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To launch off the end of the year, I would like to share a story that doesn’t quite pertain to the holiday theme but rather the spirit of the time. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I know many readers have no one to celebrate with, to have a jolly good time alongside, and very recently I was reminded by my dearest friend Christopher, Chris, Miracle that I find myself in a special position to have my entire family around for Christmas and the New Years, but Chris… his family is far off in Australia, and my family is the closest thing he gets. Trust me, we treat him like family and wish he would become family very soon (just waiting for him to propose to my brother), he also eats enough food during our parties to be a family member. But more importantly, I want you as well, reader, to be a part of my family for one short entry.
And relating to this, I would like to teach you how to tie a tie. According to my father, that is. If you truly need to learn how to tie a tie, then I suggest looking up a visual representation because he has very roundabout ways of explaining simple things (and Charlie wonders where I get my excessive habits from.)
~(***)~
I believe this story recalls some of my earlier days, and by early, I was but a lad of six or seven. My mother, dear Valentine, insisted I wore a real tie to Christmas dinner instead of one of those cheap looking clip-on ones, I was practically half of a whole man by that point! Besides, what would stop me from putting one on, my brother was a savant at tying a tie and surely such a clever little lad would know how to do the same, no?
Well, that was just the answer, dear readers: no. I could not tie a tie to save my life or anyone else’s for that matter, my little fingers just weren’t fine-tuned enough, Rudy was an avid piano player by the time he could reach the keys, but I was more into full-fisting crayons and pressing down as hard as I could onto paper so I could draw flowers for my mothers. If you could watch me fiddle with that damned piece of fabric for an hour or so, I believe you’d have pity and tie it for me. Even worse, I was so incredibly infuriated by that thing I threw it across the room and had tears flooding my eyes before trying again, of course Rudy tried to help me, but he only knew how to tie one on himself and couldn’t do a thing (though he did give me a hug and told me it was okay), so instead of fixing the problem himself, he found another solution. As I watched him leave the room, I thought it was another one of his cruel jokes and he just left me in tie hell, but after another few minutes of me wrestling with the red and white monstrosity Rudy returned with our father in tow.
Now, our father was a kind man when he wanted to be, stern when he needed, but as of late he’s become a bit of a homebody. If he wasn’t in a blanket, then that wasn’t our father. I digress: at the time of this story, he still had jet-black hair and a kind face that sort of went from angular to soft when he smiled, eyes that would light up despite the otherwise grim look about them. And as he kneeled down to assess the situation, that soft look just deepened like a pool of pity and mercy.
“Having trouble, son?” He gently held the knot I had formed around my neck and inspected it for any salvageable bits.
Rudy tapped his shoulder and whispered, not very well, into his ear, “I don’t think he can tie his tie daddy.”
“Neither do I… run off to mummy now.”
“Which one?”
My father, Laurence, looked over his shoulder and sighed, “pick one, Rudy. You’ve got two options.”
“Okay!” and with the acceptance of the fact that he needed to piss off very quickly, he left the room and let father deal with my predicament.
I merely looked down in shame in my quiet-natured way (baffling, isn’t it, I used to be quiet ) and made a pitiful whining noise when he finally gave up looking at my job-not-so-well-done. “It’s real bad, isn’t it?”
“Not at all son,” he spoke softly to me, giving me a half-smile, “I think mummy taught you the first time, didn’t she?” I nodded and wiped my teary cheek off with the back of my hand, the hand my father took and cleaned with his once neatly folded handkerchief. “Well, how about I show you this time. Hm? I know you need a few go-arounds before you get it.”
“But Rudy got it…” I kept my eyes low, analysing the enchanting pattern on said handkerchief, it was like snowflakes in the wind. “Why can’t I get it?” Now, dear reader, I know it’s the undiagnosed mental issues, but of course my child self had no idea about that. I just assumed that it was only natural to stare at pretty things for hours on end and do nothing with them.
“Because you learn in a different way, my boy. Come here-” he went over to the large standing mirror next to the wardrobe and undid his tie with ease. “Do you remember when mummy Elanor did needlepoint?” I thought for a moment before recalling that needlepoint was code for “the thing mummy does where she curses every five seconds because she pricks her finger” so I nodded and he continued on. “Well, that’s a complicated thing for people who have never done it before, and tying this thing is incredibly difficult when you don’t know how to do it, isn’t it?”
I looked at the knotted disaster around my neck and let out a long sigh, “Yeeeeeeesssss.”
“That’s the first step to learning something new: You won’t be perfect at it the first time or the time after that. Now go ahead and untie that while I explain a few ground rules.” I vaguely recall picking at the fabric with my tongue poking out a bit for a few minutes as my father rambled on. “Like I said, you won’t be good at something the first few times you try something new. It takes time and practise, without those two things, you’ll never be good at the new thing. I’ve been tying ties for a very long time now-”
“-because you’re old.”
“... yes, because I’m old, son. Anyway, my old man taught me when I went to a gala for the first time. I was all done up in an expensive tuxedo and I had a tie draping off my neck. Usually my mum would tie it for me, but she had passed not too long before that, so I was fending for myself until my father came up to me and asked if I needed help.” He gently guided me to stand in front of him, my head barely meeting his stomach even when standing tall like mummy said to for pictures. “Now, I want you to know that even though you may not learn now , if you practise enough, you just may get it down like a champ!”
“But I want to learn now dad, I want to be good at it like Rudy…” I know, I was a whiny little shite back then, but I wasn’t privy to the sass I have so expertly mastered in my years of smack-talking superiors in the workplace.
He put a hand on each of my shoulders, planting me to the ground as I looked at him in our reflection, “It takes time, son. Do you think mummy was amazing at her hobby the first time she tried it?”
“No…”
He rubbed my shoulders for a moment, releasing all the tension from my failed attempts and forcing me to focus on him, rather than the anger I felt low in my stomach. “You tell me when you are ready. Take some deep breaths.” Dad smiled down at me for a moment before closing his eyes and making a deep breath, modelling what I should do as well. So I closed my eyes and took in the biggest lungfull I could manage with my tiny body. I imagine I looked like a balloon had just inflated in my chest because I puffed it out so far, but after shoving all the air out of my lungs as fast as possible… I felt better, strangely.
“I think I’m ready?” I opened my eyes again and looked at the wrinkled tie that hung slack on my neck. “Yeah, all ready.”
“Then follow me, and we’ll practise together, eh?” I gave a curt nod and he began his thorough lesson on how to tie a tie. “Take the wide bit in one hand, and the skinny bit in the other.” He did the same, and I carefully copied him, looking in the mirror to ensure I wasn’t making a mistake by holding the bloody thing. “Pull the wide bit down until it’s a lot longer than the thin bit.”
I pulled until the wide side reached the buckle of my trousers and the skinny bit just came to my stomach and looked at my father in the mirror for approval.
“Good job son,” he chuckled, patting my head and making my already ruffled hair more into the shape of a flattened bird’s nest. “Next, cross the thick bit in front, behind, and then in front again. Like this.” As he repeated the motion a few times, I studied just how he moved his slender, large hands around the silk garment. “Try it with me.”
“In front,” I softly said to myself, carefully repeating my father, “behind….” The angles were a bit funny because the tie was different thicknesses, but I fixed my predicament by imagining it was a vine, curling around a tree. “In front…” And finally, with a little fiddling from my father, our ties looked the same! “I’m doing it daddy!”
“Yes you are! Let’s keep going-”
I won’t bother you with the whole process, because it took well over an hour for me to do it and it was a long, long conversation of step-by-step tie tying. But, I assume, dear reader, the lesson I wish to convey is: even if it feels hopeless, and if you don’t want to ask for help, there is always someone you can turn to. It took many years for my stubborn arse to realise just how important this lesson was, years of isolating myself because I had my heart broken, years of running from home to chase that high I so desperately wanted, it was only when I turned down the wrong blue-eyed, honey scented boy that I finally opened my eyes. There were people who genuinely loved me for the eccentric self I was, and they had been there the whole time.
Even though I could never say it to his face (because he would hold it over me for the rest of my life), I owe a lot to my old man. His patience with my neurodivergency made it easier in the end, he showed me how to journal, how to ground myself when my head was faster than my body, how to manage myself in tough sensory environments like school. I remember him picking me up from the daycare because the caretakers didn’t know what I meant by “it’s too evil in here.” He never did me wrong, I will forever be grateful for what he did for me in my youth, and what he continues to do for me in my adult life.
My husband and I had a son a few years ago. It was the most exciting, but most terrifying, moment in my life up to that point, and I had no idea what to do with myself, much less a newborn. It wasn’t like being a father came with an instruction manual, and despite acting like I know everything there is to know in the wide, wide world: I don’t know shite about kids . Or at least I didn’t know. He, and mummies, helped us get through the “new parent” stage in life without endangering the little lad too much. I wouldn’t have thought to turn to them, but they knew we needed help and I have no way to repay them. But I can pay it forward.
So, because I have become soft in my old age, I would like to tell you that you are loved. You may not know who loves you, but they are there, and you are important to them. I assure you, if we could meet in person, my husband would take in every single lonely soul on Christmas and shower them with love and affection. But because it isn’t possible, I offer these words to comfort you. The holidays are a tough time for many people, and you may be one who is celebrating alone, with people who don’t appreciate you, or have recently lost a loved one who did appreciate you. I don’t know your situation, but I know that every single one of you deserves a good holiday season.
You have the love of the Holmes and Box families, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.