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To my adorable friends: always sing without fear.
Happy Holidays and may you have a New Year that embraces you with all the good things you desire.
I preferred to think that the tree had not been touched by human hands. Instead, I wanted to imagine a type of botanical, seasonal transition: that the green blood had crystallized into silver, gold and scarlet. And when the joy could no longer be hidden, the blossoms appeared in delicate explosions. Their thin metallic skins would shine with a clear complexion - in colors that were pure and inspirational.
It would be impossible not to pluck this Christmas fruit from the tree that dared to bloom in the late autumn, with winter peering over the Advent horizon like a mischievous child.
They would be irresistible. They would have a scent like an expectant kitchen, full of spices that had traveled through history from the misunderstood continents, the lands of Western fear, of medieval confusion. They would taste like snow falling from the festive clouds: a profusion of crystals blowing through the white air in blissful geometry.
And inside of each one would lie a seed, a tiny window looking into the heart of the fruit. The pulp would be flavored with these sweet prisms - with the alluring light that turned the orchards of this holiday crop into a starry countryside.
And now this tree was heavy with their radiance. But I decided not to pick the glittering baubles from their branches. I chose a different harvest. I left the tree and its glittering yield behind, knowing that I would be enjoying its shining feast whenever I closed my eyes.
I didn't see you standing there. Do you mean you're waiting for me? You know you're rather a stranger in these parts - and I make it a point not to fraternize with outsiders.
You've been referred to me? By whom? Do I know this person by name? Oh. Yes - a co-worker. And you've been described as smooth, yet biting and delicious? I notice the cherries - what purpose do they serve? No, I'm not being cheeky, I just don't see them working successfully with a jigger of whiskey.
You know, I've never trusted whiskey. Something masculine about it. The last whiskey drink I had was a whiskey and soda I ordered when I was out on a date. It's an old story, Mr. Sour, and I don't think I need to go into detail.
What? My, you are talkative for a famous mixed drink whose sources date back to the 1870's. I agree - this is our Christmas party, and my intention is to get beautifully tanked before the appetizers are served. I'm not sure how you know this, but yes, it is time to celebrate - sloppily.
And...you like my skirt? Now you're making me nervous. I'm old, and I don't know how to deal with compliments anymore. But in that case, let me say that that is a pretty glass - squat but graceful: I wish I could manage that.
OK. My sobriety is boring me, and I'm sure it's boring everyone else at this table (I'm a jolly drunk, Mr. Sour, trust me ) Are you a sipping drink? I will approach you as such - I did so enjoy our conversation, and it would be tragic for it to dissipate quickly.
(pause)
SIR!
You deny your family name - you are sweet, sublime, and with each sip the maraschino cherries delight and tease my vision. You, sir, are an adorable drink, and you are very well met.
Waiter! Another!
"...but American girls are pretty and charming - little oases of pretty unreasonableness in a vast desert of practical common-sense."
- Oscar Wilde
The England of Victoria was scattered with the bones of their disappointment. They foundered on society's unforgiving landscape and were held fast, like sparrows caught on barbed wire. They swooned, jeweled wraiths, across a countryside of regret.
These were the daughters of America, bred from the new, raw, ricih. Vanderbilt. Morgan. Whitney. Jerome. Thjeir fathers were the barons and the bankers, dirty from railroads, mines and Wall Street. Their mothers were coarse and pushy - seeing their future in the calling cards accumulating in the salverby the door.
They had the money. But the family name needed something beyond wealth, it needed dignity, it needed respectability. So it was the responsibility of their dainty - if doomed - daughters to wash their fathers' hands and smooth their mothers' silhouettes and manners.
These nouveau riche had made their names. But they also needed titles. So they groomed their daughters, pressing them like flowers between the intolerant walls of behavior and decorum. They were being prepred for adventures across the sea, and England was ripe for plunder.
Waiting to be claimed by these "dollar princesses" were the impoverished sons of the peerage, languishing in ballrooms like dying wolves. English girls, steeped in tradition and hooded eyes, had no chance against the audacious competitors which invaded their country. There was a type of charm in their impudence and fresh faces. They flirted and teased with a rapier-like modesty. Like pirates they ransacked the aristocracy until their accents rang in every large house in the country.
But the Victorian aristocracy had been growing tired and decadent. The husbands who had married American money bore hidden depravities and resentments like coiled diseases. Their country houses were dank and moldy, chilling their golden brides. The romantic wistfulness, the daring hand on an ungloved arm, were all for show at the Mayfair parties.
So many times after the marriage, the heiress would fade away, her fine dresses never unpacked, her jewels clouded and tangled. When Consuelo Vanderbilt wed the Early of Marlborough, her tears made a diamante pattern across her wedding veil.
Maud Cunard sacraificed her bohemian mentality for a cold, bitter life in her husband's Northern lands.
Jennie Jerome's husband was a brilliant parlimentarian, and would die of syphilis.
Mary Leiter worshiped her parents' visits: "I love the chairs you sat on, and try to see you there, and my eyes fill with tears."
This was the Gilded Age, society's golden veneer, the false, desirable beauty. It only took a false word, the image of a young bride in a locked bedroom, to scrape the paint away - to reveal the terrible depths of a dark heart, its cruel, hidden realities.
I don't think I will ever enjoy Christmas as much as I did when I was a child. Back then, seemingly, all I needed to do was wear a silver - as silver as Christmas tinsel - visiting dress:
Or kneel by the tree and play with the fire engine which was undoubtedly meant for my brother:
...in order to know that the very summit of the year had been reached, the time of the bright exhale.
Christmas was the decorated, fragrant tree and a house that was remarkably changed. I had nothing to do with this - I would just watch my parents bring the holiday inside to dazzle us.
Now, during the course of the years, there have come worries, disappointments, petty ugliness and cynicism: the detritus of adulthood, of living on your own. These bruises have hurt the innocence that dared to look forward to a day because it was...happy.
But there is one good thing. Now, every Christmas it is up to me to decorate some lucky tree waiting with evergreen hope beside its brethren in some orchard/hardware parking lot. It is up to me to transform my apartment with shiny things and swathe it with all the radiance of the season. And then on The Day, I will invite my parents over so I can dazzle them.
Paris trembles under many lights. Looking down on the city, it meanders like a circle of galaxies.
During the Second Empire, in the mid-19th century, Paris was a delightful gamine, overdressed with crinolines and diamond sandals. She was a shocking, immoral child - but always held back with the soft ribbons of etiquette, always wearing an extravaganza of couture.
Paris was also an epicurean state, with a history of exotic tastes, extravagant meals and wasteful, profligate menus. There is one story of a dinner that was served during this time:
Waiters stood tall and handsome as they shouldered a lengthy, silver platter. It was covered, and heavy. They were en route from the kitchen to the dinner table, only this time the kitchen wasn't below stairs, but upstairs, in milady's boudoir.
Beneath the silver cover, the feast reclined in the edible darkness. She thought luxuriously of the corsets, taffetas, crinolines and sandals left behind in her 'kitchen'. But the black pearls - product of an oyster's imagination and passion - still rested around her neck, floating atop a milky sea.
Bouquets of lilies and violets tickled her shoulders and knees - staining her skin with a layer of perfume. Petals curled in her hair, and she tapped their glossy colors with her fingers, feeling their tints run through her hands. Her veins were now a delicate cartography of blue, lavender, bronze and mint.
It was well known throughout the city that the finest chef in the country was on this lady's staff. But for this one night only, she would be the one presenting the most delicious flesh in the Empire.
"What! That girl leaning forward? Oh, that is a distinguished member of the demi-monde. She is but just arrived from Paris, where her beauty, her wit, and her profligacy were the theme of every tongue. I have met her there frequently, so, if you want an introduction I will give it to you - her name is Cora Pearl."
...I would invite every one of my handsome, adorable, clever neighbors to my apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.
If I could, I would expand my list of invitees, like a sparkling balloon, to include parents, children and all manner of pets. How I would love to be introduced to them all.
If I could, I would alter the design of my dinner table into something Dr. Seuss or Lewis Carroll might design - curving into space, higher and higher - until it had lengthened sufficiently so that every one of you could find a place.
If I could, I would alter the space continuum so that my kitchen would be BIG ENOUGH to accommodate the positively epic, Edwardian dinner I would plan for you.
If I could, I would alter the time continuum so that my far-flung precious ones would be able to find their way to the Aubrey domicile with ease and economy. And yet still be able to travel first-class.
If I could, I would place a glass of flower-like, art nouveau proportions at each place setting. It would be full of champagne, and glittering at the bottom would be either a diamond bracelet, or a brace of diamond cufflinks. They are for you.
If I could, I would arrange the champagne toasts thusly: they would not be to your hostess, to your family, or to your loved ones. You would not toast this innocent North American holiday. You would, instead, toast yourselves.
Because words fail me.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
When "speck" is defined as a noun, it is 'a very small mark, or amount', it is 'a bit'.
But when "Speck" is the name of a cat, it is defined as "Get out of my room":
As a future tense, it is defined as, "I don't have to tell you what will happen if you don't":
LOCATION: Lake Tahoe, California
TIME: August, 1963
SUBJECT: Mother
ACT ENGAGED BY SUBJECT: Swimming
b. Dogpaddle
IDENTIFYING MARKS: Dark Sunglasses
CURRENT CONDITION OF SUBJECT: Fabulous
The poppy is an uncomplicated creature. It has one color. It is not parasitic or solitary. It grows simply, and in groups, like schoolchildren.
But its symbolism is rich, with a magnitude that has spanned many countries, and many centuries. For such a little flower it carries meanings that are vast and weary; that are eternal and quiet in the earth.
In Greece and Rome the poppy meant sleep and death - worlds beneath the cold eyelid. Opium was extruded from its seeds and sleepy breaths colored ancient dens and palaces. Poppies decorated the tombstones of their dead, welcoming the lengthy sleep. In Persian literature, the poppy is called the eternal flower - for emotions unrelenting and without end; for loyalty without limit.
The poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz were billowing and fearsome, promising an everlasting sleep. In Egypt opium was daubed on the neck and wrists like a hypnotic perfume.
It wasn't until 1915 that the significance of the little red flower passed into Europe as well, when the ground was already red. Towards the end of the year a poem was published - a trifle sentimental, a little maudlin, as most affairs of the heart are - and its beginning is familiar:
"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row...
The fragrant drops of blood growing amongst the white purity must have been a shocking sight to the soldier; in a poem it might be less awful but no less meaningful. The poppy had become a part of their spoiled landscape.
"That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below
1915 was a terrible year. Gallipoli - Ypres - Nueve Chapelle - Loos - The Battles of the Isonzo...the poppies must have shuddered in the stinging breeze.
"We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields
When the war was over, and the hardness and the bitternress had set in, the poppy had adopted another symbol - the four blasted years that had called the Edwardians in from their play, that had rubbed the gilt off the lily. Its brave, bloody image was burnt on the dying soldier's eyes.
On Veteran's Dan/Remembrance Day the popppy is worn, sewn into wreaths, displayed in houses (Aubrey does this): it is still held high.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields"
