baby jesus

It's weird to think of Jesus as a baby.

I mean, really. A baby.

I've had two baby brothers. One was born when I was twelve years old, so I pretty much know the drill. The diapers, the crying, the cooing, the way you want to eat their chubby cheeks up with kisses every time you see them. The way they sleep. The way they grab hold of one of your fingers with their entire fist.

And that was the Son of God. Totally helpless. Entirely dependent. Vulnerable. Simple.

It hit me today when I heard this carol:

Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Oh Mary did you know

The blind will see, the deaf will hear,  the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the mute will speak, the praises of the lamb.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I am.

("Mary, Did You Know?")

the beautiful reflection

Alright, ladies (and some guys - I know you're out there), you've come to the right place for details.

He picks me up from work and we start driving into the city. "But," I argue, "aren't we meant to meet up with Jacob and Carolyn?"

"They canceled. Wanted to stay in tonight instead."

[Lies, all lies.]

We ended up at Ki (in the BCE Place) which is a favourite of Andrew's and a restaurant that we've wanted to go to since we started dating, but haven't had the chance. Salad, sushi and sake later, Andrew's jumpy to leave...

[I later discovered he visited the bathroom to intercede for himself.]

We stop at a Starbucks long enough for me to jump out, run in and buy two teas while Andrew circled the block.

[I later discovered he drove around the block interceding for himself.]

We drove to University College, King's College Circle which is a very sentimental spot for us. Andrew graduated from this college, we love walking its halls and outdoor paths, and, most memorably, we had our first kiss outside its big, double doors.

But hark! Before we exit the car, now parked outside University College with the engine running, Andrew reaches into the back of the car to pull out a stack of paper with writing on it. For a moment, I think he brought office work with him on date night. But lo! It's not office work, but handwritten notes he wrote out from his journal entries over the past two years.

Oh my.

He started reading, I started crying. I don't recall much of what he was saying...so it was convenient that he let me have the notes to keep. His journal, from the beginning of our relationship, had been peppered with thoughts about me, prayers for me, prayers about me and some of the most beautiful prose I had ever heard between himself and God about Andrew's dreams, his trust in something unknown, and his desire to honour me.

He ended the notes, wiped his eyes, looked at me with love in his eyes and stammered:

"That's it. Just wanted you to know some of that stuff."

Oh. So we got out of the car, he ran back to "get mints"...

[I later discovered he had forgotten the ring in the car. Although, to his credit, he did return with two mints.]

...and we went into the college to walk the halls. Upon discovering that the front doors had been locked while were were inside...

[Which again was unfortunate because Andrew had thought to propose after we had grandly walked out through them.]

...so we walked through the college and out a side exit. Meandering towards the soccer pitch in the middle of King's College Circle, Andrew asked, "What's the word for something like vertigo but you're looking around at things in a circle, instead of straight down?"

I did not know.

[This is because there is no such thing. Although I didn't know that at the time. Convenient for Andrew.]

So we slid ourselves across the frozen field to the middle of it to test this panorama-vertigo-that-didn't-exist. I had spun around once, twice, three times (not feeling anything) and a fourth for good measure (still nothing) when Andrew pulled me into a hug and whispered into my ear the kindest words I had ever heard from a human.

Then he knelt.

Me: "What are you doing? It's snowy."

Then he took my hand. Oh.

He: "Sarah, you would make me the happiest man in the world if you would be my wife."

He pulls out a blue Birks box, I think. The box was a marginal distraction to the look on his face. He fumbles with the ribbon on the box. Opens the box. Opens the ring box.

He tries again: "Sarah Aubrey Hunter, will you be my wife?"

At this point I realized that the question he had asked, asked twice, would continue asking until I answered, the same question I had rehearsed a thousand times in my head, was such a silly one. As if he had to ask. But I'm so glad he finally had.

Me: "Of course!" As the two and a half feet height difference was suddenly unbearable, I dropped to my knees and messily covered him with teary, snotty, cold kisses. "Of course, of course, of course. Of course, you silly boy."

Hysterical laughter ensued and Andrew shouted, "I'M GOING TO HAVE A WIFE!" which, I believe, was overheard by a small pack of university students of Indian descent.

Then back to the car to call his parents and mine.
And I've never been so happy or at rest in my entire life.

You are the beautiful reflection
Of his love's affection,
A walking illustration
Of his adoration

His love makes you beautiful,
So beautiful,
So beautiful,
You ask your looking glass,
What is it?
Makes you so exquisite?
The answer to your query
Comes back, dearie --
His love makes you beautiful,
So beautiful,
So beautiful,
And woman loved is woman glorified!
You'll make a beautiful,
Beautiful,
Beautiful,
Beautiful bride!

("A Beautiful Bride", Funny Girl)

tamed

'Cause even on a bullet train
or a jet plane
I won't leave
'cause I'd be alone.
- Kidding Ourselves, Stabilo

"What does that mean -- tame?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties...But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow..."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please -- tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . . "

"What must I do, to tame you? asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. First you will sit down at a little distance from me -- like that -- in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . . "

The next day the little prince came back.

- Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry

deck the halls

I am so in the Christmas spirit. I can't remember looking forward to Christmas as much as this year... Perhaps when I was four.

Today, I was introduced to the bowels of the storage room, where we defied all WSIB warnings by climbing on rickety metal shelving to retrieve: several boxes of glass balls, six strings of silver beads, five strings of fairy lights, four gold-trimmed garland, three chubby Santas, two turtledoves and a scrawny, top-heavy Christmas tree.

Le Front Reception
(a.k.a. My Hideout)

Chris, our creative director, getting into the Christmas spirit.
Or, perhaps, drunk.
Turtledove #1.
The Santa doll plays "Here Comes Santa Claus" in an eerie, recorded voice when his hand is squeezed. I suspect the Santa doll to last until the end of the week. If it's lucky.

Our Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree.
Turtledove #2.

boost

It's not every day that one gets to have a cameo in a commercial. Especially when that day is your first at a new job. I love working for an ad agency.

These PSAs were produced for a company called Boost (which used to be the Toronto Child Abuse Center) and done by the ad agency I work for, Yield, pro bono. Yet another reason why I love my job.

"Boy"
(I'm in the courtroom scene)


"Girl"

touché

As iron sharpens iron, so are we:
Our wits, our words, our wills are often caught
In swordplay; leaving both sides overwrought
And out of breath, though neither claim defeat.
Some might find us brazen, not so me
Although our love is oft a lover's knot
We burnish one another's sully spots
In light of an alliance yet to be.
For now, I rest my head upon your chest
Until the cadence of our hearts are one,
My fingers and your own create a nest
Until the warmth of both have been outdone,
I step towards the steps that you request
Until a greater fusion has begun.

silver bells

Oh no. It's only November 8th and I'm already humming Christmas carols...

It's not entirely my fault. First, a friend of mine blogged about Christmas turds (?). Then, this morning, I witnessed the first few flakes of winter outside the kitchen window. Over lunch, I read an article in the Toronto Star about the window decoration on Bay Street. Which nearly made me cry.

I can remember going to "see the windows" with my great, great aunt Dodie back she was alive, back when I was young, back when the Eaton Centre was owned by Eaton's, back when we had one-dollar bills. I love that the city is so much a part of my childhood. It's why I love the Christmas carol Silver Bells (beware: link will get the song stuck in your head all day) - "It's Christmas time in the city..."

On my way into work this morning, due to an accidental lie-in, I was doing my makeup on the King streetcar.
Lady next to me: "Wow. Applying liquid liner on a streetcar. You're brave."
Me: "Toronto, born and bred. That's all I gotta say."