Rituals of family life

I prefer to write at the kitchen table. This morning, that requires a major clean up—of Christmas cookie-makings:spilled flour, empty butter wrappers, cookie cutters—the angel and the reindeer among them.

Nine ripe bananas tell me I’ll be making banana bread later today. For now, I munch on one for breakfast, as I write.

Writing in the kitchen requires diligence, and will. One must first wipe the counters clean, load the dishwasher, clean the table, and rise early enough to avoid family traffic. Today, I have the window of time afforded between my daughter’s school day and my husband’s post late-night sleeping-in. The dog knows enough to stay in his bed until my pen clicks “done” and my boots go on.

At this time of year, the deadline for my column needs to loom larger than any other obligation in order to spur activity. Creative energies go to making cards and cookies, trimming the tree and sprucing up the living room. I neglect the fine arts for the “womanly” ones. Oh, where has my feminist gone? Into the kitchen, everyone!

Lately, though, I regret not one of the hours I spend attending to the rituals of family life. As my teenagers spread their wings in anticipation, my own awareness of passing time becomes harder to ignore with every gaze into the mirror. I treasure the opportunities to enjoy these simple tasks and pleasures, even as they keep me from my art.

Everyday life does not have the defined aspects and ratios of art. Like life, a story or a poem will have a beginning and an end, but its threads will weave meaning, and search for clarity between those parameters.

Life has apparently infinite story lines that are often left unresolved. Dangling participles abound. A minor character or plot twist can divert us from our main adventure for years, even forever.

Maybe this is why we cling to holiday rituals. They afford us the luxury of living in a defined realm—of anticipation, realization, and resolution. From unpacking the ornaments and trimming the tree, eating the cookies, opening the presents, to finally, putting it all away until next year.

Some people decry the sameness of holiday rituals. “If I never see another Nutcracker...” you hear them say. When I inquired about my 15 year old’s interest in seeing the Nutcracker again this year, she looked aghast to think I would need to ask. “Of course I want to go, Mom. It’s not Christmas without the Nutcracker!” And I agree. It is the play within the play of our family’s holiday season.

Although my teen daughter now wears an outfit of her own choosing (often eclectic) rather than the homemade couture of years past, she still gobbles cookies in the Green Room at New York State Theater, and dances on the plaza at Lincoln Center with her cousins, post-ballet. Great-Aunt Nell looks on, beaming, at her beauteous tribe.

There will be many of these rituals before the New Year dawns. Some will test our wallets, like the ballet, others our fortitude, like the crowds at Rockefeller Center the week before Christmas. But all will be part of the larger ritual of family life, a definable chapter in a long and often complicated story.