whew

One a.m. after a night at the the­atre and I’m perched up in bed over a plate of lus­cious salt beef, a dol­lop of mus­tard and a half a pickle… can you tell I passed by one of my favorite lit­tle shops on the way home from Leices­ter Square this evening? I am very lucky that my greedy tabby Hermione who nor­mally snatches any­thing and every­thing off my plate has decided that Jew­ish foods are not to her lik­ing, so my snack is safe as I type.

Is it Jan­u­ary yet? I adore this time of year, as you know, and I’m cer­tainly not com­plain­ing. But there’s no doubt that the hands of the clock start spin­ning around, layer after layer of party, con­cert, din­ner, cel­e­bra­tion of every kind piles one after another, and before you know it, you’ve sched­uled three things in a row at night with a school-age child who’s com­pletely exhausted by tonight, a lovely crisp Friday.

Wednes­day began cold and fair with my lit­tle writ­ing class meet­ing here for crois­sants, a slight dis­sec­tion of my “Thanks­giv­ing chap­ter,” and a long dis­cus­sion of char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and how to get it. It was a cool exer­cise: call to mind a real per­son you know, then list every qual­ity about that per­son you can think of (or imag­ine, if you chose). We spent ten long, silent min­utes at it and what we ended up with was fas­ci­nat­ing. What hap­pens when you clear your mind and sim­ply LIST things about a per­son is that pat­terns begin to emerge, con­nec­tions between per­son­al­ity traits, sig­nif­i­cance arises from lit­tle habits and pref­er­ences. I can see how this sort of exer­cise could build an entire novel’s worth of char­ac­ters if only I could be dis­ci­plined enough to do it.

Cer­tainly it makes soli­tary things like gro­cery shop­ping or wait­ing for the bus MUCH more inter­est­ing, as every sin­gle per­son you see becomes a poten­tial col­lec­tion of qual­i­ties, likes and dis­likes, expe­ri­ences, hopes and dreams. It was great fun. Exhaust­ing, strangely, I think because it opens the mind, makes every­thing an ingre­di­ent for writ­ing. Is there any­thing more fas­ci­nat­ing than the peo­ple one knows? Yes, maybe it’s the peo­ple other peo­ple know, because all three of us in the lit­tle class came up with entirely dif­fer­ent sorts of people.

From there to the Christ­mas con­cert at school in the evening, with a delight­ful after­noon of cook­ing in between, since I was host­ing a lit­tle party after the con­cert. Roast ham, gor­geous bre­saola, Parma ham, sev­eral lus­cious cheeses brought by Annie, includ­ing my hands-down favorite, Mont d’Or, slightly stinky and per­fect with plenty of crunchy crack­ers. Just lovely. A huge salad of tiny toma­toes with cucum­ber and a great dress­ing gave some wel­come color and tex­ture to the dinner:

Tomato Cucum­ber Salad
(serves 8)

2 pounds baby plum toma­toes
1/2 hydro­ponic cucum­ber, seeds removed with a spoon
1 stalk lemon grass, about 6 inches in length
1 tbsp chilli oil
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
lots of fresh-ground black pep­per
1 tsp Dijon mus­tard
sea salt to taste

Sim­ply halve the toma­toes, dice the cucum­ber, and shake up every­thing else in a jar and pour over. Luscious.

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The “Ser­vice of Lessons and Car­ols” itself was a paragon of all things Avery’s dear school rep­re­sents: hard work, the pride of girls in their accom­plish­ments, style AND sub­stance. The con­cert began with the heart-breaking (to me, for var­i­ous rea­sons) “Once in Royal David’s City”, with two beau­ti­ful girls, dressed in black, singing the first verse in can­dlelit dark­ness, the high vaulted ceil­ing of the Great Hall soar­ing over­head. Then, chill­ingly, the voices of many, many girls in the sec­ond verse soared from behind us, and we real­ized, with­out turn­ing our heads, that they were singing in the great Mar­ble entry­way out­side the Hall. In they filed, car­ry­ing can­dles, singing with that com­bi­na­tion of inno­cence and slight awk­ward­ness that makes school­girls so irre­sistibly tear-making, to me.

I was glad, per­versely, that Avery had felt she had not prac­ticed enough to take part, and so was sit­ting beside me where I could put my arm around her. What more does any­one want, at Christ­mas or any other time, than to have a daugh­ter to hold and appre­ci­ate, while beau­ti­ful music flows all around.

Impos­si­bly ele­gant and poised read­ings, in accents that would put the Royal Fam­ily to shame. Girls lit­tle and big, singing, recit­ing, praying.

It was almost a relief to have the solem­nity and beauty bro­ken by the crush of par­ents all leav­ing at the same time, so many famil­iar faces now that Avery has been there over a year. Lost Prop­erty moth­ers, famil­iar faces from the Par­ents’ Guild, from guests at our din­ner par­ties, Thanks­giv­ing, play­dates, shop­ping trips, birth­day par­ties. So lovely to feel we belong.

Of course, bad mother that I am, I hardly rec­og­nized the pass­ing of time at din­ner after the con­cert, and it came as quite a shock to my hol­i­day spirit to have some­one, a child, say plain­tively, “You know, you guys, it’s a SCHOOL night!” Reluc­tant depar­tures, clean­ing up in a leisurely way and enjoy­ing the decorations…

Thurs­day found us at the ortho­don­tist for a look at Avery’s first break­age. “You know, I don’t even think we NEED this bracket,” said he air­ily, where­upon I wanted only to ask, “How much did that bracket cost, any­way? Put it back!” She has been such a star at get­ting used to these things, it was almost a plea­sure to go to the appoint­ment just to hear she was per­fectly on track with the whole process.

Home to rush a bit through prepa­ra­tions for a din­ner guest from far­away New York, an old, old friend who with his lovely wife used to grace our din­ner table three, four times a week when we were all new­ly­weds. He took one look at Avery and said, “It’s true, you’re a teenager, I just didn’t realize…”

We feasted on Szechuan chicken with red, yel­low and orange pep­pers, and broc­coli, roasted peanuts, thick slices of fried gin­ger and hot chillis. The per­fect anti­dote to too much Christ­massy food. I’ve dec­o­rated my table with some really bor­der­line glit­tery tealights: they’re either lovely, or they’re ter­ri­bly tacky. None of us can decide.

Another late night, with gos­sip from New York, news of our old brunch haunt Bubby’s hav­ing turned 24-hours! Shock­ing! The times, the times I ran over JFK, Jr.‘s fancy busi­ness shoes with Avery’s stroller as we waited in line at Bubby’s… and real estate news (the lin­gerie store that replaced my art gallery is going strong, also shock­ing), the crowded school sit­u­a­tion. We all felt quite tearily home­sick for New York, as one does when chat­ting about the old days with some­one who’s seen many parts of the last 20 years with us, whether in New York, Lon­don or Moscow… old friends. Life may change, and old friends with it, but it’s always good to keep the ties.

I must report on “Legally Blonde: the Musi­cal”! But some­thing tells me I’ll never find the time. So all I can say is that it’s a hugely enjoy­able evening with pass­able Amer­i­can accents, all stereo­types clev­erly under­scor­ing every­thing the British already think about us, but, as Avery says, “in a good way!”

Next week, I promise, really WILL be quiet… ish.