Another thing about America to be thankful:

4. American Christmas          
An American Christmas is something to be thankful for. I have all kinds of memories that I associate with Christmas. My Dad’s family always did Christmas up big, having Santa bring not only the presents but the tree and all the decorations with it. Christmas Eve was the beginning of Christmas, but poor Grandma and Grandpa got no sleep. My mom said no way to that tradition, so we went with the tree going up a couple weeks before Christmas and coming down just after New Years. But all that tradition still provided its own magic for me as a kid. And I know I’m not alone because we have tons of shared American Christmas experiences that should be enjoyed, and none of them include Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

            Let’s start with Santa Claus. Everyone else’s Father Christmas was turned into the American Santa Claus by the New York Dutch and their way of saying St. Nicholas. Santa was further enhanced by Thomas Nast, the artist that gave Santa his pipe and bag of toys over his back. And the Columbia professor, Clement Clarke Moore, described Santa and his reindeer with his “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem. The Coca Cola Corporation added a few accents to the already timeless figure with plenty of advertisements.

            And Bing Crosby? Who doesn’t  dream of a white Christmas? Even Californians, Hawaiians, Floridians and all the other southerners who may have never even seen snow dream of a white Christmas. Thanks Bing. And since World War II all Americans (no matter their faith) want to be home for Christmas. We sing about it every year to the point of nausea, but we love it anyway. And Hollywood adds all those special movies every year. We can’t not love Christmas.

            Pumpkin pie? Of course that’s American. And sleigh rides? In Europe they don’t even have sleighs, they have sledges. How could you be merry in a sledge, no matter how many horses pulled it?

            These are just a few of the stand out American Christmas traditions. So these next few nights when you walk down the street (ok, drive—we’re American) and see houses lit up with fantastic displays you are, indeed, enjoying an American Christmas. Our Christmas in America is like nowhere else in the world and I, for one, am thankful for it. So wherever you are, I hope you have a very merry Christmas this year.

Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago that seems especially wintry, if not a little depressing.

Salt Shaker

Palsy and ice met

on my grandfather’s steps

while Morton sat

on the counter

mocking the flavor

I saw in the frozen pool

of red and tasted

in the warmth

flowing down my cheeks

when the last rites

were said

and the steps

could have been solid

with the bitter salt

but the priest only shook

his head and said

when it rains

it pours

and Grandpa

flavored the earth.

Brian Potter

It’s December and I live in North Idaho. It snows in Idaho in December even when the winter’s are mild. I’m getting older and I learned a couple of years ago that when I fall I can break. (See a previous entry.) It’s also dark in December here in North Idaho.

            Now in case you were wondering, that last paragraph was an intentional, albeit valid, list of excuses for me to not run. But I have also learned that there are ways to overcome excuses and here are some ways that I am working on overcoming those excuses. I need to exercise because it keeps my body healthy and it keeps my mind geared toward positive thoughts. It’s the same reason I write in this blog—to maintain the water in my cup above the halfway point, to fill it to overflowing so when I can’t get out and run as much (because I don’t want to fall and break) I cross train. I cross train in unconventional and conventional ways. Now there is enough snow for me to cross country ski and I love it. When I ski I work out my entire body without having to throw in a few planks or pushups. And I get to see places that you can’t normally get to in the winter. Do you realize how beautiful snow is?

            The other cross training that I do is shovel snow. I know that sounds like work but—darkness be damned—I can do it at any hour of the day. It’s better than lifting weights because I am outside being constructive and working off pent up aggression. And it helps everyone because they don’t have to worry about getting around on snow covered paths.

            I also spend some time throwing in a few pushups and other random exercises for about 10-15 minutes every day just to keep cobwebs out of my head. And it’s not like I don’t run at all. I still go out a couple of times a week, but I’m a little more confined to park pathways and those few minutes of daylight that I actually get to run. But I have decided that if I only get one or two miles in on a run in December and January I have still worked to maintain my running and those two months are just going to be the two down months. And if I absolutely have to, I can run laps around the gym at school or get on a treadmill at the local fitness center, though I’d have to be pretty sluggish and on my last creative sip before I’d get on a treadmill. I’m still fully convinced that I need to be outside, that I need the fresh (even frigid) air and that I need to be gracious to myself in considering my purpose in running. The goal is to fill my cup to overflowing and I don’t always have to use the same tap as long as it’s still water from the main source, the giver of life. 

My third installment for things to be thankful for in America is the Snake River:

3. High along the Continental Divide is a great caldera filled with simmering geysers that shoot off their steam at regular intervals and those are the headwaters of a beautiful river system that drains much of the northwestern United States. The river starts in the land of earthquakes and mountains rising, flowing into the territory of its namesake, the Shoshone tribe. In the old days it was said that these people lived off of snakes, hence the name Snake River. It is one of the great rivers of the west and part of the larger Columbia River system. The Snake gouges the deepest canyon into the North American continent. The snows and rains of huge swaths of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming flow into its body from Yellowstone National Park to the Tri-cities in Washington.

My second installment of things to be thankful for in America is connected to the first very closely and the next few will also be connected. They reveal my biases as an Idaho boy.   

    

2. Salmon River Tributaries

       

    The tributaries of the Salmon River are myriad. The North Fork starts high in the Bitterrot Mountains and furiously rushes down their slopes through lush green forests. The Middle Fork takes on the aridity of some of the southern mountains such as the Lemhi range. The South Fork drains the western ranges with their Lodgepole and Ponderosa pines. And there are creeks and lakes flowing out of all those mountain ranges draining the beautiful mountain lakes of the Sawtooths, the Seven Devils and all the ranges of the great Idaho Batholith. It’s an overwhelmingly wild and free river system that tumbles out of all those mountains into the Snake River in Hells Canyon. The beauty and magnitude of that river system overwhelms me and right now I find myself wishing I were hiking the banks of one of those streams.

For its Independence Day issue Time magazine published an article for the 240th anniversary of our country. It had 240 things to be thankful for in the United States. I made up my own list to write about, so I thought I would them in this blog. Here is my first installment:

            1. Sometimes when that ice ball of anger and/or fear knots inside the center of my being, I go away to the Salmon River Canyon in the heart of Idaho either in reality or in my mind. There I let that ice explode and go out of my body into storm clouds that I can see in the water dogs nestled in the trees on the side of the canyon walls, I can feel in the cool streams and river flowing through the rocks and crevices, and I hear it in the rushing water falls of a Lightening Creek or an Alison Creek or the Ruby Rapids. The scent of sun soaked sand on the bars cleanses all the negative emotions and there I can just breathe. There is not so much sky to overwhelm and make me feel vulnerable to attack, but just enough to know the beauty of forever.

            Those hills are the ones I have always taken comfort in and where I lose any reason for fear or anger. As a boy I would climb up the hills and lose myself in trees or run through the grasses, sometimes stepping on cactus, startle grouse—no, they would startle me—and feel the freedom of being alive.

            The canyon carves itself from the Bitterroots to the Seven Devils Mountains, gouged North from the Bitterroots then carving itself west between the Clearwater and Salmon River mountains of the Idaho Batholith, again it turns North abruptly upon meeting the Seven Devils. Its waters are from the largest wilderness in the continental U.S. and only two highways have dared to intersect its sanctuary. Few people inhabit its hollows and I count myself blessed to have ever been one of them. It is my sanctuary from the stress that balls into my being from the cacophony of the world.