Aligned

The root of the word “disaster,” as we know, refers to the star, the “astrum,” being “dissed,” that is, out of alignment.  So, there ought to be a word something like “enaster,” meaning, broadly, a time when the stars align, and everything comes out just right, or, that is, with all the right wrongness included in heaven and earth.

If so, then this year’s annual Point83 holiday “enaster,” "A Pointy-Three Christmas Disaster” would qualify as current poster child for term. 

It all came together in a glorious mess with a galaxy of stars, topped off with a Christmas miracle of singing Sugarplum Elves who twinkled brighter than that mythical stellar phenomenon whose scintillating rays supposedly led the Biblical Maji to the manger where the source of all this holiday fun was born.

It’s a fucking gift, really, to be blessed with such room in one’s life to enable bike-riding through paved forest paths, booze-swilling on lakeside promontories, and leg-wrestling on reasonably dry plastic fields even as, throughout most of the world, such luxuries are not of this world.

Most of us, in most of our lives, are kind, compassionate, responsible people, doing our level best to make the world a little bit better place, so it’s an almost indecent pleasure to be gifted with such a unique opportunity to tear off the wrapper of rectitude and celebrate insensitivity with such abandon. 

Hip-hip-hooray, surely Jesus, (and Allah, and Shiva, and Buddha, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Bigfoot) loves us all. 

And Santa and his anagram Satan, too!

It’s been a rough year, no doubt about it, so perhaps that gift that keeps on giving the most is to just be kinder and gentler to each other but maybe that also means more forgiving of our trespasses especially the ones on two wheels in public parks around fires of palettes and logs.

The holidays have only just started and already we’ve got it all, thank our lucky stars.