Hark the Herald Angels

Like my father before me, I often watch Bloomberg television in the overnight.  I'm fascinated by economics, the way they graph and predict and analyze what seems the bizarre and illogical behavior of current financial markets.  It's also a little comforting, in the thin hours where late-night dissolves into dawn, to know that across the world people are awake and bustling, when you are just home from a gig  that isn't quite what you wanted it to be, and sometimes considering life-alternatives.

Apparently, according to the financial pundits, it was a healthy Christmas.  Retail in-store sales were up, despite the anticipated online shopping dominance.   Personally I didn't really buy into the holiday spirit until I met my son in Herald Square at 5:45 PM, Christmas Eve.  Everyone should have this experience once in their life; it puts capitalism in some kind of warped perspective.  To be honest, there was less panic than I'd have predicted… and we managed to score the last pair of black Timberland nu-bucks in his size.  They were more than I could afford, more than I spend in two years on my own clothing-- but he wanted them.  He wanted the same ones in 2004, but I didn't bring that up.  It's imperative to buy something I can't afford; especially something that rappers seem to endorse universally.  Of course, he'd really like a Rolex, but he'll have to wait until he can buy it himself which is imminent, I sense. As for me, I've given up the ritual of exchanging gifts with everyone else… I can scarcely manage building employee tips and they all know they earn more than I do, but it keeps us on some kind of level ground of courtesy.  God knows the value of courtesy in this city.

My son always buys me a tree-- my only wish-list; this year he gave me a phone-- for emergencies, Mom, he explains to my idiosyncratic luddite head-shaking-- an extra line came with a huge discount in his bill, and a free phone… so I had to concede, even though I will not carry it.  He  knows me well; I have a history of wondering at the yearning of most people for what they do not have, and not often wanting what I get.   My childhood Christmases, after initial dismay that Santa did not leave me a horse, were not materially memorable.  I spent long days shopping, wrapping, and crafting things for everyone with my babysitting income.  I loved the giving.  Presents for me were generally the little-sister version of whatever my mother had selected from my sister's hefty list, which included prices and sums.  My Nana knew me best; she gave me boxes of scraps and spools of thread for making doll clothes-- rocks and old stamps for projects.  These were my treasures.

One year my Mom gave me Judy Collins' 'Wildflowers'.  It was the first record album that was designated mine and not communal like the scratched and dog-eared Beatles and Stones in the hifi bin, and it was like a coming-of-age joy-- one of those moments that let me know my Mom really 'got' me.  I loved it to death.  Sisters of Mercy.

Another year I remember tonight: I must have been 18, planning a summer trip to Europe with my boyfriend, and I begged for cash.  Christmas morning there were the usual piles of gay-looking boxes and bags, and not a thing for me.  In the toe of my stocking, something rustled: it was a $1.  Fuming, I took off-- skipped the traditional pancake breakfast and ran downtown.  The city was deserted and I was sulking and in desperation hopped a bus back to college.  It was a day like today-- frigid and unforgiving, and when I reached my empty dorm, I found there was neither electricity nor heat.  I wept in Christmas solitude and called my boyfriend in Boston from the house-phone who consoled me and directed me back to New York.   Anyway, trying to sleep that night under piles of blankets, I heard a strange noise-- found a flashlight and discovered one of my eccentric roommates in several hats and coats in her bed reading the novels of Jane Austin.  She'd stayed behind, intellectual that she was, and not buying for a second into either the holiday or home-sweet-home.  I'd never have really known her,  had I not had this little learning excursion which also taught me that I was an adult, and had to rely on myself if I wanted something-- that home was where I was, not some kind of story-book picture.  I thus weaned myself from my sweet Mom for the second time.

I've been thinking about her all this week-- my first motherless Christmas, the first time I wrapped no gift for her.  I remember how she understood me, even though she disagreed-- how she had to align herself with my Dad and refuse to sanction or even witness my artistic and romantic ambitions, but how she'd send me something like some candy bars I loved taped together, with no card-- or an old ribbon.  How she called to cry about John Lennon when he was shot that cold December day… how she tried.  I suppose death is the final weaning.

There's a Code-Blue out tonight in New York City.  It's so cold they've directed the police to round up homeless people who are at risk outdoors.  I was in Harlem at dusk; on the steps of a familiar church where a population beds down, two cops were trying to coax a sleeper to a shelter.  I don't mind the cold, he kept saying, but I mind the shelter.  After they left, I asked if he needed something.  Plastic bags for my feet, he said, and asked about my dog.  My dog has been dead for years… but he seemed to recognize me.  You gave me a sweater one night, he told me--- you were on a balcony and it was raining, and I was digging through restaurant trash… and you brought me a blue sweater.  I remember this… I did… and I remembered seeing that sweater in the trash bin the next morning, like a dis.

It's hard for me to believe this was that homeless man whose face, I confess, I don't recall… I keep thinking he is some sort of angel or apparition; his voice was soft and resonant and musical,his leathery smile so kind.  He also gave me a bag of socks to wash; I threw them into the machine at 2 AM when no one would be there to judge.  I will take them back to him tomorrow evening even though I wonder if he will be there; it is my foot--washing opportunity-- a real Christmas gift and I resisted the temptation to buy him a new pack, but executed his wish, as he presented it.   Clean socks.  I will sort and fold them in the Christmas spirit I failed to embrace this year until now.  If he is not there, I will leave the bag along with a candle for his night, and a prayer.

This is the sort of thing my Mom frowned on; after all, she was a lady, and didn't understand this is my version of rolling bandages for soldiers as she had done in her day.  In the scriptures, the woman who washes Jesus' feet with her hair, no less, was a sinner.  I've sinned plenty, as my Mom did not, and maybe you must be a sinner to want to serve the homeless.  I'd like to think it is compassion, not guilt that compels me.  But maybe some of those smug Bloomberg guys need a bag of dirty socks left under their tree with the Rolex boxes and the new-car keys.  How about putting that on your billionaire-list, Santa? For the naughty or nice, financial sinners all-- the ones who drank the Trump tax hand-out just as happily as a Christmas egg-nog.  From your warm golf-courses and holiday Caribbean hideaways, may you dream of some human foot-washing in the arctic cold as you kneel before a man who has maybe never seen the inside of a an airplane, or a decent restaurant, or a lovely warm home, but who is closer to some version of grace than all of your graphs and statistics will ever be.

Amen and Happy New Year to all.

Macy Blue

One night last year after an unusually well attended show, I was approached by one of the It-girl clothing designers… I would never have known, but she left me her card, and I looked her up.  ‘Come see me,’ she said, with a convincing handsqueeze. ‘I want to dress you.  You must come.’   So on a Thursday afternoon I wandered by the shop which was cavernous and under-decorated and very sparsely ‘spersed’ with grey wool jumpers (it was fall), garments with perfectly executed asymmetric cuts, minimal vegan-dyed tops, jackets and coats that draped mannequins with grace and unique style.  A modelish girl asked if I wanted help… then the designer herself--- the one who had kneeled at my feet in a dark club—gave me this quizzical look as though I was not only not ‘customer-esque’ but interfering with the ‘flow’ of the space… so I left. 

That was the closest I came to ‘shopping’ since I’d taken the single-parent oath of self-abnegation so many years ago, when I was young enough to pull off the grungy thrift-shop thing.  Outside on West 14^th Street I had a skin-pricking moment as though I’d just been mugged.

So last week I did some enormously simple charitable favor for a woman who turned out to be gracious and rich and insisted on buying me some token of gratitude.  Balenciaga?  Coach? And when I startled, she said…Well, YOU pick it out, … I’d never get you…. And she gave me an ultimatum and a deadline… and began calling every day to remind and inquire…until…with that blues line going over and over in my head (I’ve got a mind to give up living… but I think I’ll go shopping instead)…the Peter Green version--- I went down to 34^th Street--- maybe because one of my UES neighbors had just informed me that the absolute worst people in New York are in Herald Square.  I had to see.  And there was Macy’s.  My Grandmother worked there- during World War II-- the beautiful one who died so young… and  I thought I might invoke her ghost to find me a leather bag (It’s not in my personal ‘culture’ to actually try clothing on).

Downstairs where the clearance items were strewn around and the bags weren’t padlocked to the display, there was a motley crowd… Brazilian tourists piling things into a huge bag… cute bulgy Spanish girls buying things in pink, fat women from Queens holding bags up to the mirror with their heads tilted… a black winking transvestite whose opinion was to become crucial for me in the end…sales girls of all shapes and varieties… and even a coatcheck where the attendant discouraged me from leaving mine… behind which a man in an intern’s green shirt and no pants was lurking.  I though I was hallucinating. 

I could still distinguish leather from whatever… the smell, the vibe…  and I managed, with the transvestite’s head shakes and nods, to acquire something he approved of.    I completed  the transaction feeling like Rip Van Winkle making his first payphone call.On the way back, I became sort of ‘high’ and chatty to my fellow N train passengers and realized I was acting like some kind of psychotic housewife—like I was trying to ‘feel’ normal.   Back home I felt kind of Christmassy—and when my son came home he saw it and started laughing--- well, I said, I can put my laptop in it, and my books, and my gym clothes… It is kind of huge…  

Twice now I’ve tried to put things in it and leave the house-- -and I can’t quite pull it off.  Maybe I’m just warped and so used to this deprivation thing…but I feel sort of ridiculous.  And it’s not pretentious-- -after all it was Macy’s and it was on sale and it’s just a piece of an old cow that died of natural causes, and now it has a home and doesn’t have to be poked and critiqued by fake interns with no pants and other perverts and shopaholics.   But I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m nearly compulsively drawn to return the thing--- Still, I’m toughing it out.   I’m keeping it.  It’s burning a hole in my closet.  Everything feels absurd. 

Most of all, I keep thinking about my kids--- my son is difficult and moody these days.  He is working and being a man and succeeding and ambitious--- but something is not there---something essential—something that loves even Herald Square.  Sometimes I store up all of this stuff—like I need to tell him about my heart, and about how I feel… that life is going by so quickly--- and about 34^th Street and seeing the fake snow and the Macy’s reindeer in the 1950’s and how he himself sat on Santa’s lap and didn’t really want anything in his 3 year old head and he was ‘trusting Santa to bring him a toy’…but we end up just shrugging at each other. 

My niece is struggling too.  Sometimes I want to tell her about a moment—when I was maybe 23 and high in a room with cool guitar players and someone was playing Pink Floyd or maybe even David Gilmour himself with that beautiful mouth was actually there in the room…playing for you… and everyone was in love but you just wanted to sit with your eyes half closed and your cigarette falling out of your hand and the smoke thick and sweet everywhere and the music perfect and your clothes are maybe on or maybe off and there was no future or past but only the perfect weightless present of all-possibility and your mind is perfect and the sex was perfect and you are just where you should always be…

But it’s Sunday and I will go for the few groceries I can afford, because I am, after all, a pumpkin and the leather bag unlike the glass slipper doesn’t fit, and even if I wore it to the designer’s store, she would still not associate this badly dressed woman with the music and the night and the margaritas and the way she needed to tell me something...the way she whispered…

Maybe I’ll just give the bag to my niece and she’ll politely take it and then leave it on a train where some homeless person will find it and use it to shoplift meat from the supermarket whistling the BB King song perfectly and they’ll look the cashier right in the eye as they hand over 82 cents for a can of cherry coke and leave with $170 of ribeye in the expensive leather satchel still whistling.