A Yuletide Fairy Tale
My wife had a creative idea for a Christmas Tree that became a Monahan family tradition for many years. We’d go to the corner tree stand and pick out, not the best tree, but the best top of a six foot tree. Because other than the upper three feet and the trunk, the rest of the tree was going to be kindling.
I did the dirty work, that of cutting off all the lower branches, then we’d put the half naked tree, all six feet of it, in one of our seasonally-retired large clay pots. I mean a very large terra cotta pot. I’d put large rocks in the pot to stabilize the tree. Then Audrey took over, that’s my wife, remember, the one with this creative idea?
Audrey would cover the stones in the pot with moss. Then she’d wrap the trunk with gold ribbon, drape the tree with a simple garland made of small gold pears, apply tiny sparkling lights, then put me back to work to place a gilt multi-pointed, three-dimensional star upon the top.
Voila! Our unique Christmas tree. It was basically a very cool indoor topiary with a very limited life span. This non-traditional tree played the quite traditional role of focal point for our Christmas festivities. Friends and family alike came to expect the annual appearance of our Monahan custom known as “Audrey’s tree.”
We had been doing our tree in this special way for a number of years when a new friend, upon seeing the tree for the first time remarked, “Audrey, I love your ballerina tree!”
Audrey and I looked at each other. Then at the tree. This tree that had become a seasonal fixture in our parlor. Our ballerina tree.
Of course, we had never seen it as a ballerina tree before. But, as sure as Sugar Plum Fairies and Tin Soldiers are real, there it stood before us: a perfectly dressed and exquisitely posed ballerina tree.
It had a tiara on top, an elegant tutu bedecked it’s body and it had ribbons entwined up it’s legs, like the ribbons that have adorned pointe shoes on thousands of ballerinas for centuries. Yes, just like the tiara, and tutu, and ribbons that Audrey had worn for years as a professional dancer.
We could almost hear the orchestra, smell the rosin on the shoes, sense the murmuring of the audience.
Maybe I should mention that the photo above is my little ballerina, Audrey. The same Audrey Monahan whose name was on the program for years as a ballet soloist, as a jazz dancer and as a singer with the Metropolitan Opera. (Okay, so she can’t carry a tune in a shopping cart, but when my wife toured with the Met, they did require the dancers to sing. In Audrey’s case not very loudly.)
I’ve talked about the role of the subconscious mind in the creative process a bit in my blog. (Like in the previous post - Sleep on it.) I will surely talk about it more.
Audrey’s ballerina tree was most certainly a product of her subconscious mind, that place where Christmas trees don’t need all their branches, where the distictions between dance stages and front parlors are blured - the realm of the imagination. Because, until our friend Clifford mentioned Audrey’s self portrait in a clay pot, the thought had never crossed our minds. Now of course we can’t look at this tree without seeing a ballerina.
I’ve said it before in this space - all ideas come from somewhere. Sometimes we are conscious of where. Sometimes we are not. Like when Chrissy Hynde of the Pretenders wrote the song “Don’t get me wrong.” If you don’t know the tune, the hook is built around four notes: G - C - A - E, sung as “Don’t - get - me - wrong.”
About a year after she recorded the song Ms. Hynde was aboard a British Airways jet when they started playing the video tape about seat belts and floatation devices, the audio track started with four bongs. You guessed it. G - C - A - E as “Bong, bong, bong, bong,” followed by a distinctly English voice saying, “Welcome to British Airways.” As Chrissy tells the story, right then and there she realized where she had gotten her melody, as she had conceived the tune while flying to New York from London a year earlier.
There’s that ol’ subconscious mind again. It serves us when we’re brainstorming on business issues. It serves us when we’re putting our own touch on holiday decorating. Something to think about… Or not think about, during this holiday season.
Have a happy and a merry! See you in ‘07.
