Sun, 18 Dec 2005 11:36:14 -0800 (PST) Dear friends, Hope you are all enjoying the winter and the holiday season. Here is the story of how I finally managed to put some lights on a tree in front of my house. Hope you find it entertaining. You are welcome at any time to drop by and admire the tree :-) love, Sankar A tree with some lights on it In front of my little house there is a Juniper tree. Juniperus Virginiensis, to be precise, aka Eastern Redcedar. It is very dear to me. It was there when I bought this place almost three years ago, and has never demanded any attention or care. Except for pruning a few branches that leaned a little too far out to the street, I have never had to do anything to it. Yet it stands silent sentinel in front of the house, through hot summers and dry spells, snow and pouring rain. I watch it with affection and admiration, like one would a dear friend or parent. I enjoy watching it bending and swaying gracefully in the driving winds on stormy days, its bristly leaves decked with droplets of water or ice. Every year the first snow blanketing it starts the magic of winter afresh. From the window on the first floor I can notice its growth as a few more branches and leaves grow to block the view each year. Lately some sparrows have started congregating on it. In my first winter here I bought a GE Christmas light, just a wire with 30 seven watt bulbs in red, green, blue and orange, and strung it around the Juniper. It was clearly not enough to cover the tree and over the months the bulbs would go out one after another until it reached the stage where it “looked sad,” in the words of my unfailingly frank friend Connie. While her characterization was temporarily unsettling, it brought home the truth to me. But I simply let it be as it was, and instead of taking it down let it burn all through the year. Maybe it was just laziness, but I do have some excuses. The first year I did it because the neighbourhood was still in transition and it made me feel like I was making it a little safer. But since then things have changed but due to inertia or just because I liked the sights of the lights at night I never took it down. Moreover seven watts a bulb adds up to a lot of a watts and it is better if there are fewer of them burning. Then came Jose. Jose is in the construction business and he moved in next door with his wife and pesky five year old son Francis in October. To me he is almost like superman – he finishes in no time things that seem Herculean in scope to me, and might take months if at all I even try. The walls have been reverberating with the constant knocking of hammers since he arrived. He has renovated the house, painted both front and back walls, and even chopped the big weed tree in the backyard to size. But to top it all one day I came home from work to see his front porch completely festooned with gorgeous Christmas lights. It was like the Chia-pet of Christmas lights. Densely packed and covering every inch of railing and pillar available. Now my lights looked really, really sad. Somehow fall had turned to winter and there were only 10 days left for Christmas and I had completely neglected to replace the bulbs. So this past Friday I decided that come what may I will make it to the hardware store and get some bulbs. I couldn’t go in the morning and by the time I was able to go it was dark and cold and I was beginning to have second thoughts. But thankfully my hormones are still active and they wouldn’t let me stay completely home on a Friday night. So I drove to the hardware store near the Logan circle Whole foods. I didn’t see any seven watt colored bulbs in the usual place and one of the store guys told me they didn’t have any. Hoping to find anything I scoured the whole store to no avail. I asked him if I would find any in other stores nearby. He sounded very pessimistic of the prospects. I walked out of the store feeling gloomy. It was almost eight and other hardware stores might have closed. Then I saw the CVS store next door and decided to give it a try. It is amazing what things you will find at CVS. And what do you know, among various Christmas ornaments, candles, gifts and other tchotchkes there were four-packs of replacement seven watt decorative bulbs. There were just a few left and not in the variety and number that I wanted but I grabbed whatever was there as if I had found a great treasure. Elated as I was I didn’t feel like going home yet. To a single guy sitting home on a Friday night putting up Christmas lights feels rather lonely. I am not that spiritually mature yet. I really just wanted to go to a café and sit and work there. It is still a lonely thing to do but atleast you are among other people and get to watch pretty women. But then this is getting tiresome as well – I am at a stage where I simply want to be with the one I love. Since that was not possible perhaps it was better to be by myself and enjoy the silence. So I managed to drag myself home and cooked and ate dinner in peace and silence. Now I was all set to face the cold night – perhaps that will get some endorphins flowing. With a ladder and the bulbs in hand I went out to take a look at the tree. One end of the wire with bulbs was connected to a timer near the window upstairs with a fuse. The whole thing went around the tree twice. I tried to trace its path around the tree. Most of the bulbs were unlit. Moreover since the last time I worked on it (atleast a year ago) the wire had become enveloped by the newly sprouted branches and leaves. As I grabbed the wire to get a better look all the lights went out. I must have shorted the circuit somehow and blown the fuse attached to the wire. Or maybe the fuse which keeps blowing at regular intervals had chosen just this moment to mock me. I went upstairs and replaced the fuse. Now it came on again. This time it behaved better and after much searching I managed to find the tip of the wire hiding inside the tree. In the process I had to go up and down the stairs several times. But this helped warm up the body and get the blood flowing and by now I was feeling a lot more energetic. The cold breeze and the winter air felt very refreshing. The street was very quiet and the traffic was even less than what it would be normally – it being a side street that is also one-way. The mind was totally focused on the task at hand and I was enjoying the feel of the prickly branches and leaves of the tree against my skin. It is amazing how much you can enjoy even the most simple tasks once the mind is calm and focused. I realized that most of the lights were on the back of the tree – facing the house, that is. In order to maximize the available length of wire I decided to unwind it and rewind it so that most of the bulbs will be facing the street. This turned out to be not that difficult. Now came the climax – replacing the bulbs that were out. I first replaced the ones that were lower on the tree. Each time I screwed in the new bulb and it came on it felt as if a bright new flower had bloomed instantly in my hand. My little nephews would have shouted and laughed with joy if they had been there. Then I climbed on the ladder to replace the ones higher up. There were some anxious moments when I had to stand on the top step and stretch to reach the bulb. A few times I almost leaned forward to hold on to the ladder only to realize that there was no more ladder left in front of me. I found that if I concentrated on the action and did not worry about falling down the fear would go away. I also discovered that you could screw and unscrew a bulb with just one hand, even when the socket is hanging in the air without a wall or ceiling to push it back. This was because the screwing motion did not cause any forward thrust. So for the most precarious places I was able to hold on to the tree with one hand and screw the bulb with another. At times I felt like I was embracing the tree, becoming one with it. [If all of this causes any dirty thoughts in your mind it is entirely your fault – please go wash your mind with the strongest detergent available :-)]. Finally I had finished replacing all the bulbs that needed to be replaced. It was time to stand back, enjoy the lights and admire the tree. So I put away the ladder and gloves and hat (by now the air felt quite pleasant). I walked around the tree, looking at it from the sides and from the front. I walked up and down the street to see how it looked from various angles. For a moment I felt positively ecstatic, grateful for the tree and for the quiet winter night and the pleasant breeze. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t managed to do justice to it. I wish I could deck the Juniper like a Hindu bride, with ornamental lights shining on every branch. But that would mean burning 400 watts an hour instead of 200, thus doubling my environmental guilt. It still looked rather pathetic next to Jose’s ornate display. I can’t even call it a Christmas tree. It is just a tree with some lights on it. But I am quite content and happy, and I hope it is too.