of mem­o­ries and a memorial

The Christ­mas sea­son has wrought its usual mir­a­cle and we are safely out of the chaos of Lon­don and into the chaos of the mad rush toward A Red Gate Farm Christmas.

We arrived in the mid­dle of the night on Fri­day, our jet­lag routed a bit by a suicidal/homicidal dri­ver from JKF.  I was this­close to shout­ing, “Pull over, you lunatic, and let my hus­band drive!”  Finally we descended the exit ramp off the mur­der­ous high­way and onto the quiet coun­try road to the house and I have never been so relieved in my life.  Thank­fully Avery slept right through it, but the hand I had rest­ing on her sweatered, sleep­ing back was sweaty as we emerged from the car into safety.

Rol­lie and Judy had, as always, vis­ited in the after­noon to fill the fridge and turn on heat and lights, and to leave five fra­grant bal­sam wreaths on the front step.  Could we have any bet­ter neigh­bors?  I also sus­pect Anne and David had done some elf work on that sub­ject, so we had food to wel­come us.  And my dears, the relief of see­ing all the house repairs we had wor­ried over in per­fect order!  We have walls and ceil­ings again!  And our deci­sion to leave the laths we found last sum­mer exposed — but plas­tered warmly between — was a bril­liant one.  Just look.

We dumped our suit­cases and inves­ti­gated the state of the bed­rooms.  The good news?  I had made the beds before I locked up and left in Sep­tem­ber.  The bad news?  Some furry friends had taken up res­i­dence in var­i­ous spots — a bath­room towel, the inside of my goose­down slip­per — and left lit­tle tokens of their pres­ence over the autumn.  I hate to think how to express to them that they are not really wel­come at Red Gate Farm.

We fell into bed feel­ing that low­er­ing of blood pres­sure and rais­ing of Christ­mas spirit that always fills us on our first night “home for the holidays.”

The morn­ing revealed a rather bleak, snow­less Con­necti­cut land­scape.  How bare my pre­cious hydrangea looks, before it receives its gifts of Vic­to­rian can­dle holders.

The win­ter­berry is thriv­ing, though.

It’s amaz­ing what I can accom­plish when I get up, jet­lagged, at 6:30 a.m.!  By mid morn­ing we had been to the gro­cery store and unpacked all our Christ­mas gifts and clothes.  We popped Avery into the car and drove to Judy’s brother’s gor­geous farm, perched high above the Con­necti­cut val­ley, to find Judy her­self in res­i­dence con­coct­ing price­less wreaths and garlands.

“You made it!” she said, giv­ing me her usual tight hug.  “Are you ready to choose your trees?”  it was dif­fi­cult to nar­row down from the choices of unbe­liev­ably, mag­i­cally fra­grant beauties!

For the first time this sea­son, I felt that fris­son of hol­i­day­ness, that sense of mind­less excite­ment and antic­i­pa­tion.  We chose our two trees and dear Rol­lie strapped them to the car in the bit­ing wind.

We came home with trees and var­i­ous gar­nishes via a wood-seller, which meant we had our work cut out for us later in the day.  Indeed, a bit of the pile still awaits stack­ing even today.

The new inno­va­tion to the dec­o­rat­ing scheme this year is this gor­geous, clever sculp­ture, made by Judy!

We got right to work dec­o­rat­ing, and it was worth all the effort.

A quick trip to the vin­tage shop in Wood­bury yielded this lit­tle trea­sure from 1940s Ger­many, one of my new favorites this year to add to the trove in the cupboard.

Finally my energy flagged.  I car­ried a few more pal­try pieces of wood into the wood­shed, then put on a pot of brisket to sim­mer slowly in Guin­ness, toma­toes and gar­lic, and took a long, cozy nap.  What a joy it was to wake up in the dark and hang even more orna­ments on the tree.  Finally we were finished.

The brisket was ten­der and all we could have hoped it would be, but we had barely fin­ished chew­ing and swal­low­ing when we all real­ized we were falling asleep in our plates.  A last view through the win­dow, and then to sleep, me with my copy of “When it Snowed That Night” open on my lap.

We were up again with the birds!  Off to Jill and Joel’s to get our mas­sive pile of pack­ages that Joel had kindly been accept­ing all fall (thank you, dear brother in law).  We piled every­thing in the car and John looked at me and laughed.  “Look at you, accom­plish­ing all this and nor­mally you wouldn’t even be UP by this hour!”

And I went bell-ringing!  I have been look­ing for­ward since Sep­tem­ber to my reunion with my beloved Brew­ster band, espe­cially to deliv­er­ing to them the tiny refrig­er­a­tor I had bought for the tower in hot, hot August, but was pre­vented from deliv­er­ing by the wretched hur­ri­cane.  How beau­ti­ful the tower was in the wan­ing light, and what fun we had ring­ing.  I am a bet­ter ringer than I was in Sep­tem­ber, but it is still a huge chal­lenge to keep up with that very tal­ented group of peo­ple.  “You’re improv­ing, Kris­ten!” said a nice bearded fel­low who is ter­ri­bly high up in the ring­ing world.  “No, no,” I moaned, “you guys are so patient.”  He put his hands on my shoul­ders.  “Look at me and lis­ten.  Accept the praise and encour­age­ment!  It hap­pens sel­dom enough in this life.”

I left behind the fridge and my giant offer­ing of warm can­nellini beans with rose­mary and gar­lic, a gift to them all for their din­ner and car­ol­ing party that evening.  I myself skipped the party in order to be reunited with John’s mom, who had flown into White Plains!  She and John and Avery climbed the bell tower steps to watch me for a minute, and off we went.

Some­times it is bril­liant just to pick up a pizza laden with absolutely every­thing — extra cheese, sausage, ripe olives, red onions and pep­pers! — and go home!  So we did, arriv­ing to show Nonna all the dec­o­ra­tions and to get her set­tled in her cozy room with the red rug, the walls cov­ered with our favorite pho­tos and maps and works of art, the table piled with care­fully cho­sen books, and my favorite photo of Grandpa Jack.

We all trooped into the sit­ting room to admire the tree, the fire crack­ling mer­rily, the dec­o­ra­tions.  What a per­fect joy it is to get my mother in law into my house and know that for the fore­see­able future, she is with us, safe and sound.

Mon­day took us into the city!

We checked into the dar­ling Duane Street Hotel in our old stomp­ing grounds of Tribeca and promptly engaged on a trip down mem­ory lane.  Here is my for­mer, pre­cious art gallery, now pur­veyor of only slightly taste­less lingerie.

I asked the peren­nial and rhetor­i­cal ques­tion.  “If I couldn’t pay the rent sell­ing $100,000 paint­ings, how do they man­age with the occa­sional bustier?”  I know, I know.  Volume.

And here is Avery, all grownup and wax­ing nos­tal­gic, in the school­yard of our beloved PS 234, out­side the famous red door where she was stand­ing on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.

And here she is with the new 1 World Trade Cen­ter ris­ing bravely in the back­ground.  That’s how close we were, on the day.

“Every­thing looks so much smaller than I remem­bered!” Avery mar­velled, strolling around the “yard”, remem­ber­ing days and years gone by.  Her mod­ish out­fit got looks of inter­est from the rather more casu­ally dressed moms, dads and nan­nies who waited for their lit­tle ones.

Off we went to meet my best pal Alyssa and her fam­ily, to tour the Sep­tem­ber 11 memo­r­ial.  This plan had been in place since sum­mer, and I had stolidly refused to think about it.  But here we were, so we went.  And after an ini­tial stomach-achy feel­ing of strange­ness and sad­ness, we began to feel the peace of the place wash over us.

We stood in the cold, still air, lis­ten­ing to the per­va­sive, gen­tle, com­fort­ing sound of the end­less flow of water.  “Lis­ten,” said Alyssa in hushed awe.  “You can’t hear any­thing else.  The traf­fic, the con­struc­tion sounds, every­thing is drowned by the sound of the water.”

It was true.

We rem­i­nisced about what had hap­pened to us that day, in the days after­ward.  “Annabelle,” I said, “do you remem­ber that for ages after­ward you were afraid of the steam com­ing out of man­hole cov­ers?  That was because of the smoke you saw that day…”  Elliot was silent and respect­ful, being only a glim­mer in his mother’s eye on the day.

I asked a police­man how much taller the build­ing was going to get.  “About ten sto­ries, till it’s 1776 feet high,” he said, gaz­ing down at me from his huge, blue-clad bulk.

We took a moment to be bound­lessly grate­ful that we were not there to look for a name of some­one beloved we had lost.  So many peo­ple were.  This par­tic­u­lar engrav­ing broke my heart, as I thought of Elliot.

It is beau­ti­ful, the way the names have been arranged.  The fire­men are all together, in their lad­ders, their engines, their bat­tal­ions.  The bravest, the First Responders.

Office work­ers — one imag­ines them sit­ting at their desks with cups of cof­fee on the day, jok­ing with their co-workers on that beau­ti­ful blue-sky day — are grouped with their col­leagues and desk­mates, when the fam­ily sur­vivors knew enough to say so.

Together every work day, they are together now forever.

“You know what is won­der­ful about this memo­r­ial?” Avery mused.  “It’s very much not about what hap­pened.  It’s about the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and their feel­ings.”  That is the bril­liance of the memo­r­ial, we all decided.  Some­how the hor­rific nature of the CAUSE of so many deaths has been trans­formed into a quiet, dig­ni­fied way never to for­get the indi­vid­u­al­ity of loss.   I think if my mother or brother or hus­band or child were here, I would be com­forted.  I hope so much that the fam­i­lies are.

From the memo­r­ial, we went, appro­pri­ately, to a cozy, can­dlelit din­ner at Roc, home of my bril­liant restau­ra­teur friend Rocco, the ebul­lient chef who fed every­one in the neigh­bor­hood with end­less gen­eros­ity, in the long sad days after Sep­tem­ber 11.  How won­der­ful to be reunited with him!

We sat there, our two fam­i­lies, and ate our­selves silly.  Truf­fled French fries!  Cala­mari.  Giant ravi­oli filled with beef rib con­fit, in a truf­fle cream sauce.  Sim­ply heaven, but then I could have eaten splin­ters and loved it, being with Alyssa.

What an over­whelm­ing flood of emo­tion, sur­rounded by so many of my favorite peo­ple, filled with mem­o­ries of ter­ri­ble days and won­der­ful days.  And so lovely to see Avery and Annabelle reunited, like the cousins they really are, in their hearts.

In the morn­ing we headed up to Rock­e­feller Cen­ter and a flurry of shopping!

About this I can­not tell you, because of all the SECRETS.

We mean­dered back down­town for John’s and my tra­di­tional wedding-anniversary din­ner at Nobu, while Avery and her grand­mother indulged in yet more shop­ping.  My mem­ory is still replete with the glut­to­nous details of our lunch: the bluefin tuna with caviar and wasabi, the yel­low­tail with jalapenos and corian­der, the tuna tataki with tiny sliv­ers of gar­lic, gin­ger, spring onion and Ponzu sauce, the soft shell crab roll, the rock shrimp Tem­pura.  Gorgeous.

And home we came, exhausted by tired feet, exhil­a­rated by adven­ture and cel­e­bra­tion, a lit­tle over­whelmed with emo­tion.  That is what Christ­mas is all about, after all.  The mem­o­ries of both joy and sor­row, the long­ing for those no longer with us and grat­i­tude for those we can reach out and touch.

Merry Christ­mas, all.  And thank you to my dear daugh­ter for all these beau­ti­ful photographs.