December 25, 2022:
I donated my christmas tree.
Beautiful fake, sectional, easy to break down and re-build next year. I'd decorated it with travel globes: ornaments of cities I've known. London, Athens, Paris, New York, Vancouver, Honolulu, San Francisco, Aukland, San Diego, Palm Springs, Phoenix, Bellingham, Hong Kong. I loved it in Salinas, a house where I believed I was nesting, but where my nest was destroyed.
It no longer belongs. Emblem of old life, rejected life.
Goodbye, pretty tree. Someone will love you.