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| The Empire State Building from Park Avenue South and 31st Street. 7:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
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Tuesday, December 10, 2913. Cold, rainy morning; dried off and got colder by late afternoon, yesterday in New York. The weatherman says we’re going to get some snow today. I hope so but I’m skeptical like any kid who loves those No-School-Days.
I was thinking about that last night when I took these pictures from my terrace of the Christmas trees in the lobbies of the buildings across the avenue. While trying to get a decent focus out of my little Canon S110 with the zoom lens, it occurred to me that I’ve always liked looking at Christmas trees. Like the kid. This began very early possibly because our tree never went up before Christmas Eve. Ever. Duncan Wall’s parents across the street put up their tree about a week after Thanksgiving. It was covered with soft purple-blue lights – the only color. I preferred the rainbow of lights on a green tree although now the image of their tree remains in my consciousness and I see that the single color was rather stylish and even artful. For a little New England town neighborhood in the late 1940s. By the 20th of December, back then, all the houses in the neighborhood (the ones that I could see from the sidewalk) had their trees up – and often in the front window. Everyone except ours. And Mr. and Mrs. Merrill, two houses away. They had a wreath but no sign of a tree. The Merrills also had venetian blinds instead of shades like everybody else; and the blinds were usually pretty much closed most of the time.
My mother said that the tree should always go up on Christmas Eve. I don’t know where she got the idea. I didn’t like it, but it was always thus. There was also the matter of the money to pay for it. Would they have it? I already knew this could be a problem. I knew this early. I knew my father probably wouldn’t have it. He never had any money. Mother said he was a gambler and that was why. It later turned out to be partly true – he definitely was a compulsive gambler. By Christmas Eve afternoon I would get more and more anxious about getting the tree. I was afraid there wouldn’t be any left. Any good ones, at least. Both mother and father would be still at work as I was fretting privately and probably dramatically. But as soon as one of them was in the door, I was asking: “what about the tree?” I’m not sure how I presented it. Probably some whining. After all, I was just a kid (six or eight). I was genuinely worried; I wanted Christmas Day. Santa Claus (my eldest sister, my mother, and an aunt) would be putting presents under the tree. Yes, it was about me. Finally, after supper (which is what we called dinner in those days), on Christmas Eve, with both mother and father, in the kitchen, the 8 year old in charge of management asked if we could “get” a tree. Now. It was the last day, after all. My father displayed some anger (largely forgotten). That was a predictable response. The question was followed by a discussion between the two that soon became heated. I’m tempted to make a joke about it because it was simply the way we/they lived: always an altercation and a blasting outburst of his Irish temper, sometimes violent, always loud. Accompanied by her powerfully economic reproach. Followed by more helpless explosions. I knew at that early age that it was senseless although at this age, I’ve seen enough of it in myself to know that it is not only senseless, but unfortunate. Nevertheless, it is. And I must say to their credit, we never, the boy that is, went without, at least when need be. That’s a pretty good achievement when traveling on a hard road to begin with. However, that was the process we went through each year until I was old enough (teenager) to be preoccupied with growing up and getting out of the house. By then, my mother and father would be reprimanding me for not taking care of the tree. Christmas for me, the individual, the son of, was always a wonderful time of the year, despite the day’s inevitable domestic drama. This day was full of excitement for the new, the changing, the seasons and the colored lights. Children have a special talent for absorbing this part of it naturally. All of those moments promise the best part of ourselves, and especially in the dear little and younger ones. It can protect them. It doesn’t take much either. By adolescence in my mother and father’s house, the air remained fraught with their unresolved personal issues that affected everyone else under their roof. This is unfortunate but ordinary. And Christmastime is an especially difficult time for many of us who bring our Pasts with us. |
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| I don’t fault my mother and father, in retrospect, for I can see they were, like all of us, victims of themselves/ourselves. “Their own worst enemy” was, and remains, the operative phrase. Their legacy of domestic turmoil – especially heightened during the holiday season – comes with riches, however: I was determined to always enjoy this time of the year, no matter what. And so it has been. When I’ve lived in a house, I had a tree. A nice one, full and tall. In California with cathedral ceiling, the tree was 12 or 14 feet. In Connecticut, 8 or 9. In New York on East End Avenue, I don’t have a tree. I don’t especially miss it because it would only mean mischief for one of the quadripeds I live with – namely Madame; and I go to many houses and see many wonderful trees. However, I also love all the trees I see through the windows and in the stores and the lobbies. All that light suggests to the child in me the possibility that the world will really be At Peace even if for a millisecond. I’m not naïve but I said possibility. Even for a moment.The trees are the symbol of that for me. Now more than ever. |
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