The Christmas Miracle, Chapter Three

Sometimes the lessons are in the out of focus periphery, the things that solve themselves without our intervention. Well, really, that's the lesson itself. We're not superheroes. Not every miracle is a thing that requires our full attention and involvement.

The miracle lies in the moment. This moment. No, not the moment ago when I started saying "The miracle lies in the moment...". It's not even in the moment when I wrote this thought. It's this...right now...with you reading this very word, you taking breath right now, your eyes blinking as you scan this very sentence. It's the instant we share when we have the power of choice, where we are at this point in our lives.

I walked through a cold theater tonight, not cold because of our strange weather lately, but cold in the impersonal, forgetful way. There were actors in there - not my actors. They were old friends, but somehow strangers now. They are the victims of a theater company built on the scraps of peoples' hopes and aspirations, a huge monster breathing in angst and greed and exhaling competition and short-sighted loyalties.

I go to work every day with the feeling that I'm always catching up, and I'm still sitting with the struggle of knowing the difference between co-workers and friends. I get mixed messages sometimes, but ultimately, what everyone is most concerned with is self-preservation. Some people place that on the success of the whole company and others have a tough enough time with their square putty-colored living space. One wonders if that's the reason why I roam the hallways talking to as many people as I can and our temp was let go today. We all have different needs.

What gets me through these places, these strange situations I find myself in with people, is that moment after. I keep refreshing my mind and my vision...I kept looking for that miracle and kept getting distracted. That's when I found it. It was the moment I blinked and looked at my good life, and the past began to blur. I remember the weird trip through the theater I spent 10 years in now, only because I'm writing about it. Once I click on Preview & Post, it's gone. I write about the work stuff because it's a part of my daily life, but before I even leave the parking lot at work, these days I'm thinking about the play I'm opening in one week.

The miracle is, I'm lucky. Because I keep myself busy, my life constantly reinvents itself and keeps turning the topsoil over. I have my reactions and see the undeniable behavior - that's my training - but at the same time I stay focused. That's why it was so hard to see the miracle during my Christmas in Miami. It kept happening over and over again, and in the end, when I found myself back in Los Angeles, the whole thing was like dream, a month spent in Miami over the course of two weeks. Would that be the miracle, that life outlasts the little problems that sometimes slow us down and make us stop being a part of living it?

For all these moments, the big questions I keep throwing out there and my need to write about it all, here we are, sharing this thought together, this very breath. That, my friend, is a miracle.

The Christmas Miracle, Chapter Two

I should have known. Stories in every form are never told without conflict. A writer just doesn't write about everything going well, and beyond that, miracles can't be recognized without a contrasting background. Did I really expect to find a series of small micracles scattered across boredome like stars in a black sky? No, I think every true miracle must be earned. The little ones and the big ones. It's part of our brilliantly flawed system of thinking and feeling. If it's not told to us in a relevant and blunt tone inside of 20 seconds, we might miss the point....

So I never really stopped to write over the holidays. Truth to tell, I was having too much fun. Maybe that in itself is a miracle (how did I spend a month in Miami while only two weeks actually ticked away?), or maybe I just put myself in the right frame of mind from the very start. It was pretty close to perfect, to begin with: I spent the first three days in Walt Disney World with my sister having fun going on every ride and then suddenly diving off into REM sleep the very second we got to our room at the resort. After that, it was stress-free Christmas shopping done quickly with a lot of time to spend with my parents and my niece's boys. Of course, this is family I'm talking about here, so believe me, I was already thankful for the little miracle that most everyone was on good behavior.

I knew that going in. Reality isn't defined by me living in Miami, nor does it assume that everyone I was visiting was going to remain the way I saw them. For one thing, life in L.A. was such that I first thought of looking for the Christmas Miracle before I left here. Life constantly moves here, and I run into so many business-minded people that it's hard to know where you stand sometimes. It's hard to feel things in L.A., so you become aggressive about feeling positive rather than slowing down to be happy.

The other part of reality that we have to see is that once the holiday season is over, the rest of the family goes back to normal, too. I won't even get into that at this point, but some people, it seems, will never change.

So what we have right now is that contrast. We have the beginnings of a backdrop for a miracle, and regardless of the timing, the miracle is still on my Christmas list. Yeah, I got nearly everything else I wanted, but I've got my eyes open for the things to come.