Smoke and Mirrors

I stood at South Station tonight watching the Christmas Train roll along the tracks.
They set it up every year and tonight I found myself daydreaming [night dreaming?] a bit,
reminiscing about days gone by, Christmases past, simple times and in some smaller way, happier times.
Gone are the days of smoking Lionel train sets
and Adirondack baseball bats made of white ash, a hardwood that had that ‘swack’ sound
when you made contact with the ball.
We didn’t use those shitty aluminum bats made to save the freekin’ rainforest.
We cut down trees for bats and played baseball.
End of story.
I wonder how many boys have ever discovered the feeling of a baseball finding the ‘sweet spot’ on a bat;
it is something almost indescribable in a way.
It feels so very right and almost heavenly.
The same goes for the waxy and comfortable aroma upon opening of a fresh box of  ©Crayola crayons.
The memories of things that made me happy back then are now located high on a shelf,
out of view and out of reach.
I’m afraid that if I did try to touch them that they would sadly dissolve, settling into some
cob-webbed and cranial antechamber to be forever lost and untouchable ala ‘the Island of misfit Toys’;
“Nobody wants a Charlie in a box.”
Or a train with square wheels.
Christmas is supposed to be a season of hope and sacred renewal, love and unexpected miracles, the innocence of a child and the birth of the Christ.
My biggest problem is my inability to turn off the omnipresent and methodical holiday din; a most socially accepted version of seasonal torture.
Please don’t waterboard me with the Carpenter’s Christmas album.
I’ll give you my PayPal  and Amazon password, just not that.
My mind gets filled with everything but holiday spirit as sights, lights and sounds careen off my internal walls of yuletide cynicism and silent nights; I want so much more for my heart but it never seems to happen.
Maybe this year . . . maybe I will drift away on some runaway train to a tropical island where I can sell hot dogs from a stand while drinking Guinness and smoking Cuban cigars.
My Perfect Merry Christmas.
In a perfect world . . .

~m