by Tess Coffey, Assistant to the GM, WXPN

One year, when I was supposed to be putting an essay together for a writing class I was taking, I was thinking about George Harrison and how he probably was not Christmas shopping. It was the day after Thanksgiving. George would die a couple of days later on December 1, 2001. I didn’t know that he would die. I just liked George and on this day when my husband annoyed me, when Christmas was around the corner and I hadn’t bought a gift or tested a bubble light, I was writing this imagined autobiography, the “personal” essay I would submit at my final class that semester:

Underachiever

Little Wing

“When I die, I want to come back as a bird,” I told him.

“Dying again,” he muttered loud enough for me to hear. “Bird, what kind of bird?”

“Some kind of nice, Christian bird, I think, a vine-carrying dove.”

“I see you more as a ghost, yeah, a holy ghost, your dominating spirit ironically vanishing in the beat of your own purging wing.”

Dark Horse

I’m writing this now to deny my inclination not to do it. For reasons understood by a dark horse, I pursue a finish line without belief that I’ll cross it first, if ever. For what is first; ever? I write this essay to honor my Achilles heels, digression and distraction, worn on feet racing in disparate directions in search of the relevancy of the white finish line; the checkered flag illusory, maybe meaningless. Commence.

I want to tell you

My head is filled with things to say

When you’re here

All these words they seem to slip away.

George Harrison – I’m playing him loudly in my head over Mozart straining up at me from my husband’s basement office. I can’t retain a thought listening to the inventions of the 8 year old Wolfgang. Not today, and not in time to get this essay submitted for my class. When I was 8 years old, and sitting in front of the television, The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time. Of all the Beatles, I liked George the most. In his thin black tie and jacket, I thought he was the cutest, with his long eyelashes; (I had long eyelashes, too!). He had an imperfect smile in 1964 hinting at an introverted mysticism. Seeming a little shy, his talent rendered him confident in his own Georgeness to share the microphone with the most gorgeous singer. Nimble fingers displayed his gift; understated wit, his personality.

Let me tell you how it will be

There’s one for you, nineteen for me.

I’m the taxman

Yeah, the taxman

And you’re working for no one but me.

Christmas, the true meaning of shopping

It’s Black Friday, the mother of all steeplechases; Christmas, the mother of all finish lines, looms in the nearing distance. Why would I, would anyone, want to get out of the stall and off to the races?

Trying to avoid the exhaustion I’d encounter digging an unwanted financial hole, I’m not prepared for Christmas this year. Yes, I love the conception, the birth, the beginning of Christ, of His way of love, of Christianity, of a spiritual communion with all the existing religions of Muhammad, the Buddha, a communion with the wisdom of Confucius and King Solomon. The communion of the all-encompassing love with the sardonic humor of Zeus, birthing Centaurs, a god among his own children, existing for the devices of demagogues and citizens . . . even the love of baby Jesus and all his buddies won’t guilt me into driving to the shopping mall.

Procrastination is a religion that must be practiced faithfully.

(as uttered by H.R. Conner III, former president of the Procrastinator’s Club. There’s a club?!)

What would happen if instead of presents, I gave my family and friends copies of some stories from the New Yorker, full of irony, drama, loss, grace and common humanity that I read this past year? Would they read them, ever? Rationality replaces idealism. Embarking alone, I’m riding the dark horse of idealism to the finish line of rationality. Chirping all the way. No, that can’t be right. I’m a white bird riding a dark horse of reason ever nearer the finish line of idealism. No, … the dark horse of rationing chased to the city limits by the albatross of indulgence. George and I, we were talking about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion.