it's ringing
December 13, 2003, 6:00 pm

Everything that has been wrong with me can be scaled down to a tiny noise: ring.

I've stopped hearing the bell.

There's a story that you probably know, the Polar Express. For those of you who don't know (or remember), the story is basically about a little boy who goes on a magical trainride to the North Pole and is given the first gift of Christmas. For his gift, he chooses a little silver bell on the reindeer from Santa's sleigh so he can prove to his friends and everyone at home that Santa really exists. The story ends with the boy describing how year after year, more and more people stop hearing the bell because they don't believe.

When I was in grad school, one of the women in my class presented her philosophy of education as The Polar Express; "My idealism, my desire to make a change...I don't want that to go away." As the first gift of Christmas, she told us, she wanted everyone to write down the one person who best embodied the positive spirit of education and who best upheld the meaning of being a good teacher. I immediately voted for Laurie, the woman who posed the question...

but everyone else chose me.

The first gift of Christmas was a tiny bell, shaped like an apple. It is the most precious thing I think I own. It sits on my desk at work in a wooden showcase box, hanging from a little hook.

I had completely forgotten it existed until my mom mentioned the story this afternoon while we were putting up our tree. I started getting excited, retelling the story and then I stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. "What's wrong?" my mom asked. "What's the matter with you?" asked my dad. "Jess, why'd you stop?" asked Christina.

I was crying. "I, uh, stopped hearing the bell."

It's true. For three months now, I've been so wrapped up in my own problems and my own traumas and dramas and I've just stopped remembering why I heard it in the first place. And now I do.