Do the rest of you experience that let-down feeling after Christmas? Sort of a blah ambience, that a fellow worker of mine used to define as that &uot;all-for-naught feeling&uot;? I suppose it springs from the fact that Christmas is such a special time that anything following it is bound to lose a bit of the glow.

Thursday, December 27, 2001

Do the rest of you experience that let-down feeling after Christmas? Sort of a blah ambience, that a fellow worker of mine used to define as that &uot;all-for-naught feeling&uot;? I suppose it springs from the fact that Christmas is such a special time that anything following it is bound to lose a bit of the glow.

When I was working I used to counter it by immediately fastening my thought on my summer vacation. Vacation schedules were sent around in January and while I never had big plans it was something to look forward to. When I’d had my vacation I started looking forward to Christmas.

Now that Christmas is a bit less exuberant than it was in my younger days, and my vacation has stretched to 12 months, I have found a new way to overcome the post-Christmas doldrums. I set about putting my house in order. Sounds wholesome, yes? Never believe it.

With the best intention in the world, I dedicate myself to the task of cleaning out a drawer. One drawer, mind you. And I clean out that drawer. Oh, perfectly! Where it was cluttered and messy it now lies in pristine order, nothing in it that shouldn’t be there. Everything that should be there arranged neatly at hand.

Unfortunately in the process of cleaning that drawer – and I think there is something positively sinister about this – I have reduced the entire room in which the drawer is located to complete chaos. If I take my courage in my hands and attempt to tidy the room, and I do, I manage to reduce the entire house to chaos.

Frankly I think there’s something supernatural about it. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota living in a dormitory I usually tried to have a roommate who was supremely well organized. No matter how well-organized she was, though, there is such a darkness in bad influence, that by the end of the quarter we were rolling into the pit of untidiness together.

I had a good friend, a nun, whom I once told that if I could see my way clear to becoming a convert I would at once share her vows. It seemed to me that if I were a nun, devoid of possessions, I might achieve that order for which I’ve ever yearned.

My friend laughed like mad, said she hated to disillusion me, but she’d been in a convent since she was a teenager and some of the messiest women she’d ever known had been nuns.

Frankly I didn’t believe her then and I don’t believe her now. I remember back to the days when the sisters wore the regulation habit and am inclined to marvel at how cool and tidy they looked even in the dead of summer. And believe me, Nebraska summers are a far cry from most Minnesota summers. Moreover back in those unenlightened years none of us had ever heard of air conditioning.

Our local undertaking parlors used to compete with each other by sending boxes of palm leaf fans to the various churches. You sat in a stiflingly hot church fanning yourself with a stemmed palm leaf on which was printed something like, &uot;Let us help you in your hour of grief. Our services are tasteful and reasonable in price.&uot;

When I have no other questions to put to myself, I sometimes let my mind occupy itself as to whether Nebraska summers or Minnesota winters take the most out of you.

There used to be a newspaper cartoon called &uot;Out Our Way.&uot; Many of the situations harked back to an earlier era. I remember once it portrayed the plight of two young girls bemoaning the fact that they had to clean house and go to the dressmaker in the spring and the fall.

As one of them said, &uot;We have to waste the two best seasons of the year getting ready for the two worst seasons of the year.&uot;

That’s why I like my choice of when to attempt the cleaning bit. About the only thing you can say for the season we’re now entering is that it is a season.

And I’ve already made a splendid start. The coffee table in the TV room is totally cleared. My good friend Marin Ring was over the other day and, in observing the table with some surprise, said that she had never realized what a beautiful surface it had.

She added that come to think of it she didn’t actually remember having seen the surface before. To be honest it seems to me that it has been some time since I have seen that particular surface.

Now if I can just figure out what to do with the papers and such that I was obliged to put under the table in order to clear the surface, I’ll have it made.

I’m not discouraged. As someone once said, &uot;A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.&uot;

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.