I take it back

I take back what I said with regard to shopping and the "true meaning" of the high (priced) holidays. It was in reply to One Mean Chickadee's heartwarming, self-deprecating account of her and Jack Spatula's socially conscious celebrations, which are laudable. Basically what I blurted was, Hey, if you look around, you will see in the frenzy of mass consumption that the reason for the season is frenzied mass consumption. Or money - making it, having it, spending it.

But I take it back, or half of it anyway. I still believe the observable facts speak for themselves, but I've had second thoughts about my conclusion, based on a couple of hours last Saturday afternoon.

I stopped at the coop on Crestview for flour, and the woman in front of me in line was taking some extra time because she wanted to donate her used computer monitor to the coop, so one of the staff people came out to help her with it. The clerk was a former, short-term, qigong student. As I was leaving, two young women in running tights came bounding in to pay for their Christmas tree and get help loading it on top of their car. While I looked at the few trees on display outside the store, another staff person helped them tie down the tree with the two small bungees they had brought along. Gray-haired guy in black Chuck Taylors had advice, of course: "You might want to close the door and roll down the window an inch, then hook the bungee." By the time they drive off with the semi-secured spruce on their roof, everybody is smiling.

I'm smiling, too, as the 4,000th (or something) broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera comes on the radio in the debut of the third announcer in 73 years. I stop at the specialty food store on Indianola to buy fish and cheese, as I do once a year. While the man is showing me various kinds of herring, the minister at my church walks by, smiles, and says hello. I make my purchase, stopping for a free sample of an amazing almond pound cake, and drive home listening to Verdi while a light snow falls, my heart chakra working overtime.

It's all so very sappy. The helpful people, the cut trees, opera on the radio. Homo sapiens.