(transcribed from scribbled notes)
I do some of my best thinking on barstools, perhaps. Or maybe just the loudest...
Xmas, oddly a time for introspection. Scrooge and his spirits, George Baily and his angel...all of us reviewing Xmases past, thinking of Xmases future...where have I been? Where am I going?
If, as they say, Xmas is a time for children, then it brings more questions, about family destiny. Will I ever watch a son or daughter unwrap presents on an Xmas morning? Is that what I want?
If Xmas is a time for family, what sort of family do I want? What sort of family has accrued to me, family partly of blood, partly of spirit, over the years?
I suppose largely it's the end of the calendar, contemplating what's past, the blank pages ahead.
Anyway, the practical upshot is that I find myself sitting in a bar Xmas night, after spending the day with family, watching my brother's girlfriend's son (perhaps to be my brother's stepson?) unwrap gifts and have that child's Xmas; wondering about family, and continuity, and relationships, and time, and that which is sacred, and thinking about five or six women, and singing along to bar music, and feeling somehow both hollow and inside-out, as if I were empty outside, perhaps.