reassurance to the living that they are, indeed, alive because no stone yet carries their particular name. The cemetery is then both attractive and repellant to the living, a normal by-product of a healthy society which cannot conceive or understand the true nature of life's final mystery. All will go to the cemetery in their time, and so in our sadness and loss, we erect monuments and stones to the memory of the departed. The stones do nothing to alleviate the sadness of loss, but the simulacrum of funerals, burial, and departure are traditions and rituals which distract us from the business at hand, saying goodbye to a loved one. For outsiders, the cemetery is a completely different kind of place: an inscribed history of a place, the people who lived there, and the people who still live there. Cemeteries, when cared for, are pleasant, quiet, pastoral scenes which are good for thinking and relaxing. What is sad, however, are the forgotten cemeteries which herald changing times and displaced civilizations, forgotten families, the abandoned dead. Perhaps cemeteries exist because the living fear being forgotten at all. Yet the brutal reality of time and memory is the cruel truth that at some point in the future, we will all be forgotten. The physical never endures. Poetry endures, words endure, stories endure. The details may fade, but the essence of art, poetry, words, will endure even when the faces are forgotten. So we dig the graves and plant the headstones.

On nights like this

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Darkness has descended upon the landscape. Wind buffets the house. The temperature is dropping. On a night like this one must count one's blessings that the furnace is working, the windows are solid, the insulation is effective, and the fire in the hearth is bright and warm. It's on nights like this when the stars are spinning overhead, light years away, frozen at absolute zero, swirling in cosmic dust and random space rocks, that one feels the pull of existential angst, that one feels small and lonely standing on the edge of the universe, watching time unfold before your very eyes. Time stretches out in front of you, infinitely unfolding as the wind howls in your ears. On a night like this you wonder about what you do for a living, pondering the importance of your life in the grand scheme of things. Frost is forming on the windows, the moon hangs icily on the horizon, the night deepens, you sigh deeply and think dark thoughts. My muse bustles into the room, drinking whiskey, and wearing a sprig of mistletoe in her hair. "You worry way too much. Makes you a bit of a holiday wet blanket, you know." December, despite all of the holiday lights, is a dark month, and many people hate the holiday season, all that cheer, eggnog, Christmas presents, music, songs, inflatable snowmen and lawn decorations. Sometimes the holiday cheer is just a little too cheerful for words. On a night like this on the shortest day of the year, when daylight is as a premium, your thoughts turn morbid and dark. Personal philosophies, the meaning of life, your great reason for being all seem so trivial when surviving seems like a good priority. This is what winter is all about--the long winter's nights when not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. On nights like this, the mice a especially quiet because they know that their very survival depends on their ability to sleep away the dead of winter. Their own simulacrum of death is the same thing that keeps them alive. Perhaps on a night like this, it is the mice who understand what making it through the winter is all about. My muse sips her whiskey and glances over my shoulder. "Are you getting all morose and nostalgic, thinking deep thoughts about existentialism and death? You know, nobody wants to read about that stuff. You need to be writing about medieval existential stuff that nobody in their right mind will ever read. Or drink more. You never drink enough." On a night like this, one struggles to understand the way the world works, random violence, accidents, war, strife, conflict, the fiscal cliff. Nothing particularly funny about any of that. Or the Mayan prediction that tomorrow will be the end of the earth. The mice are sleeping soundly because they know that tomorrow will be another day, that nights like this are always followed by another day when the sun comes up, and everyone starts over. Maybe the meaning of life is so simple that any attempt to describe or explain it only serves to obscure it even more. So I should work more, worry less, and let my muse do her stuff. Perhaps it is our very resistance to the universe which hides its strange beauty to us. Perhaps it's on nights like this when the universe stands before us, clear, cold, frosty, magnificent, mysterious, an enigma if there ever was one.

On Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

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Being just a little different can really be a big problem. The story of Rudolph is one of rejection, isolation, and marginalization that take a heavy toll on all those involved, victim and oppressors. I have never really understood why human beings have such a hard time dealing with those people (or reindeer) who are a little different. Rudolph is openly mocked by his peer group for having a red nose. This is a physical difference over which he has no control and no responsibility. Those in authority do little to stop the mocking, and even serve to make the situation a little worse by sending him home and banning him from reindeer school and the games they play. This is an old story about shame and loneliness, distrust and fear, envy and anxiety. In other words the reindeer has been openly rejected by his cohort and by the authorities placed there to keep order and teach the new reindeer. The cruelty of the situation is stunning, and although the bullies are initially rebuffed by the authority (Donner), they get what they want when Rudolph is sent away. The story of Rudolph is an allegory for those who suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as they are tormented and bullied for reasons over which they have no control and no recourse--big ears, a funny nose, red hair, short stature, skinny body, strange eyeglasses, out-of-date clothing, odd voice, overweight body. Tolerance is not promoted or practiced because authorities have often started out life as those who dish it and are very intolerant themselves. Many people, I believe, can relate to Rudolph's plight as he runs away, believing there is no place for him in North Pole society. He is a misfit. The fact that his story has a happy ending answers few questions for those whose stories do not have happy endings. Perhaps it is the isolation and silent suffering which is so hard to take, especially when it is your peers who are taking great delight in torturing you because you are slow, or nerdy, or not cool, or not with it. You yourself know that you are really no different than anyone else, and Rudolph realizes this as well. It is his slight physical difference which makes him a monster for all who might behold him. Once society decides that he his monstrous, then his right to live freely and pursue happiness is gone, limited by prejudice and hate. Rudolph journeys off into the wilderness, another metaphor for conflict, doubt, and self-loathing, driven away by a society that cannot tolerate the individual who controls their own destiny. Society does not tolerate difference, independence, iconoclasms, or anarchy within its social borders. Though having a red nose is nothing but a cosmetic difference that has nothing to do with actual content, having a different colored anything has always been a reason to enslave, mistreat, marginalize, or repress. Apartheid was born of racial prejudice and it flourished as a bonafide social practice for decades before it was overthrown. Rudolph's story is, then, both profound and important. It is unjust and wrong to treat anyone different just because of some physical difference which is of no importance whatsoever. The allegory of Rudolph and his nose is an important lesson for everyone, especially during the holiday season when these differences are felt so keenly. As a final note, one should remember that the misfits of the world are only misfits because of societal constructs that make them so. Exclusion is always easier than inclusion. If there is one message that all should take from the Christmas season, it must be that inclusion is good. An elf dentist named Hermy or a Klondike loner named Cornelius show much greater heart and soul by taking in Rudolph and including him in their club than those who would dismiss them because they do not conform to mainstream ideas of image and prestige.

On dreaming of a white Christmas

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So I live in central Texas where it was 81F today on December 3rd. But there is no such thing as global warming. This creepy warm weather is starting to get on my nerves, and it just does not feel like either December or the holiday season no matter how many Christmas carols I hear on the radio. There is no chance that snow will fall in any form within a thousand miles of Waco, Texas between now and Christmas. As a child in Minnesota I was used to all kinds of inclement winter weather--ice, snow, cold, wind, but today I had lunch outside and drank a huge glass of ice-tea and lemonade. The weather is almost surreal. The leaves are finally falling around here, but the heat and dry weather make it seem more like summer than late fall or early winter. The squirrels were frolicking about the quadrangle without a care in the world, fat and sassy, but maybe a little warm in their luxurious fur coats--pecans were a bumper crop for them this year, as were all the different kinds of acorns. I put my coat back in the closet a couple of days ago, and there it hangs, abandoned, forgotten, forlorn. Warm winter weather brings with it a certain melancholy which is hard to describe--cranky, out of sorts, sad, irked. When a person lives outside the influence of the four seasons, one also lives outside the natural cycles of weather. I wouldn't suggest that people need the cold to feel right, but the changing seasons offer a series of variations that bring variety and hope to the daily lives of people who live every year in a cycle of spring-summer-fall-winter. Warm summer mornings give way to crisp fall days which lead to the icy winds of winter, which will eventually surrender to moist warming breezes of spring. The changing seasons each offer something different, and when you are finally ready for a change, a new season brings something different, and you never get tired of the change. It would be very nice to have a white Christmas, a foot of snow dampens the sound of nature, lowers the temperature to levels that bite at the nose and nip at the toes. The season is not living up to expectations almost anywhere in the country this year, except for a few ski resorts of the northern Rockies. Maybe I should go there. I know I'm idealizing this all out of proportion: that high temperatures in winter save the nation millions in heating costs, traffic accidents are down because of no snow and ice, and towns and municipalities are saving oodles of money by not having to do snow removal. Their budgets overfloweth. But then again, what about the people that make their livings because it snows? The snow removal people sit twiddling their thumbs. the snow shovel guys have boxes full of brand new untouched snow shovels, and the fuel trucks sit idly by, full, but no deliveries. .Warm weather in December cuts a couple of ways, but it does not inspire the spirit. The grow shorter, the nostalgia grows deeper, and the soul yearns to feel a nip in the air, some snow on the ground, and the world taking its long winter's nap, so all I can do for now is dream. "White Christmas" you ask? Written by someone who had to spend the holidays in Los Angeles and had no white Christmas.