Ellen A. Wilkin

Darkness and snow descend;
The Clock on the Mantelpiece
Has nothing to recommend

-- W. H. Auden, Advent

I sit in the front room clutching a mug of Earl Grey and basking in the radiance of the Christmas tree. Its white lights and silver, gold, and multi-colored ornaments push back the advancing dusk. As the light fades, the candles in the window begin to glow, and both they and the white lights on the tree are reflected in the front and back windows. In the front yard, the blue lights on the evergreens snap on, and looking out, I see an overlay of white on blue. And now the solar lights on the pine at the back window fade in. The reflections multiply: outdoor lights reflecting back on themselves and onto each other and playing over the reflections of the indoor tree and the candles. I am pleased and my imagination runs away. I am the warder of the dark and the watcher over the last beacon at the edge of night!

The first hints of Winter came early this year with a snowstorm and heavy gray days over Thanksgiving. I nestled down into layers of cotton and fleece and wrote. While I’m working on a project, I struggle for inspiration, and gray, snow-choked days make it harder. I have successfully wooed it a time or two, but have more often suffered total failure. (Don’t try Spider Solitaire. Does. Not. Work.) Despite all my experience chasing inspiration over the years, I don’t know exactly what it is. Writers write about it. Musicians play and sing to it. Artists draw and paint and sculpt until they find it. Actors become someone else in search of it. When it comes – and there is no guarantee it arrives at all – it is not to be corralled. It does not follow a structure or schedule. It is or is not. Some folks seem to have it at their finger tips whenever they need it. Some of us don’t. In my experience, when inspiration comes it feels like being struck by lighting. And like lightening, it reveals something. Maybe a memory I’d forgotten or some understanding that I didn’t know I had. Inspiration can feel like a sudden collision of ideas that were unrelated but now have a relationship. A feeling that I am part of the world washes over me. And everything is right.

Beginning at the winter solstice, I try to capture the essence of Christmas to find inspiration. "Christmas" for me starts with a feeling of security and love that I had as a child fostered by the love and generosity of my parents. It then morphs into a tradition completely enacted and controlled by me. Some aspects are the same: Caroling, lights, baking, eating meat-heavy meals and sweets, erecting a tree with presents underneath. I stare into the red, green, blue, and gold lights on the mantelpiece and let my eyes go out of focus so the colors blur into a magical tapestry, just as I would as a child. (I had perfected the eye blur at Saint Mary's primary school during Friday morning mass. I would stare at the altar and let my eye muscles relax. The world became a wash of color and a hint of shape.) But forty-eight years later, my adult sensibilities come to bear on the process. I make wreaths from discarded evergreen branches, pine cones, and used red ribbons. I invite friends and family to make merry. I love the sugar-and-chocolate aroma of cookies baking and the earthy citrus spice taste of mulled-wine-soaked orange slices. I want to hear the tinkling of bells, the brass and boom and trill of instruments, and voices raised in song. It is a grand composition.

As an adult I love the reaction others sometimes have to my winter composition. For example, new neighbor CJ pointed us out to his children as we walked by and said “those are the folks with the blue lights.” Lonny, our neighbor for twenty years now, stopped by the house while walking his dog and, as she nosed into the bushes I had just decorated, said in his Texas drawl, “Yep. That’s the house with the blue lights, Peaches.” Susan, next door, commented as she walked by with her dog that I was "too ambitious." I told her I could stop anytime I wanted to. That's when it hit me: I was making myself happy. The whole point of this process was to find delight in my creativity and to connect with others. Perhaps that's inspiration in a nutshell: a feeling of connection, both to ourselves and to others. The completion of a circuit – in the brain, in the soul, in the body. Then we light up from inside. And then that brilliance spills into the outside world.

The final aspect of my winter composition is this: reaching out to all of you. Hope you find the inspiration to do wonderful and creative things for yourself and for others this year.

The Nutcracker Suite chime announces the arrival
of the Christmas mouse.

No cousins here, nor extended family
The rabbits left a while ago and
no critters have come since the last cat
who graced every chair and left fur everywhere
Those pheromones would make
any discriminating mouse scat

Yet here she came just days before
skating across the floor
where the stockings hung with care
and while the lights blinked in the windows
both up and down the stair
and the trees stood trimmed
and wreaths doors adorned
As mulled wine steamed and warmed
and hot chocolate frothed ready--
in the grate even the fire roared steady--
the carolers were about to sing!
And she comes skittering!

From the basement door
across the hearth
a dark furry body scurries
and into view does hove
just missing my slippered feet
and slides beneath the stove!

We must accept and add to our ken
that we are the victims of
the plans of mice, not men.

—Ellen A. Wilkin

Winter Poem

Winter Letter 2019/2020

Christmas Mouse