22:16 - April 19, 2002
santa
I remember noticing blue flowers early in my life, and how unnatural they looked to me then. I had an image in my head of the Blue-Flower-Painting Man, who ran around spraypainting ordinary orange and red flowers blue so there would be more color variation. He worked with such entities as the Creator Of Uneven Sidewalk Cracks (all the better for me to unwittingly break my mother�s back), the Sock Thrower (who made it impossible for me to find socks that matched), the Tall Monster, who evilly snuck extra inches onto my already beanpole-like legs while I slept, and my stuffed furry Grover, who my mother set on my newly made bed each week in a different position. On my birthday he held a tiny wrapped box, but sometimes he sat cross legged holding a small teddy bear, or was reading a book, and one time he was blowing into my trumpet, propped up against my bookcases.

Actually, my mother started doing things like this regularly around the time I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I �found out the truth� absurdly late in life (I was almost eight years old), considering there was no real pressure from my parents to continue believing. Santa�s perfect calligraphy-like hand was obviously my mother�s, his impeccable wrapping talent was hers too. None of Santa�s presents came from my dad, as Santa would never have such horrible handwriting or wrap presents with old newspapers. I never tried to stay up all night waiting for him, though. I was a bit frightened. The thought of any man in our house, big and red and jolly though he may be, was not comforting, and if he could get in through the chimney, what was to stop others from doing the same? Once I left cookies and milk for him, but when the cat knocked it over, I was secretly happy. I would take his presents if he insisted on leaving them, but I was not going to feed him, and I was not going to write him letters, and I was not going to think about any secret naughty or nice list with a hidden blurry line between getting coal and getting candy.

So I stood in the upstairs workroom in January 1992, cutting something out of construction paper with my mother. I was admiring her skill at crafts, not having inherited any of it; she always made beautiful things with her hands. I watched her long fingers folding and tying and gluing expertly, and as I stared, I remembered the ornate decorations on the wrapping of my �Santa� presents that still lay in my room, and how perfect they were... just as perfect as what my mother was making then. My next thought was not what one would expect. I said, �Mom, you should be Santa Claus for a job, instead of staying with me all day. Everyone would get their presents wrapped really neat.�

She looked at me, raised an eyebrow, smiled a little smile. �I�m not a big fat man with reindeer. All I�ve got is Mocha,� she said, stroking the cat�s back. �And I hate cold weather.

�Santa doesn�t have to be a big fat man,� I started, and then stopped, and my arm twitched, and I dropped the scissors, and all of a sudden I was flooded with knowing. �Santa isn�t anyone. I know he�s not real,� I said slowly, searching for a reaction to test if I was right.

My mother simply shrugged. �I know he�s not,� she said doubtfully.

�He�s Not,� I said firmly. �You think I don�t know that?�

And then I went to my room and put my face in a pillow and felt very grown up, and when I cried I wiped my nose with a tissue instead of on my sleeve.

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a girl is the word
that she hasn't heard
the truth is tiptoeing the edge of her skirt

-Frente, 'Girl'

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