It just doesn't seem to be around this year. I suspect there are two main reasons for it. One is very simple - we still don't have snow. December without snow looks like late October in Estonia. Christmases need to be white in this part of the world - and they usually are. Only the few couple of years we have had problems with it, as far as I can remember. Even the Christmas lights don't help that much when it's dark and damp outside.
It was only for a couple of hours yesterday evening that the true Christmas feeling took over. We went to hear Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir's Christmas concert with my dad and there, in the windowless concert hall, it did begin to feel a lot like Christmas. They sang Christmas songs with their angelic voices and everyone's spirit seemed to be lifted. But it was strange to step outside after the concert and face the rainy weather again.
But the second reason is more complex. It has to do with my dad having moved from Pärnu to Türi. I will go and visit him there for the first time tomorrow but it hardly feels like going home for Christmas. The concept of home has lost some of its meaning and as Christmas is so closely connected with (going) home, my Christmases have lost some of its essence. It's not overtly tragic, we still get together and share food and presents, and we'll go sing in a care home on Sunday morning just to make Christmas a little bit more about other people and less about ourselves. But the thrill of going home is lost.
But at the same time I'm getting more and more excited about the new year. Again, I'm not quite sure where the reason lies but I'm really looking forward to 2017. It will be filled with a good amount of teaching and traveling, and a terrible amount of working. But there is hope and expectation in my heart. Good things are yet to happen!
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Today it's three years since my mum passed away. It was a day just as windy and damp as today. In some way, not much has changed, on the other hand, plenty has changed. I've long since realised that both life goes on and death goes on. This will never change. I will always have to live with her death and with the longing (which sometimes is rather intense) for the touch of a mother's hand. But the pain has lessened a great deal. I no longer cry myself to sleep. I can talk about her without getting emotional. I can go to the cemetery and leave it, knowing that there is still so much life to be lived and loved and experienced. And with the pain slowly decreasing some other emotions have a chance to grow stronger - the gratitude and the sheer astonishment and the sense of undeserved luck sometimes wash over me like a wave. I had the most wonderful, the smartest and the kindest woman as my mother for 28 years. That's no small thing. That's huge.
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I was too eager to write about my Booker Prize last week. I should have waited a little longer - because the book count is up to 36 now. And I suspect the top 5 would have been slightly different too because Wild Swans was such an inspirational and emotional read - it would have made it to the top list. There probably wasn't an evening during the past two weeks when I didn't read the book. 660 pages just melted away somehow. For any history lovers - Wild Swans is the book for you!
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