Our house is an ungodly mess this morning. Boxes are piled everywhere, and bags (large white plastic or heavy paper with handles) are strewn around with apparent abandon in accordance with some scheme known only to Helen. Such messes are normal in late November and early December, but not in mid-December. By this time of the month, the boxes and bags have usually been emptied and put out of sight, their utility at an end until early January when they will be returned to our living room to be refilled with their usual contents.
It is holiday decoration time, albeit two weeks late. This year the entire rigmarole was delayed due to the necessary preparation for Helen’s surgery, the surgery itself and the following hospital stay, and the first week of her recovery. It is beyond anyone’s concept that I should decorate the house; I am only good as a beast of burden and not very good at that, truth to tell. The decoration process was far better for all concerned when I worked, for I could disappear and the elves were able to decorate in my absence without having to endure my suggestions, comments, and complaints.
The house is Helen’s canvas and her designs are confined to her imagination. To imagine what the house would look like for the holidays without her hand involved would be like a single person being asked to imagine the whole of infinity. She gives verbal clues in the weeks of run up – suggestions of themes and combinations of tried and true decorations with the new things she purchases each year. But they are only hints, not riddles; teasers, not previews – they lack enough substance to create a vision of anything other than vague, hazy outlines. The scheme’s entirety is clear and entire in her imagination, but, like most good visual artists she expresses it best by the doing, not by using words.
The beginnings of this year’s mess began two days ago. On Friday, Ilene (Helen’s sister) came by with the intention of helping me pick out a tree and bring it into the house. The initial plan had been for the two of us to search out our usual tree lot (now moved for the first time in 8 years) and bring a tree home in hopes Helen would find it acceptable. When we began to get ready to leave, it became clear that Helen was accompanying us. No amount of persuasion would convince her otherwise, so off we went. The lot was found after much driving and wandered by all, a tree was selected and tied to car’s roof by the lot attendant, and a wreath for the front door placed carefully into its back. When we got home, Helen hung the wreath with Ilene’s assistance, and Ilene and I untied and unloaded the tree. Helen supervised our placement of the tree into its stand, a most useful act in that it materially shortened the time I usually spend tilting the tree this way and that while Helen alternatively lies flat to tighten the stand’s eye-bolts and stands up to interpret and judge progress. With the tree up, Helen’s stamina was at an end and we all had lunch while the tree rested.
Yesterday morning before Ilene’s return, I began the process of finding boxes and bags whose contents, general form, and suspected location were described vaguely to me by Helen. Nothing was where she remembered or directed me, but it never is. This is an annual occurrence and unrelated to surgery or the necessary drugs taken is support of her recovery. Every year she clearly remembers where some particular something was two or three years ago and how it was boxed or bagged at the time, but has no recollection of how she prepared it for storage last year or where she put it in the inevitably improved yearly scheme of storage. The annual house decorating process would be incomplete without such confusion; none of us would be satisfied without it. The only thing I am certain about is that Helen will reconfigure the decorations’ storage again this year, only to remember, a year hence, what it used to be last year – or the year before. In truth, it is a little easier to find things each year than last, so perfection is always nearer to hand even if never achieved.
And so the house is a mess this morning, and will be for longer than usual during holiday decoration time. By bedtime last night, the tree was only partially decorated as Helen must take her time to rest, take her pills, and eat every hour on the hour as the doctor demands for the next several weeks.
But I am content with this year’s mess; in fact, I am reveling in it. This year’s mess is special: it is both evidence of December normality (even if it has turned up late and will rule the roost for longer than usual) and proof of the artist’s integrity and continuing creativity. There is always great joy in the confusion of creation, but there is so much more satisfaction to be had in this year’s mess in the knowledge that the artist is once again at work producing beauty from its primal sludge.
