eat, drink, be merry…

And travel far. Is there a better wish?

I didn’t travel too far for New Year’s Eve, but I am away from home. In Chicago for the week.

For the past two dozen years, I have celebrated the midnight hour that heralds in the New Year by savoring mouthfuls of great food. People blow horns and throw streamers at the stroke of midnight, they party and dance and play New Year’s Eve games. I eat.

I have wondered if this pattern of extremely festive and caloric consumption keeps me from taking New Year’s resolutions very seriously. How can I resolve to act reasonably and eat sensibly (isn’t that what people resolve?) when in the very first minute of the New Year I am doing neither?

So I don’t resolve much of anything except for telling myself in general to do better.

And a better, finer year ahead for all you Ocean readers. May great moments be yours, whether in the peace of a quiet home or the exuberance of a crowded market square. And thanks! You know, for being there and reading.

eat, drink, be merry…

And travel far. Is there a better wish?

I didn’t travel too far for New Year’s Eve, but I am away from home. In Chicago for the week.

For the past two dozen years, I have celebrated the midnight hour that heralds in the New Year by savoring mouthfuls of great food. People blow horns and throw streamers at the stroke of midnight, they party and dance and play New Year’s Eve games. I eat.

I have wondered if this pattern of extremely festive and caloric consumption keeps me from taking New Year’s resolutions very seriously. How can I resolve to act reasonably and eat sensibly (isn’t that what people resolve?) when in the very first minute of the New Year I am doing neither?

So I don’t resolve much of anything except for telling myself in general to do better.

And a better, finer year ahead for all you Ocean readers. May great moments be yours, whether in the peace of a quiet home or the exuberance of a crowded market square. And thanks! You know, for being there and reading.

bells

Someone told me recently that they do not believe in the institution of marriage. Yawn. I’ve heard this before: Marriage is a convention that doesn’t appeal to me. I am above it.

Yawn again.

I attended a wedding today.

Hey la, hey la, hey la! Come and sing together!
If you dance then you must have, boots of shining leather!

I think weddings are some of the best events ever. They speak of yay! feelings. Of determination to beat all odds. They celebrate hope. They speak to the belief in the life of someone other than yourself.

Marriage.

Hey, bride, I know where your tattoo is because I was there (in Krakow) when you got it! [True, you know where mine is and how desperate I was to get the tattooist to make up an image that suited my fancy. ]

Wedding bells go jinga-linga, toes and fingers freeze and tingle, in our hearts we gaily mingle as the snowflakes fall.

No snowflakes today. Balmy breezes, drizzle, cloudy skies, but who cares. There’s joy out there to be found, inside the glass-encased lounges of the Overture Center. Go find it. Mer and David did (you over-achievers, you!).

Wow. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.

bells

Someone told me recently that they do not believe in the institution of marriage. Yawn. I’ve heard this before: Marriage is a convention that doesn’t appeal to me. I am above it.

Yawn again.

I attended a wedding today.

Hey la, hey la, hey la! Come and sing together!
If you dance then you must have, boots of shining leather!

I think weddings are some of the best events ever. They speak of yay! feelings. Of determination to beat all odds. They celebrate hope. They speak to the belief in the life of someone other than yourself.

Marriage.

Hey, bride, I know where your tattoo is because I was there (in Krakow) when you got it! [True, you know where mine is and how desperate I was to get the tattooist to make up an image that suited my fancy. ]

Wedding bells go jinga-linga, toes and fingers freeze and tingle, in our hearts we gaily mingle as the snowflakes fall.

No snowflakes today. Balmy breezes, drizzle, cloudy skies, but who cares. There’s joy out there to be found, inside the glass-encased lounges of the Overture Center. Go find it. Mer and David did (you over-achievers, you!).

Wow. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.

toward the end of the year

Sometimes, the hardest thing for me is to write lightly here, on Ocean. Events unfold. Floods, wars, executions; endless drama cumulatively played out in real life. How is it that I can draw attention to the free champagne on Air France flights (it’s true!), or write about the sheep slowing me down on roadways?

I bought a CD when I was in France. Pop music and, true to its genre, incredibly popular.

On m’appelait la cite pleine de grace (once called the city full of grace)
Dieu, comme le temps passe (God, how time passes)
On m’appelait capitale de lumiere (once called the capital of light)
Dieu, que tout se perd (God, how all is lost)
Je m’appelle Bagdad. (my name is Bagdad)

I’d say that in the summer, when I stayed in Pierrerue and listened to the radio daily just to have sound in the deeply cavernous studio apartment I had rented, I would hear this song at least half a dozen times each day.

Tina Arena, the performer, is Italian and she is one of the few non-French vocalists who has managed to excell on the French radio scene. True, she does sing in French, but so do I and no one is asking me for a return performance or even for a first run on French radio. Fine, it's not an apt comparison.

A hauntingly evocative melody, it would not leave me alone, all summer and fall.

Je m’appelle Bagdad (my name is Bagdad).

When I came back to France in September, this song was still… hot. Or at least it was played on Cherie FM (the equivalent of any of our light rock stations) over and over and over again.

So I wanted to buy it when I came home. Not so easy. Itunes did not list it. Okay, I did not try hard. But when I went to England (where it was also played, repeatedly) in November, I bought the CD.

Ocean is not exactly political, but then, in what way is this song political? It is a pop tune about a city that, over time (crucial unspoken query: what period of time are we talking about here?) has been destroyed. Arena herself says that it is an allegory: it’s not about Iraq, it’s about the destruction of physical beauty in general.

I suppose that one could sing it, therefore, in reflecting on the demise of spotted owl.

But for me, it is not about the spotted owl, nor about the demise of physical attractiveness over time. (Give me a break, Arena, you don’t really think anyone would buy that, did you?)

It’s the end of the year. I’m thinking about it – the year behind, the year ahead. There is nothing to be gained (but for administrative expediency) in numbering one year 2006 and the next 2007, except that in that break between the two you get to consider what is behind and what is ahead.

toward the end of the year

Sometimes, the hardest thing for me is to write lightly here, on Ocean. Events unfold. Floods, wars, executions; endless drama cumulatively played out in real life. How is it that I can draw attention to the free champagne on Air France flights (it’s true!), or write about the sheep slowing me down on roadways?

I bought a CD when I was in France. Pop music and, true to its genre, incredibly popular.

On m’appelait la cite pleine de grace (once called the city full of grace)
Dieu, comme le temps passe (God, how time passes)
On m’appelait capitale de lumiere (once called the capital of light)
Dieu, que tout se perd (God, how all is lost)
Je m’appelle Bagdad. (my name is Bagdad)

I’d say that in the summer, when I stayed in Pierrerue and listened to the radio daily just to have sound in the deeply cavernous studio apartment I had rented, I would hear this song at least half a dozen times each day.

Tina Arena, the performer, is Italian and she is one of the few non-French vocalists who has managed to excell on the French radio scene. True, she does sing in French, but so do I and no one is asking me for a return performance or even for a first run on French radio. Fine, it's not an apt comparison.

A hauntingly evocative melody, it would not leave me alone, all summer and fall.

Je m’appelle Bagdad (my name is Bagdad).

When I came back to France in September, this song was still… hot. Or at least it was played on Cherie FM (the equivalent of any of our light rock stations) over and over and over again.

So I wanted to buy it when I came home. Not so easy. Itunes did not list it. Okay, I did not try hard. But when I went to England (where it was also played, repeatedly) in November, I bought the CD.

Ocean is not exactly political, but then, in what way is this song political? It is a pop tune about a city that, over time (crucial unspoken query: what period of time are we talking about here?) has been destroyed. Arena herself says that it is an allegory: it’s not about Iraq, it’s about the destruction of physical beauty in general.

I suppose that one could sing it, therefore, in reflecting on the demise of spotted owl.

But for me, it is not about the spotted owl, nor about the demise of physical attractiveness over time. (Give me a break, Arena, you don’t really think anyone would buy that, did you?)

It’s the end of the year. I’m thinking about it – the year behind, the year ahead. There is nothing to be gained (but for administrative expediency) in numbering one year 2006 and the next 2007, except that in that break between the two you get to consider what is behind and what is ahead.

from Minneapolis: fifteen hours

So brief was my stay here! So brief, that I could pick up the return boarding pass as I was checking in to fly out. So brief, that after dinner with my wonderful St Paul friend, no minutes were left to reflect on the fact that I was in the Twin Cities.

I would have had those spare minutes had I remembered correctly where expedia.com had booked a room for me. But, at midnight, I asked to be dropped off at the wrong hotel. Empty, with a sole wedding party attendee sleeping soundly on a leather couch, it reminded me of how quickly fullness drains into nothingness, how cities on this side of the ocean, so fast paced during working hours, slow down considerably at the close of the day.



I looked for my real hotel, found it finally at the other end of the city, chatted pleasantly to the night clerk about what brought me here for these few hours in the post-holiday world of low key travel, rode the elevator up up, to my room, to see a view that almost any city in America might offer the person who chooses to sleep in its commercial hub.



Normally, I love waking up in a new city. But waking up on a late December morning in Minneapolis gives you a view of the world that is remarkably similar to the one at midnight. It is dark at midnight, still so at six-thirty, seven-thirty…

By eight-thirty I am pacing the downtown streets. Nice buildings, clean buildings. And those passageways. Everyone has heard of the passageways of Minneapolis. Did I know each would be different? They are like the bridges of Minneapolis, the glass walkways, there to avoid the brutal winds and profusion of traffic below.

Except there are no brutal winds. It is a balmy 40 degrees. And the street is shut off to all but buses. And so the feeling again is of great emptiness. The party is elsewhere. You missed the beat. You are in the wrong place at the wrong time.



I turn back and eat a horrible breakfast at the Hyatt (included! It’s all included in my Minneapolis flight of fancy. Here I am, chasing fancy miles and fancy privileges in the city of northern lights). Chopped up melon and barely unfrozen pastries, served in a dining room that is, well, empty.

No people watching. No matter. In Minneapolis, you make do with building watching.



I take the bus to the airport and catch my flight home, in time for lunch with my family. Fifteen hours from take-off to return landing.

I saw Minneapolis in a terrifically unique light (or lack thereof). Beautiful, all of it.

from Minneapolis: fifteen hours

So brief was my stay here! So brief, that I could pick up the return boarding pass as I was checking in to fly out. So brief, that after dinner with my wonderful St Paul friend, no minutes were left to reflect on the fact that I was in the Twin Cities.

I would have had those spare minutes had I remembered correctly where expedia.com had booked a room for me. But, at midnight, I asked to be dropped off at the wrong hotel. Empty, with a sole wedding party attendee sleeping soundly on a leather couch, it reminded me of how quickly fullness drains into nothingness, how cities on this side of the ocean, so fast paced during working hours, slow down considerably at the close of the day.



I looked for my real hotel, found it finally at the other end of the city, chatted pleasantly to the night clerk about what brought me here for these few hours in the post-holiday world of low key travel, rode the elevator up up, to my room, to see a view that almost any city in America might offer the person who chooses to sleep in its commercial hub.



Normally, I love waking up in a new city. But waking up on a late December morning in Minneapolis gives you a view of the world that is remarkably similar to the one at midnight. It is dark at midnight, still so at six-thirty, seven-thirty…

By eight-thirty I am pacing the downtown streets. Nice buildings, clean buildings. And those passageways. Everyone has heard of the passageways of Minneapolis. Did I know each would be different? They are like the bridges of Minneapolis, the glass walkways, there to avoid the brutal winds and profusion of traffic below.

Except there are no brutal winds. It is a balmy 40 degrees. And the street is shut off to all but buses. And so the feeling again is of great emptiness. The party is elsewhere. You missed the beat. You are in the wrong place at the wrong time.



I turn back and eat a horrible breakfast at the Hyatt (included! It’s all included in my Minneapolis flight of fancy. Here I am, chasing fancy miles and fancy privileges in the city of northern lights). Chopped up melon and barely unfrozen pastries, served in a dining room that is, well, empty.

No people watching. No matter. In Minneapolis, you make do with building watching.



I take the bus to the airport and catch my flight home, in time for lunch with my family. Fifteen hours from take-off to return landing.

I saw Minneapolis in a terrifically unique light (or lack thereof). Beautiful, all of it.

from Minneapolis: which door?

Was it that I had had enough holiday excess? That I needed an escape, because me, resting under one roof for more than ten days in a row is inconceivable? [Nina, I could not believe it when you told me that you like to go away at least once a month… No wonder you’re so (fill in the blank)]

Or, is it guilt: I have gone to distant places, sure, but I know little of the cities north of where I live. In fact, I have never set foot in Minneapolis. Now is the time!

Or maybe it’s out of friendship: one of my very closest friends lives in St. Paul. She had a birthday this week. I’m into birthdays. Off I go to celebrate!

So true, yet so off the right track.


It’s the crazy game of miles and flight segments logged in for 2006. It’s airline games and, what’s the American phrase – manning the system.

It's a cost–benefit analysis: I needed one more flight in 2006 to keep those elite bonus miles and perks flowing in the year 2007. A flight to Minneapolis late tonight was the cheapest, easiest way to handle it.

The other suggested reasons for being here, up north, are good, but they do not quite a trip make. Oh, and just erase the first one. I am not in need of an escape. I am in need of a descape. Or, is that not proper English?

from Minneapolis: which door?

Was it that I had had enough holiday excess? That I needed an escape, because me, resting under one roof for more than ten days in a row is inconceivable? [Nina, I could not believe it when you told me that you like to go away at least once a month… No wonder you’re so (fill in the blank)]

Or, is it guilt: I have gone to distant places, sure, but I know little of the cities north of where I live. In fact, I have never set foot in Minneapolis. Now is the time!

Or maybe it’s out of friendship: one of my very closest friends lives in St. Paul. She had a birthday this week. I’m into birthdays. Off I go to celebrate!

So true, yet so off the right track.


It’s the crazy game of miles and flight segments logged in for 2006. It’s airline games and, what’s the American phrase – manning the system.

It's a cost–benefit analysis: I needed one more flight in 2006 to keep those elite bonus miles and perks flowing in the year 2007. A flight to Minneapolis late tonight was the cheapest, easiest way to handle it.

The other suggested reasons for being here, up north, are good, but they do not quite a trip make. Oh, and just erase the first one. I am not in need of an escape. I am in need of a descape. Or, is that not proper English?

making sense

I wake up, it's dark and still, I have to make notes. Do it this way. And make the following corrections. And consider this…

Great plans, hatched at wee hours of the morning.

Other times, ideas percolate elsewhere, then get thrown my way. (Sometimes it’s better to rely on the stewardship of another.)

And, of course, there’s a symbiotic relationship at play too, so that some ideas are bounced between others and myself and what comes forth has an impossibly complicated genealogy.

Oh, life.

In 1972 I am ready to come back. I am nineteen and I am antsy. New York? Go live in New York again? Such a grand plan! There may have been many in Poland who would be equally enthused about coming to NY at the time of politically challenging times, but my reasons are personal. I want a break from my university studies. I want a break from my boyfriend. New York promises changes in both worlds.

I am an au pair to a fantastic family. I am supported, I am introduced to a world where people make money off of ideas! [None of that entrepreneurial spirit rubbed off, not then and maybe never, but I took note of it.] And, my new New York family, they are of the world where tickets to Broadway shows get thrown their way whether or not they put in a request for them. Nina, do you want to see Candide? We have two tickets. Take a friend.

Friend? I have no real friends here. My real friends are in Poland. Here, in New York, I am a student by day, an au pair by night.

I go alone.

And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.

I sit on a bench (how fun! prime tickets and we get to sit on benches!) and I tear up from the splendidness of it all. The story, the music, they pull me in so that I am, the next day, buying Voltaire in the bookstore and Bernstein at Sam Goody’s. Impressionable, she is so impressionable!

Two years later I move to Chicago to attend graduate school. If I was lonely in New York (dear friends in Warsaw, I miss you, love, Nina), I am super lonely in Chicago. I buy a parakeet. I give her freedom. She does not live in a cage, she flies up and down my studio apartment and I name her Candide.

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.

She flies as if possessed. Mostly, she aims for the windows. Tall windows, with a beautiful view toward downtown Chicago. She crashes into them again and again until I can’t stand it anymore. It’s either a cage or a new home.

A sweet family comes and picks her up. They have a cage for her. Thank you! Just what we wanted.

Out of Chicago, straight into the suburbs of Madison. My father visits from Poland. You wont make it here, he tells me. What does he know – he is a city boy. His life is one huge adventure story. From war-torn Poland to the United Nations and everywhere in between, what does he know about settling down. We are purchasing our dream home and I am planting hundreds of perennials in every conceivable space, including some where nothing has ever grown before nor will ever grow again. Thank you, little plants, for trying so hard all the years I lived there!

We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

It is the day after Christmas, 2006. I have been legally alone exactly 365 days. I have crossed the ocean since then a half dozen times each way, I have scaled mountains and pushed every conceivable (travel) button. I have written and photographed and I have agonized over how poorly I have written and photographed and now here we are, 365 days later and I am a mite poorer but now with a year’s worth of experience.

Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

Solid ground. Am I there yet? Am I there?

No. Those lyrics must have been written about someone else’s life. Still...

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.

I sit down to write a post. A small little tidbit from a walk along State Street. (You wish!)


state street display

But it happens that someone at home flips on the TV and the Kennedy Center’s tribute to the year’s greats comes on. I listen to the music that celebrates Spielberg’s work on, among other things, Schindler’s List. Bernstein's Candide.

See you in a bit, post-war Poland, parakeets flying, perennials pushing through clay soil, long lines at the airport…

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.

making sense

I wake up, it's dark and still, I have to make notes. Do it this way. And make the following corrections. And consider this…

Great plans, hatched at wee hours of the morning.

Other times, ideas percolate elsewhere, then get thrown my way. (Sometimes it’s better to rely on the stewardship of another.)

And, of course, there’s a symbiotic relationship at play too, so that some ideas are bounced between others and myself and what comes forth has an impossibly complicated genealogy.

Oh, life.

In 1972 I am ready to come back. I am nineteen and I am antsy. New York? Go live in New York again? Such a grand plan! There may have been many in Poland who would be equally enthused about coming to NY at the time of politically challenging times, but my reasons are personal. I want a break from my university studies. I want a break from my boyfriend. New York promises changes in both worlds.

I am an au pair to a fantastic family. I am supported, I am introduced to a world where people make money off of ideas! [None of that entrepreneurial spirit rubbed off, not then and maybe never, but I took note of it.] And, my new New York family, they are of the world where tickets to Broadway shows get thrown their way whether or not they put in a request for them. Nina, do you want to see Candide? We have two tickets. Take a friend.

Friend? I have no real friends here. My real friends are in Poland. Here, in New York, I am a student by day, an au pair by night.

I go alone.

And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.

I sit on a bench (how fun! prime tickets and we get to sit on benches!) and I tear up from the splendidness of it all. The story, the music, they pull me in so that I am, the next day, buying Voltaire in the bookstore and Bernstein at Sam Goody’s. Impressionable, she is so impressionable!

Two years later I move to Chicago to attend graduate school. If I was lonely in New York (dear friends in Warsaw, I miss you, love, Nina), I am super lonely in Chicago. I buy a parakeet. I give her freedom. She does not live in a cage, she flies up and down my studio apartment and I name her Candide.

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.

She flies as if possessed. Mostly, she aims for the windows. Tall windows, with a beautiful view toward downtown Chicago. She crashes into them again and again until I can’t stand it anymore. It’s either a cage or a new home.

A sweet family comes and picks her up. They have a cage for her. Thank you! Just what we wanted.

Out of Chicago, straight into the suburbs of Madison. My father visits from Poland. You wont make it here, he tells me. What does he know – he is a city boy. His life is one huge adventure story. From war-torn Poland to the United Nations and everywhere in between, what does he know about settling down. We are purchasing our dream home and I am planting hundreds of perennials in every conceivable space, including some where nothing has ever grown before nor will ever grow again. Thank you, little plants, for trying so hard all the years I lived there!

We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

It is the day after Christmas, 2006. I have been legally alone exactly 365 days. I have crossed the ocean since then a half dozen times each way, I have scaled mountains and pushed every conceivable (travel) button. I have written and photographed and I have agonized over how poorly I have written and photographed and now here we are, 365 days later and I am a mite poorer but now with a year’s worth of experience.

Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

Solid ground. Am I there yet? Am I there?

No. Those lyrics must have been written about someone else’s life. Still...

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.

I sit down to write a post. A small little tidbit from a walk along State Street. (You wish!)


state street display

But it happens that someone at home flips on the TV and the Kennedy Center’s tribute to the year’s greats comes on. I listen to the music that celebrates Spielberg’s work on, among other things, Schindler’s List. Bernstein's Candide.

See you in a bit, post-war Poland, parakeets flying, perennials pushing through clay soil, long lines at the airport…

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.

delightfully small

This is the last time you’ll see such a packed stocking, I'm told. [Santa’s stuffing days, I fear, are numbered. Or, he has finally realized that he has been packing in little bundles into someone's stocking even though that someone has long passed the average age of his target audience (eight maybe?).]

But I delight in the image of the stuffed stocking! I hadn’t really known about stockings being stuffed until I came here, to the States and so the whole thing started late for me.

And because waste is not a big ticket item in this family, the rule is that Santa must think carefully about what goes in. I know, big burden on the big guy, but what with the environment and credit card debt and all the other horrors appended to waste-buying, we do insist on usefulness.

How beautiful small things can be! Toffee, the kind I used to love but never see anymore. Cassis hand soap, fresh dish towels. All will be consumed or worn threadbare in the year ahead.

Small is good, small is beautiful. When the kids looked for toys under the tree, I was stunned how much airspace was sold in a Mattel toy box. Airspace that I had to cover with paper.

Small packages with big hearts. A camisole from some who know how to buy camisoles, gloves, the warm kind, because I get so damn cold walking home.

In the world of food as well. Small corn pancakes with pieces of smoked salmon and dill. Big dinner follows, but do not forget the small, nor the tiny dessert profiteroles with pomegranate icecream.




Small, small, beautiful small things.

It leaves room to hatch great, big plans.

delightfully small

This is the last time you’ll see such a packed stocking, I'm told. [Santa’s stuffing days, I fear, are numbered. Or, he has finally realized that he has been packing in little bundles into someone's stocking even though that someone has long passed the average age of his target audience (eight maybe?).]

But I delight in the image of the stuffed stocking! I hadn’t really known about stockings being stuffed until I came here, to the States and so the whole thing started late for me.

And because waste is not a big ticket item in this family, the rule is that Santa must think carefully about what goes in. I know, big burden on the big guy, but what with the environment and credit card debt and all the other horrors appended to waste-buying, we do insist on usefulness.

How beautiful small things can be! Toffee, the kind I used to love but never see anymore. Cassis hand soap, fresh dish towels. All will be consumed or worn threadbare in the year ahead.

Small is good, small is beautiful. When the kids looked for toys under the tree, I was stunned how much airspace was sold in a Mattel toy box. Airspace that I had to cover with paper.

Small packages with big hearts. A camisole from some who know how to buy camisoles, gloves, the warm kind, because I get so damn cold walking home.

In the world of food as well. Small corn pancakes with pieces of smoked salmon and dill. Big dinner follows, but do not forget the small, nor the tiny dessert profiteroles with pomegranate icecream.




Small, small, beautiful small things.

It leaves room to hatch great, big plans.

tinsel

They passed around the photo and nodded. Yes, she’s got that look on her – the “I’m ready to sprint and cause trouble” look. Trouble being a relative term, in this case, I think they meant it in a good way: harmless trouble.



I was three when it was taken. New to Warsaw (village life, with grandparents before that), new to nursery school (both parents working, long hours), seemingly un-shy about any of it. Relatives said – she’s always thinking – what next? Unstoppable.

We weren’t Christian, but there was always a tree and always in the room that my sister and I shared. Positioned between our beds. At first it was clear that it belonged there – we hadn’t a living room, just two rooms – a small apartment in Warsaw, there, this is it:



But later, in New York, we had a living room, a very nice living room indeed, overlooking 46th street, parquet floors and carpet, wow, and still the tree stood between our beds. A generous gesture (you’ll smell it all night long). But also a “Christmas is for children” statement.

Is a teen a child? At thirteen, back in Poland now, Christmas stopped. Again, there was no living room, but there was space. Ah, maybe it’s because we didn’t stay in the city. We were back to the village for school winter break.

There, the snow is deep, all is calm, all is bright. In New York, my images of Christmas had been like that. Straight out of the stories. Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? Suddenly I have snow up to my waist and farmers are moving from point A to point B in sleighs and the nostrils of horses throw out moisture that freezes, but we are non-Christian and the children are not children anymore and so the countdown to Christmas is no countdown at all and there is no tree.

I am three, moving to Warsaw, I am seven, moving to New York, I am thirteen, moving back to Warsaw, I am nineteen and back in New York and so on and so on. I’ll go find a tree. A farmer will chop it down for me because I, city girl by now, don’t know how to chop down trees, cherry, spruce or any other.

Over the years, sometimes I would continued to find the family tree, other times I did not. There were no children in the house. Christmas, of the secular kind, is, I am reminded, for children.

And now I have children. And even before, I had a husband who liked Christmas. There is, of course, a lot to like about Christmas.

Children grew, spouse is now close through affect and history rather than label and geography, but Christmas stayed. So that this year, the tree towers and the rituals are relived with meaning (to each her or his own) and gusto.

Happy Christmas, Ocean readers, in whatever way you wake up to it – with or without tree. And, if you see yourself as being outside the world of Christmas, may the affect and good cheer be yours nonetheless. And the tinsel. Fill your hearts with tinsel.

tinsel

They passed around the photo and nodded. Yes, she’s got that look on her – the “I’m ready to sprint and cause trouble” look. Trouble being a relative term, in this case, I think they meant it in a good way: harmless trouble.



I was three when it was taken. New to Warsaw (village life, with grandparents before that), new to nursery school (both parents working, long hours), seemingly un-shy about any of it. Relatives said – she’s always thinking – what next? Unstoppable.

We weren’t Christian, but there was always a tree and always in the room that my sister and I shared. Positioned between our beds. At first it was clear that it belonged there – we hadn’t a living room, just two rooms – a small apartment in Warsaw, there, this is it:



But later, in New York, we had a living room, a very nice living room indeed, overlooking 46th street, parquet floors and carpet, wow, and still the tree stood between our beds. A generous gesture (you’ll smell it all night long). But also a “Christmas is for children” statement.

Is a teen a child? At thirteen, back in Poland now, Christmas stopped. Again, there was no living room, but there was space. Ah, maybe it’s because we didn’t stay in the city. We were back to the village for school winter break.

There, the snow is deep, all is calm, all is bright. In New York, my images of Christmas had been like that. Straight out of the stories. Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? Suddenly I have snow up to my waist and farmers are moving from point A to point B in sleighs and the nostrils of horses throw out moisture that freezes, but we are non-Christian and the children are not children anymore and so the countdown to Christmas is no countdown at all and there is no tree.

I am three, moving to Warsaw, I am seven, moving to New York, I am thirteen, moving back to Warsaw, I am nineteen and back in New York and so on and so on. I’ll go find a tree. A farmer will chop it down for me because I, city girl by now, don’t know how to chop down trees, cherry, spruce or any other.

Over the years, sometimes I would continued to find the family tree, other times I did not. There were no children in the house. Christmas, of the secular kind, is, I am reminded, for children.

And now I have children. And even before, I had a husband who liked Christmas. There is, of course, a lot to like about Christmas.

Children grew, spouse is now close through affect and history rather than label and geography, but Christmas stayed. So that this year, the tree towers and the rituals are relived with meaning (to each her or his own) and gusto.

Happy Christmas, Ocean readers, in whatever way you wake up to it – with or without tree. And, if you see yourself as being outside the world of Christmas, may the affect and good cheer be yours nonetheless. And the tinsel. Fill your hearts with tinsel.

more of the same

Driving in every direction, doing any number of tasks, you can, out of the blue, or rather, out of the dark, come across this old faithful: the little tree that, each December, glows and glows, all alone, in the woods.

more of the same

Driving in every direction, doing any number of tasks, you can, out of the blue, or rather, out of the dark, come across this old faithful: the little tree that, each December, glows and glows, all alone, in the woods.

pack animals

People blog to put their voice out there. Their unique voice, telling a unique story, like no other. At the same time that they (we) spend so much of the year imitating the behaviors of others. Rituals and traditions, we say, as we scrape the same cookie off the sheet that someone else (and another and another) had scraped off just a few blocks (generations?) down.

If you looked at my day, you’d see all the markers of sameness. I hurried and made lists and made my way through crowded parking lots. Secrets, packed away in a back seat, or the trunk of a car.



And yes, I did my annual Christmas trip to the mall. It wasn’t even extraordinarily crowded, but it is such a boring thing to do at any other time and not so boring at all in these last days before the 25th.



Driving back, I passed the evocative stand, at the side of the gas station.



All gone. Or, almost all gone.

At home, the lights are on, the ornaments (yes, with a handful from Poland) are better than wonderful.



Pre-holiday silliness. Copied, with minor, individual twists and turns. But the magic is in the repetition, imitation. I did it all last year and, with luck, will get to do it all over again next year and the year after. Like others before me, next door to me, ahead of me.

pack animals

People blog to put their voice out there. Their unique voice, telling a unique story, like no other. At the same time that they (we) spend so much of the year imitating the behaviors of others. Rituals and traditions, we say, as we scrape the same cookie off the sheet that someone else (and another and another) had scraped off just a few blocks (generations?) down.

If you looked at my day, you’d see all the markers of sameness. I hurried and made lists and made my way through crowded parking lots. Secrets, packed away in a back seat, or the trunk of a car.



And yes, I did my annual Christmas trip to the mall. It wasn’t even extraordinarily crowded, but it is such a boring thing to do at any other time and not so boring at all in these last days before the 25th.



Driving back, I passed the evocative stand, at the side of the gas station.



All gone. Or, almost all gone.

At home, the lights are on, the ornaments (yes, with a handful from Poland) are better than wonderful.



Pre-holiday silliness. Copied, with minor, individual twists and turns. But the magic is in the repetition, imitation. I did it all last year and, with luck, will get to do it all over again next year and the year after. Like others before me, next door to me, ahead of me.

the tree

It's because of the Christmas tree. To come home, deal with all the details of life and then to put up this monster of height, widhth and depth -- it grabs the spirit out of you, that's all. In the nicest of ways.

the tree

It's because of the Christmas tree. To come home, deal with all the details of life and then to put up this monster of height, widhth and depth -- it grabs the spirit out of you, that's all. In the nicest of ways.

Paris notes

It could be that in my mind, Paris is one thing and in reality (someone else’s reality) it is another. I move as a tourist, albeit a frequent one. I go from hotel to café to museum, park, or store, I take photos, I eat my evening meal and that is pretty much it. I don’t wrestle with anything. I just notice that the café, museum, park, store and restaurants are awfully good.

And once I have come to the conclusion that Paris treats me well when I am there, I load my cart with other striking images – of the city that has embraced the tiny Smart car (they are everywhere!) and slung mud at SUVs (pranks against big cars are not uncommon), of the superior baguette, the superior style of dress – the city that sleeps less than I do and eats more than I dare to and handles it all exceptionally well.

On our one full day in the city, Ed and I did the usual: ate croissants, walked great distances, visited the newly reopened Orangerie museum, shopped (I shopped, Ed, the anti-consumer, hid behind a book against the onslaught of beautiful things), ate well, drank well and there you have it. The day ended, the camera went back into its case and we travelled home.


Here it is, briefly, Paris from my lens:



on arrival: oysters



shopping, Au Bon Marche



fussying about kitchen gadgets



preparing for a "manifestation"



minding Monet



nibbling on a baguette



so many to choose from



it's the season



the last dessert

Paris notes

It could be that in my mind, Paris is one thing and in reality (someone else’s reality) it is another. I move as a tourist, albeit a frequent one. I go from hotel to café to museum, park, or store, I take photos, I eat my evening meal and that is pretty much it. I don’t wrestle with anything. I just notice that the café, museum, park, store and restaurants are awfully good.

And once I have come to the conclusion that Paris treats me well when I am there, I load my cart with other striking images – of the city that has embraced the tiny Smart car (they are everywhere!) and slung mud at SUVs (pranks against big cars are not uncommon), of the superior baguette, the superior style of dress – the city that sleeps less than I do and eats more than I dare to and handles it all exceptionally well.

On our one full day in the city, Ed and I did the usual: ate croissants, walked great distances, visited the newly reopened Orangerie museum, shopped (I shopped, Ed, the anti-consumer, hid behind a book against the onslaught of beautiful things), ate well, drank well and there you have it. The day ended, the camera went back into its case and we travelled home.


Here it is, briefly, Paris from my lens:



on arrival: oysters



shopping, Au Bon Marche



fussying about kitchen gadgets



preparing for a "manifestation"



minding Monet



nibbling on a baguette



so many to choose from



it's the season



the last dessert