This issue has lots of pictures, so your email client may not handle it well. You can also read it at the Substack website.
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Coming Soon: a short story idea presented itself recently, which is half written, and I expect to publish another novel excerpt in January. Stay tuned!
Context: Most people with difficult childhood memories around Christmas, I’ve noticed, tend to go in one of two extreme directions. They ignore Christmas to the fullest extent they can get away with, or they embrace it wholeheartedly, creating enough of their own rituals, traditions, experiences, etc., to displace the childhood ones as much as they possibly can. Given that Christmas is inescapable in the United States, I have long ago chosen the latter course, which presents interesting ambiguity.
Circles Neither Begin Nor End
I absolutely love a four-novel series by Ellen Emerson White. The four titles are The President’s Daughter, White House Autumn, Long Live the Queen, and Long May She Reign. They tell the story of a female senator from Massachusetts who becomes the first woman President, through the eyes of her eldest child and only daughter, Meghan. President Kathryn Powers has a husband, devoted father and First Gentleman Russell. Her younger children, sons, are a handsome teenage boy who becomes a heartthrob and a younger boy who is regarded as an adorable “walking vote machine.” Meghan alone among her children experiences sudden fame as difficult and stressful. The media comment on her clothing, follow her boyfriend, and otherwise make her life hell.
In one of the books, Meghan is kidnapped by terrorists to pressure her mother into making concessions to their demands. The President does the right thing—the thing a President should do or they damn well aren’t strong enough to hold the office—and refuses to negotiate. Meghan eventually escapes her captors and is equally furious at, and proud of, her mother.
In the fourth and final (so far) novel, Meghan, now away at college, experiences a near-miss security incident. Her parents, after being briefed by the Secret Service, are panicked. The President in particular tries to talk her into coming home early. This passage has remained in my mind for several years now (screenshot from the iBooks app):
“Not letting them run our lives is another way of letting them run our lives.”
I think about this a lot.
My Christmases, as an adult, couldn’t possibly look more different from how Christmas looked when I was a kid.
Does my going to such a polar opposite mean that my parents are still running my life?