Friday, December 18, 2009

Baby it's cold outside.

So I now know what 17 degrees feels like. Another discovery of note: Tights fit under leggings, which then fit under jeans. Maybe not the best look my J. Brand's have offered, but I'm warm. In the spirit of staying on the plus side of freezing, I'd like to send a huge thank you to my sister, who actually lugged an ushanka all the way back to the United States FROM RUSSIA for me. That thing, which is both impossibly glamorous and warm, has never worked so hard. It's winter's work is hardly over, and that's worth mentioning.

Now, off to visit my coffee man who has yet to forget me despite one week of Theraflu, apartment-made press pots and a morning coffee uptown. Nonplussed, he set my coffee with cream down on the counter with a smile. Life is good.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I'll be home for Christmas.

Today during the morning rush that is 7:45 - 8:30 at 168 Henry, Jack and I readied ourselves for the day with a medley of Christmas tunes."Let it snow," "Wonderful Christmastime" and "Happy Xmas (The war is over)" were some of the few we heard courtesy of Jack's clock radio. He remarked that because of now living in New York the meanings of some of these songs have changed for him - for us. While he spoke of the fact that we are more likely to get snow - in fact we're slated for some precipitation this weekend - I began to think about how these songs I know by heart and sing in my heart each year might mean something different - something more to me this year.
"I'll Be Home For Christmas." That never was a question for me. In all my 30 (almost 31 + yes, I still have many (half) of my list to check off) years was I expected or expecting to be anywhere else but North Carolina. That is still very much the case, but an almost-$400 plane ticket has a way of giving pause. At the same time, the very minute I purchased that ticket (Merry Christmas to the fam, by the way) I had the biggest (to date) surge of homesickness wanting to be there in my parents house, in the kitchen laughing and cooking immediately.

When I was a little girl, I remember being seized with panic that one day I wouldn't get to come home for Christmas after hearing this song. Why, "if only in my dreams" I asked my Mother. She quickly assured by I could ALWAYS come home for Christmas. She then set about showing me, and my sister that "home" is truly where the heart is, where the love is and wherever family is. More than a framed piece of art that hung on our kitchen wall for years, my Mother made that idiom a way of life.

So, "Christmas Eve will find me, where the lovelight gleams." And on my first return visit to my childhood home since moving to my newest adult home. And. I. Can't. Wait.

A portrait of how Christmas looks in my mind, and in my heart.

Grandma + Papa, December 24th, 1963. Their 25th wedding anniversary. (My sister would be born 19 years later.)