The Both/And Cotton Christmas Tree
Have you ever heard someone refer to something as ‘both/and’?
It means that a thing or a situation is neither one way nor another, but it is both one way AND the other. It can also mean that if something is both/and, the one does not negate the other.
Like, the holiday season can be both excited AND stressful (I say to myself as I write this a few days before Thanksgiving!)!
I use this term for a lot of things in life. I think I’ve embraced it more since PJ died. I’ve learned to see more nuance in circumstances. More of the gray in life instead of everything being black and white.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my childhood; the people, the circumstances, the lessons. One thing I have pondered over the past few weeks is that being the child of divorce holds a lot of both/and inside of its defining moments.
One thing I remember about our first few Christmases post-divorce, they were both extremely simple, and extravagantly blessed. Sometimes you can’t see those things until you are far away from them. Perspective changes the view. Right?
My parents split up when I was 3 and not long after, my mom and I moved from Texas out to Arizona City (a VERY small town just north of Tucson) to be near my grandparents and uncle. My mom’s job was in Tucson and so we made the daily trek into the city – about an hour each way. Back then there was less development and more cotton fields between Tucson and Casa Grande/Arizona City (now there is far more development and only a few cotton fields).
While I don’t remember much about those drives back and forth – probably because I was sleeping most of the way – I do remember a few things. One, which my mom knows I will always bring up, is having the car break down or get a flat and my hysterically crying “I want my daddy!” Thinking he would fix it all. (Silly child…it would be decades before I realized my mom was super capable, that my crying was probably more annoying than the car problems, and that women can do a whole heck of a lot – especially when push comes to shove!)
The other thing I remember vividly is a Christmas that was probably one of our leanest. You see, Christmas trees have always been costly. They are certainly not something high on the list of purchases when groceries, gas, and bills are challenges as it is. One year driving back from Tucson I remember mom pulled over and we put a big, spent cotton plant in the car (it was long past harvest and only dried cotton plants, with a handful of bolls on them, were left in the fields.). This particular plant had multiple cotton bolls on each branch (perhaps a sweet gift just for us), and it was at least as tall as my little tow-headed 4-year old self stood.
We got that cotton plant home and carefully took it out of the car. The next day my mom carefully wrapped each boll in foil and then spray-painted the plant gold. She then unwrapped the bolls, placed the dried, painted plant in a pot with what I assume was plaster-of-Paris, and we put small lights on it (as small as they came back in the ’70s, which was not very small). There were a few red ornaments hung on it.
It was both/and.
Both simple AND beautiful.
It was unbelievably beautiful!
I remember that little cotton plant tree. I remember gently touching the soft, raw cotton. How pretty it was tucked into the woody pods. I was always careful not to touch the spiked tips of the boll pods, and always so surprised at just how soft the cotton felt. The whole of the plant was both/and. Both hard and prickly AND soft and delicate.
Of course, the years passed, my mom got remarried, and Christmases were way more extravagant (of course some were lean once again as well). There were years that we had a giant ‘real’ tree, filled with ornaments and the magical ‘bubble’ lights. And there were years were not a tree, but a Cross was in the living room.
All of the trees that would come, and that we have even now, are beautiful in their own right, but none hold the memories of THAT tree.
The magic of the BOTH/AND Cotton Christmas Tree.
Photo by Outi Mähönen on Unsplash
