Auntie Christel's Gift (34)

A fairyland of tiny lights, reds and greens and blues. The landscape transformed, the desert shrubs and trees icy with lights, the night air cold. We rode the merry-go-round on big spotted cats. It made me faintly nauseous, the pitching leap of them with the spinning of the wheel. I don't remember ever feeling sick before, don't remember the last time I was on one. The Santa Monica Pier is the only one I can bring back with any clarity, another world, another life.

But we had fun on this one together, going up and down, huge hard plastic endangered animals coming to life all around us. We walked through the rest of the park, after, the occasional bedecked trunk or bush or cactus lighting our way. There was a tree with butterfly lights winking in flight, and a part where the shrubs were layered and deep, the overlapping colors and lights spanning off into the distant dark, like a sea of Christmas. I wore white snow gloves you lent me, and you made fun of me with my bare calves and my sandaled feet. I was glad we went, glad to have seen the desert made otherwise. Thank you, Auntie Christel.