Week 8: The Things I See While Walking Down the Street, That's Heaven to Me..

When someone says 'Down Town Bangor' the first few things that come to mind, at least my mind, is the Bangor Opera House, Bars, and the gone and sorely missed Grasshopper Shop. What I don't normally associate with the Down Town area is Christmas spirit or that holiday feeling you get while in the mall, right before the big shopping rush starts...but that's what I'm getting right now as I step out of the Opera House entry way onto the street.

I've been working on building a set for one of the shows here, the Christmas Carol oddly enough, and we'd just called break. Now I'm standing outside watching the first white flakes drift down from the dark gray skies in one of the years few, true snow storms. I admit, I'm not a weather man by no means but I'm pretty sure you can just tell by the sheer size of the precipitation in question if it's a big one or not and these flakes are huge! I can't help but smile as I hike up the collier of my jacket against the cold and start walking down the street towards the cafe.

It's hard to describe, at least I think so. It's that's slightly heavy, slightly charge feeling the air gets during this time of year. It's a combination of lights and sound that intermingle in a muted display of positive feeling. You see it in the each wreath that hangs precariously from it's integrated position on a lamp post and the small, slow wink of Christmas lights catch the falling snow and shift with your position on the street. I walk past a small department store, one of those that is full of odds and ends and knickknacks that can catch your eye and might even have some use to them. Inside the large display window it's full of silver tinsel and garland, white lights sparkle off a live tree fitted with gold ornaments. It's warm and inviting. I might even go so far as to say breath taking.

Its the little things like this, the snow, the light and decoration, the over all spirit of winter that really makes me smile. I'm a summer guy myself but sometimes, just sometimes before the craze of commercialism drives everyone mad, it's nights like this that are really a small piece of calm that I can associate with heaven.