Trusting Santa

When my son was a baby, he was a little unusual.  Being pretty unprepared for motherhood, I didn't really read the proscribed handbooks or solicit advice.  I did have to attend the postnatal fathers' class in hospital, where they give you life-sized dolls to practice diapering skills.  I was sort of a rock and roller... I figured I'd listen, and improvise, as we do-- stay 'in' the moment.  

So I took home a pretty well-behaved infant who, like all, have their crying jags and colicky nights.  The top of the clothes dryer in the laundry room seemed to help... and one sleepless night as I put another dime into the machine which rocked infants just the right way, I looked my 3-week old newborn in the eye and assured him, "There are just so many things that could be bothering you, and I am going to figure it out."  It was a promise-- a vow.  It made us both feel better and he seemed to physically relax.  Such is parenthood-- leadership in general. The sense of being protected is ninety percent. And there are maternal instincts... you somehow put yourself in the path of oncoming danger.

Just before his one-year old Christmas, some posh friends of mine got us invited to a little Cartier store Christmas children's reception, where they show off tiny trinkets and juvenile jewelry gifts.  I'd never set foot in the place, but they convinced me it would be a great little opportunity for my son. The refreshments were something else.  I was virtually near-starving in those days, and the little party favor bags were filled with coupons and gift cards.  We scored.  Their Santa, seated in a bling-laden sled on a platform, was Afro-American.  My little boy sat on his lap, and seemed to converse comfortably.  He knew little about presents, but we enjoyed ourselves and went home with seasonal Yuletide cheer. 

The following year, he was newly two, and his vocabulary was impressive.  We went to see the Macy's Santaland-- waited on the immense line I'd waited on many times as a child.  When it was near his turn, he informed me that this was not the real Santa-- because the real Santa has a dark face.  I was confused, and explained that Santa had to send out his helpers to make lists for all the children because he was busy packing the sleigh.  So he thought about it for a minute, and then up he went, onto Santa's padded lap, in the styrofoam and glitter display with the angels and reindeer... and was really a little insulted that Santa asked if he'd been good.  Of course he was good; he was the best-- honest, innocent, kindhearted and unafraid.  He looked quizzical, and I of course gave the double thumbs up.  And then-- the question all children are there to answer: 'What toys do you want?'  I could remember so vividly asking Santa for a horse-- not the stuffed kind but the kind that would live in my garage and ride me to school every day.  That-- or a Stutz Bearcat, neither of which was ever on the menu in my house.  

But my son, at 25 months old, looked the fake-bearded man right in the eye and referring to himself in the third person as he did, said... 'He's trusting Santa'.  Santa had to ask him to repeat himself a couple of times... then said that in all Polar eternity, this was the first time he'd heard such a reply... and the tears were rolling down his red cheeks.  He gave my son a great big merry hug, told him he would surely have a happy Christmas, and took a break.

We had not so much in those days-- the two of us learning about each other, spending every moment together exploring the city-- the subways, playgrounds-- anywhere with no admission that was interesting.   He worried about the children in the shelters-- shared toys... brought birthday cake to the men living underneath the 59th Street bridge whom he knew by name.  He insisted on leaving extra cookies for that Santa who wept in his presence, and we kept our tree that year until March-- until it became a fire hazard and a twiggy eyesore in our studio apartment.

We had a wonderful homey Thanksgiving this year.  We bonded and ate and watched football.  On Black Friday my son ordered the clothing he wanted for himself.  I didn't bother reminding him how rightfully he no longer trusted Santa, or his mother whose gift-giving abilities are disappointing.  His beloved towers came down when he was 11.  It changed him-- a coming of age.  In God We Trust says the US dollar, or the representation of the dollars that we put in envelopes for holiday gratuities.  I don't know if 'trust' is what I feel for God, nor would He expect this of us when He fails to appear or even manifest Himself when we are distraught or ill.  

Despite the failures and cancellations and griefs... we all do go on, somehow... with something that resembles hope-- or faith-- or optimism.  We wake up and enter some kind of future with our Starbucks and our Dunkin Donuts.  We go to work and put pennies in the proverbial till of our old-age pensions; we accept our vaccines and put on our masks and for the most part accept the fate that is stuffed in our stockings and socks every day.  We go on.  

Few people ask what we want-- they shop excessively,  and except for the newly engaged, have little success in pleasing loved ones. The return lines are massive... the retail statistics feed the fat Wall Street profiteers and the wealthy among us seem to trust the economy, rather than Santa.  Still, the charities go on and on... people do give, and donate, and deduct, and adopt animals.  There are good Santas and bad ones.  They are multiracial and multi-gendered, I have already noticed. Most of them are paid; it's not a safe job, in a pandemic, and like tree-selling, it's a little humiliating. Few of them weep, and none believe in themselves.  The system, like many of our hearts,  is broken... but still we will embrace the decorations and celebrate the myths and fables, and mark another year with some kind of grace,  Amen.

HOLLOW-E'EN

I was shocked this evening to see a bit of manifested holiday cheer on the streets, children and parents in costumes-- trick or treating, I suppose, at doorways of shops, grocery stores...  merriment in the park... adults on bicycles dressed as ghosts and Teletubbies.  I'm not sure what I'd be doing if I had young children-- does one keep up the illusion that life is going on as it did, that joy and celebration are still appropriate even during a pandemic?  We Americans-- we make the best of things, I've heard.  Some of us.  

In 1961 I wore one of my father's old suit jackets, pinned and rolled up-- a Stetson hat and a John F Kennedy rubber mask.  It was a good disguise for me, the perennial tomboy who at that moment hated makeup and princess clothes--  low-maintenance and warm.  I tried to imitate the walk of a war hero-turned political leader-- really the first President I celebrated in my young life.  He was a young, handsome father, like my Dad-- a former soldier.  We were old enough to follow the election in school and we loved him.  Again in 1964 I'd looked through my closet for ideas-- was way more enthusiastic about theatre and music and boys than trick or treating...  considered reviving the Kennedy mask, but post-mortem it seemed more tastelessly macabre and politically incorrect.  

Today I saw Trump masks-- left over from 2016?  New ones made with the irony of the very image of the mask-shunner stamped like a grotesque advertisement for the Corona virus?  Hard to decipher whether the wearers are haters or supporters.  An army of Trump faces on the street is as scary as Halloween gets.  Pumpkinheads. 

Last night I was so agitated about the upcoming election I slept not at all.  To distract myself I memorized the presidential sequence.  Incredible to me I've lived through twelve and hopefully will see thirteen in a matter of months.  As an early voter, I forgot I'd have this feeling of helplessness as the day approaches; not much we can do but encourage others.  It's politics, it's numbers... but I've still not fully recovered from the devastating mental hangover of November 9, 2016.  It can't happen again... but yes, it can.  

Out of the 45 names I litanised, there were some bad ones; we lived.  I can't blame the entire pandemic on one man... and yet he's become the symbol-- the mask, as it were, of evil-- of 'spread'... the very opposite of a Protector, a hero-- a blunderbuss opportunist who's turned America into a casino culture.  A cartoon-man whose flaws and failures have been woven into the very fabric of this country in a way that is unprecedented and more horrifying than any haunted house I can imagine.

I have this image in my mind... of a quiet parade-less Thanksgiving morning with one enormous balloon in the shape of an obese Donald Trump floating above the city, children being given old-fashioned pea-shooters or plastic darts.  Pin the tail on the Trump-donkey.  But today, after a sleepless night, I saw the boarded-up windows of Macy's-- a city on edge,  anticipating unrest-- catastrophe.  This is more than an election... this is not a democratic process but a seismic sociologic event.  

Just one year ago I was a musician.  Halloween for decades was not just a children's holiday but a gig-- revelry and dancing.  We played and shared microphones, sang our hearts out-- swapped sweat, licked strings and kissed one another.  We exchanged vampire teeth and masks, ate candy corn and hung plastic skulls from our guitar-necks.  We did Misfits covers and carved out pumpkins.  It is hard to think about being a musician when there is no live music.  What am I?  What are we?  We are diminished-- we are masked not from celebration but from fear.  

It's not just Halloween and a rare blue moon, but the one day of the year we are given an extra hour.  November is beginning on a 'loaded' night... spirits are flitting around, and the cold autumn air is fraught with socially distanced energy and urbanites jacked up on sugar and alcohol.  Kids are resilient, but even they know how much we've lost in the past seven months; the novelty has worn off.  I'm tired of thinking my future will be little more than nostalgic reminiscence-- story-telling.  Tonight I am measuring my life by presidents... ready for my thirteen.  Whatever lurks out there for us, let there be a little hope and humanity-- something more than candy wrappers and smashed pumpkins.  We have less choice than usual, but we can put our faith in a man with a mask, or throw our chips in with a human mask that camouflages a hollow man.  Once in a blue moon, we might deserve a miracle.  

Let the Games End

I don't know why the opening ceremony of the Olympics sort of gives me the shivers.  Maybe it's the color wash of pomp and nationalistic display that just seems so out of touch with the dull and miserable reality of the less fortunate population.  Puerto Rico is neglected; starvation and disease are rampant in so many places worldwide; the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots has never seemed so hideous.  The Korean culture itself--- the military parades and exhibitions of the North like a braggart's bluff-- the singing girls and the happy marchers... the reality of repression and forced obedience... the apparent moratorium on human rights that welcomes athletes from a hostile and hideous regime for what-- the spirit of competition?  I just don't get it.  It feels opportunistic and juvenile... some kind of #metoo madness.

Not to mention the pall cast over the gymnastic community which has colored yet another sport almost permanently.  Who protects those of our children who have been deemed special or uber-talented and marketable-- whose natural skills and talents have been parlayed into industries and fortunes not to mention a kind of national heroism?  As a young aspiring dancer, I could sense the thorns and perils even before I understood abuse and boundaries.  We each have instincts, but our ambitions so often triumph better judgment... as well as that of all those people on our path who close one eye when there is a huge pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.  Until the whistles blew.... and how many sports are now tainted by cover-ups, pay-offs, cheating, doping?  Does the best man/woman win?  Look at our elections.  Not only did we get the dark horse but we got a non-qualifier.  If politics was a sport our president would be limping at the starting-line with an ill-fitting uniform and no sponsors but his own sad brand.  Eisenhower might have been a good golfer but he was also a 5-star general.

What version of America shows up at these international competitions? The athletes are still young players in a kind of dream-- individuals with the drive and stamina to be the best they can be-- who put their skill on the line internationally for their nation-- but who are we?  A disorganized country with little focus except money-- an untrained leader whose familiarity with the 50 states came from watching the  Miss America pageant.  And now he wants a military parade-- this man who never fought a war or trained for one-- who throws around threats and battle-language like some kind of cartoon character.  The Monopoly president whose claim to office is an affirmation of the sad state of pop culture and the negation of human values.  We won't see his image on a bill or coin, but on a game-piece-- a gambling chip.  The man himself to me is an ever-expanding hot-air balloon-- the latest float at a Macy's parade...  to bring him down will take some strategy because he is not just a player but a cheater.  In the end, in my personal American dream--- to ultimately deflate the high-flying symbol of bloated greed and cartoon quackery will take a simple pin.

I can't help blaming the current flu epidemic on a certain emotional malaise among my American peers.  My friends and I have been mostly depressed since Election Day 2016.  Anything could take us down.  Few of us trust the medical system  to protect us against disease or to give a whit about healthcare beyond what profits the insurance and drug companies.  We do not get vaccinated; we get sick.  We are watching these games and athletics through feverish eyes, wondering at the lingering inequality of women in some sports, and worrying about the fate of the Korean cheerleaders and delegates.  Will they be punished?  Will there be defectors?  Why is South Korea so apparently recently solicitous of its evil Northern sister?

To me the two Koreas seem like a dysfunctional family; the South-- a beautiful place, ranked No.1 in the world in technological innovation-- so there is obvious talent and brilliance concentrated there-- a thing which might create envy in any family.  In the North-- repression is standard; starvation is rampant.  Students reputedly must buy their own desks and chairs to attend class, etc.  It is not a place that fosters creativity or joy... one pities the athletes who cannot possibly reap the rewards available to other nations-- win or lose.  It parallels my own sad family, in a way.... love has become impossible.. and although I neither respect nor admire my sister, she has used threats and fear to further alienate and weaken any family attachment I might have had.  She has forbidden her children to befriend me, although they have attempted defection... and now through force and might has conscripted the core and remaining fortune of my nuclear family so that even my own legacy will be withheld.  It is a game without rules; a rigged contest where the judges are the contestants, and there is one pre-arranged winner.

In this upside-down Trumped world where the jokers preside and justice sits on a bench with yesterday's stale sandwich, well... these villains will continue to steal the pie.  But for my true sisters of musical voice-- of pen and pencils and paint-- the filmmakers and innovators-- my teammates in life-- we will dance on their graves one day.  We will speak and write and sing and continue to raise our children with unconditional love.  We are out there-- on the streets-- in cornfields and in small homes... some of us coughing and barely able to board a public bus...  we wave to one another-- with some hope--  in our old clothing, with no medals or trophies but underneath it all,  a still-ticking American heart.

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.

Black and Blue Friday

I can't quite remember the first time I heard the phrase 'Black Friday'. Surely I would have thought it was some Catholic designation for one of the days preceding the Crucifixion.  Something terrible.
As a teenager it was a day after the huge tense family dinner.  Parents were hung over and kids were punchy and overfed.  Breakfast was black coffee and a cigarette for my Mom.  Maybe cold stuffing for me with hot chocolate and some dirty looks for whatever I might have said or done the night before.
It was quiet and cold outside.  The air smelled of bonfires and rotting leaves.  It was a day for huge library books and blankets on the porch while my father slept off his angst and the meal.  It was claustrophobic.

On break from college it was a reunion day.   Homecoming for my girlfriends and sometimes a movie and a local bar.  Phone calls and yearbook reminiscing.  Comparing our new boyfriends and nasty roommates.  Dogwalking and getting high in a sort of innocent way.  No one shopped in our household.  We hardly spoke.

Once I played in a band, Thanksgiving meant a turkey sandwich in a diner or Chinese takeout after the gig.  Friends showing up with girlfriends and wives, looking sheepish and disgruntled.  It was a day you'd evaluate your own family; usually things didn't measure up.  As a musician, it was a relief to come home in early Friday.  You could sleep it off and here was a regular weekend.

My first marriage meant excommunication from my family.  I was banned from their Thanksgiving.  The gig was the Lone Star-- the original one on 13th-- and I remember feeling a little non-Texan and isolated.   I was writing Black Friday songs in my head without having heard the expression.  Once I had a son I began my own dinners-- we were usually destitute and someone would either donate a bird or we'd manage to collect enough scraps for a feast and it felt good.  I lit candles.  I bundled up my baby boy and went to watch the floats getting blown up at 2 AM and drank hot chocolate in some diner.  On the Friday we'd go see Christmas lights.

One Black Friday I remember having one dollar.  One.  I decided I'd buy a couple of bananas and 2 rolls for 25 cents apiece.   My son and I went out looking for the best deal on bananas and on the side of the road I found an envelope with some cash in it.  $550.  For me that was hitting the lottery.  It was groceries for a year…. baby clothes too.  It was amazing… visions of Christmas trees… toys… going into a diner with my son and letting him order something besides chocolate milk.

But that $550… it was someone else's winning lotto ticket.  It was someone else's loss.  Some poor cab driver or laborer had taken out his savings and lost everything… a cancelled vacation … whatever.  Why is it that I can never accept good fortune without considering the B-side?  So I gave much of it to homeless people, to charity.  Yes, we bought an Ernie and Bert Lego set… we shopped Toys R Us like royalty and we picked out Sesame Street Action figures and a plastic house.  We saw Santa and ate burgers and fries in the Herald Square mall and looked out at the Empire State Building lit up for Christmas.  My son was singing with his little red corduroy hat on.

I learned about Black Friday from my son when he was a teenager and muttered vicious maledictions at his loser mother because everyone else was getting their new Sevens for All Mankind and Timberlands.  
It was humiliating and sad.  I was unsympathetic and he was angry.  He stayed out until 3 AM and came back stinking of alcohol with a black eye.  A black eye is actually blue.

This year Black Friday apparently started on Thursday.  Stores were open-- kids, including my son, had to go to work at midnight.  People stampeded and fought over merchandise.  Rain checks and bracelets were handed out, internet sites extended their sales through cyber Monday--- but there were stabbings and blood.  What do you call this kind of violence?  Retail-rage?  It baffles me.

I haven't spoken to my older sister in maybe 12 years.  She likes it this way.  Absolutely no competition and she can malign me until the cows come home and no one will disagree.  It has been so long our enmity is like a Thanksgiving float of some kind of nasty cartoon thought-balloon.  I imagined their Thanksgiving--- my parents, the tense old family facade like a toothless old leather-face.  I still cringe when I think of my father; he still hands over the phone like a hot potato when he hears my voice.  The Pilgrims and Indians sat down together, but not my original family--- not any more.  They have invented a new tradition which is now older than the original.  My chair has been long filled by grandchildren.

I loved my Thanksgiving guests this year; each one was so special.   I loved my home and my unmatched dishes and funky seating.  No one thought about shopping.  No one discussed things or clothing or new apartments.  We listened to jazz and indie rock until the early morning and then I cleaned my oven.  When I am content and grateful that way, I worry about Jesus--- but maybe that is Good Friday.  Everything seems to be running into everything else-- I mean, what difference does it make--- corn, chocolate hearts, colored eggs, fireworks, parades?  It's all the same thing-- every holiday is cause for celebration and cause for sorrow.  I hope I don't die on Thanksgiving.

While I cleaned, which is somehow a not unpleasant part of my tradition, I remembered.   While I scrubbed my floors and dried glasses--  I remembered the great love of my life, wasting from stomach cancer and deemed 'nil by mouth' his final Thanksgiving…  asking me to describe the smell of my turkey, the texture of my stuffing… we stayed on the phone until he finally slept on Black Friday morning.   I was relieved he'd made it through the day, but it was the last time we spoke.   It has been so many years now, I can't even cry; I light a separate candle for him, on the table, and remember driving back to school after break, on the black turnpike, in a blue car, listening to Cinnamon Girl on the radio, with the heat on and Friday on our mind.

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. 

The 'Santa' Clause

Looking on my windowsills, how many more cards can I count with someone’s cute kid sitting on Santa’s lap rattling off the toys they’re expecting? Or these days, a little person with a kid-blackberry texting his list.

Just waiting on Macy’s massive snaking Santa-line should tip off any young believer that no celestial sleigh could hold enough toys to satisfy this pre-noon store crowd, let alone all the children in the world. But kids at Christmas choose not to think logically; or maybe they know they’ll get more from the grown-ups by playing innocent just a little longer. Whatever. Despite the thousands of Santas everywhere in Manhattan alone, kids are still making a list and checking it twice.

There ought to be a few rules….like if it doesn’t fit through the chimney, it’s probably not a reasonable request. Like an SUV…or a sailboat. A polar bear. These aren’t Santa-esque gifts.

Last year I was surprised more mortgage brokers weren’t dressed up as Santa Claus, holding court in real estate offices, enticing first-time buyers to come sit on their lap and read aloud the qualities of their dream-house. Because a ton of these Santa-mortgages were stuffed down the financial chimneys of homeowners who couldn’t possibly have accommodated such instruments.

So my question this year is: where is the Santa ‘clause’? The 5-year warranty or guarantee that this overstuffed gift is going to be serviced, maintained and supported by the giver? Did any kid get an internet-ready device with the broadband pre-paid? A new phone with the plan already in place? The Santa clause instead seems to imply that once dropped down the chimney---’no backs’.

Same with the mortgages. Now that these Christmas dreamhouse payments have ballooned, where is Santa? How many homeowners in default are waiting on line at Macy’s for the disguised real-estate elf who last year patted their cheek and shook their hand and went off to prepare the paperwork which awarded them an enormous palace that couldn’t fit down 20 chimneys? But they believed in Santa Claus. They believed in America and the reindeer and burned the 2006 Yulelog and bought their kids even bigger presents to go in their super-sized new rooms. Some of them bought extra vehicles to go in the new huge garage. A friend of mine got a pool. Unfortunately he lives in Georgia where global warming irregularities have caused an unprecedented and worrisome water shortage which disallows shower use on odd days, and mandates that all pools remain empty. But the Santa clause prevents him from complaining. No returns on pools. Like ice-skates. No one guarantees the lakes will freeze. Make your own ice.

For those of you who asked Santa for money last year, your 2006 gift is now worth even less. But 'No backs,' says the Santa clause. The government will take your house, though. They’ll take it and give you bad credit in exchange. What kind of clause is that?

In fact the Santa clause may indirectly take away my personal tax money or lower interest rates once again in favor of the banks. Merry Christmas 2007. Which makes me a loser for trying to save money. Interest rates on my savings account don’t even keep up with rising milk prices. A penny saved is still a penny? Barely. In England it isn’t even worth a half-penny. At the grocery, cashiers used to disallow Canadian coins. Now they want them.

So think twice about what you wish for while sitting on the lap of a man with a fake beard and a padded red suit who is probably working on commission and needs the money. Maybe you’re better off going to church and putting some coins in the collection plate for starving children and thanking God that you are going to any home to sit by the Yule log and read the traditional version of the Santa Claus story which you can buy very cheaply for your children in any bookstore under ‘Fiction’.

Oh. I almost forgot to wish you a Merry Christmas. And drive carefully, Santa.