Christmas Errands

The lion's share of the Christmas holiday belongs to errands. (A strange word, "errands" -- from whence does it come? As to how it entered my own vocabulary, I would wager that my mother must have used it quite a bit when I was younger, and, not surprisingly, I soon did, too.) I mean, they more or less dictate Christmas, wouldn't you say? We go shopping for gifts? We're running errands. We prepare for our holiday meals? We're running errands. How did things come to be this way?

Today is the day before Christmas. I happily spent the first part of it at a coffee shop, indulging myself with the first volume of a rather well-known graphic novel that I came across the other day. Afterward, I removed myself to a nearby bookstore so that I could purchase the second volume of this series. In other words, my day before Christmas has been comprised of errands. It is only natural, then, that I would follow up these errands with another.

Before leaving the house, my pseudo-stepmother approached me with a request: Pay a visit to a grocery store -- any grocery store, the choice was mine -- and pick up a couple of "take-home plates." (By this, I believe she meant a partitioned, disposable plate, ones that our guests could use to take food home with them. An American necessity, to be sure. The occasion? We're having a Christmas Eve dinner party. Another American necessity, to be sure.) A simple, routine task. An everyday kind of thing. In short, an errand.

This, then, was my mission: To return with partitioned, disposable plates.

For some reason, the visits to the coffee shop and the bookstore took precedence over the plates. This ordering of events ultimately injected something like a conflict into my quest. At the bookstore, I ran into my father, who was there buying gifts for my pseudo-stepmother ("I haven't gotten your pseudo-stepmother anything yet"). When I briefed him on the nature of my assignment, he advised me not to complete it. I asked why not; he grunted me away. The task, in all its triviality, must not have interested someone like him. And if it wasn't worth his time (as one might say), then I suppose he couldn't fathom why it would be worth mine.

You see, I was here faced with two options, a proverbial "fork in the road." I could either run the errand, procure the partitioned, disposable plates (for the convenience of our guests), and satisfy my pseudo-stepmother's request. Or, heeding the advice of my father, I could ignore the request, return home, and explain myself.

All of this got me thinking: The lion's share of the Christmas holiday belongs to errands.

Now, certainly I must have grown up knowing this to be true because, frankly, it doesn't surprise me very much. I've been conditioned to it as a matter of things. In fact, Christmas errands always carried a bit of prestige, if you'll allow me to put forth such an odd statement. I mean, when it comes down to it, Christmas has always been portrayed in terms of a struggle. Whether in books, or in films, or in plays, the Christmas struggle is everpresent. We struggle to find the right gifts. We struggle to have a perfect holiday. We struggle to be together as a family, to get along. And to succeed at this struggle -- this is honorable. Like I said, there's a bit of unexpected prestige lurking here.

So, as I tried to make up my own mind -- to go to the store or not to go to the store -- I asked myself: Is this it? Is this my struggle? Deciding whether I'm going to take fifteen extra minutes to purchase a couple of partitioned, disposable plates at a grocery store of my choosing? Is this what it all boils down to? Is there prestige here? Is this humorous? Is this disappointing? What emotion am I supposed to register?

The true life may not be reducible to words, but I do know this: That there was something of the true life captured in this bland, quotidian not-even-a-highlight of my existence. I knew that whatever I chose to do wouldn't ultimately make a difference one way or the other. I knew this. Yet, in the moment, it still felt important. My decision did, that is.

I think we can all relate with this. I think we've all "been there." I think there's something like a shared humanity in these slices of life.

I hope some of us would go the store and complete the task. I hope others of us wouldn't. Because each makes an important point. One says, "Look, I know this is important to you, and even though I may think this whole thing pretty ridiculous -- that the success of our dinner hinges on things like partitioned, disposable plates -- I'll do it for you because it's the holidays, because we're pseudo-family, because it feels right. Because all that matters is that we find joy in the happiness of others, and my doing this will make you happy." The other says, "Look, I know this is important to you, but please, just let it go. You don't need to squeeze perfection out of every last thing. Let this one thing be; I'm sure that the evening will still dance magically."

I went to the store. I didn't find the plates.

A Shared Event at the Coffee Shop

It is safe to say that I spend a rather disproportionate amount of my time in coffee shops (even as I write this post, I am sitting in one!). This summer I would estimate that on average I've visited a coffee shop at least once per day, sometimes even twice. I do this not only because I enjoy the atmosphere, the internet, and, of course, the coffee, but also, and perhaps most importantly, because there is so much to be observed here. Indeed, I have observed so much in my time at coffee shops, especially this summer, that I'm beginning to think it wouldn't be unwise for me to dedicate a blog solely to reading them as public spaces.

Most of us visit coffee shops on a regular basis, but what is the purpose of this space? Just off the top of my head, I can say that I, personally, have used the coffee shop this summer as a place for: caffeine; observation; homework; learning German; reading; Facebook; internet surfing; composing e-mails; blogging; writing; socializing; meeting new people; playing board games; hanging out with friends; breakfast, lunch, & dinner; working on a children's book; etc. And this is just me! Now, most of these may sound like rather trivial, everyday tasks, but for one person to be able to accomplish -- no, to want to accomplish -- all of these tasks in a single space is so endlessly strange and interesting to me. I fear that I've reached the point where I'm more addicted to the coffee shop itself than the coffee they offer.

Still, I've yet to mention the enigmatic "shared event" that titles this post. I'm drawing the concept from Don DeLillo, an American author whose ouevre I am currently working through. DeLillo often speaks of "events" and how they "gather force." One of his characters in The Names even speaks of feeling "involved in events." The idea has always been rather interesting to me, not only because I seldom find this idea mentioned in writing or everyday life, but also because it seems totally relevant to contemporary existence.

Anyway, the point is, I tend to feel a hidden tenseness in coffee shops, as if everyone who shares these spaces, this internet, and this air, everyone who chooses to have private conversations in a public place for all of us to hear -- it's as if we all still wish to maintain a separate space, our own privacy or secrecy, despite our behavior in this space. I often wonder what can be done to break down this sense of a wall. Why, I think, is it so difficult for me, or anyone for that matter, to engage the person who sits no more than two feet away from me, the person whom I openly allow to see what I'm doing on my computer and who provides me with the same freedom?

The other day, while sitting in this very coffee shop, this tenseness was alleviated somewhat. For over an hour, I had been sitting next to the same person, a person who, I think, attends the same university that I attend and was writing a paper for school much like I was. On top of this, we were sharing the same internet, the same air, both drinking coffee. As one says in English, there was something "in common" between the two of us. Yet I still felt that there was something inaccessible there, something unbridgeable.

The solution to this proved to be no less than a power outage, which was caused by a passing thunderstorm. It wasn't our sharing of internet or air that brought us together; rather, it was a "shared event" -- a power outage, a taking away, a negative -- that reminded us of our commonality. Consequently, we were able to engage in conversation, we were able to find "common ground," able to "break the ice." But the power outage did more than this. Ironically, the loss of power proved to be a spark of another type, erupting a chain of laughter throughout the coffee shop. The event "gathered force," we might say. The whole atmosphere of the coffee shop was affected, if only for a few moments. It wasn't long, however, before the generators were signaled, the power restored, and the measurable change, the realized community, was submerged once again.

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DeLillo, Don. The Names. New York: Vintage, 1989. Originally published in 1982. Print.