the best of times

Well, that’s the glass half full sce­nario.  What’s real­ly true is that I try not to think about how much I miss these par­tic­u­lar­ly love­ly things while the many months away unrav­el… includ­ing this heart­stop­ping (to my New York­er’s soul) view of Prince Street from today.  But that’s not all I’m remembering.

Our gor­geous French din­ner with Shel­ley and Erik, snowy frigid night with­out, warm food, out­ra­geous­ly gen­er­ous Christ­mas presents and friend­ship within…

Brunch and board games with Jil­l’s fam­i­ly… watch­ing Jane mas­ter­ing “Camp” and Mol­ly her col­ors and shapes.  “There is only one brown octagon”…

Bor­row­ing Egbert and Regi­na’s snow­shoes and rac­ing across the snow in blind­ing sun­light… com­ing across not one, or two, but three deer car­cass­es, vic­tims of the local coyotes.

A late after­noon gos­sip with Judy, Rol­lie, Young Rol­lie and gor­geous Tri­cia… to think that the next time I see her, she will be hold­ing a two-month old baby in her arms.  It was­n’t pos­si­ble to thank Judy enough for her friend­ship with John’s mom in those first hours of the crazy Christ­mas hol­i­day, here just the two of them, prepar­ing with­out me.  That is friendship.

And and even lat­er after­noon hot chai tea and kit­ty games with Anne, David and Kate, play­ing Jen­ga (“Jes­samy don’t like Jen­ga, it’s too loud for her,” Kate observed many times), Anne and David as usu­al play­ing the best chal­leng­ing advo­cates for Avery.  “Go for it, lob­by for that psy­chol­o­gy class!”  Anne encour­ages, and they both look on with admi­ra­tion at the Tom Lehrer note.  What heart­warm­ing friends they are, and pos­si­bly my favorite mem­o­ry of the hol­i­day, the night they arrived in the dark and turned on their out­side lamps to shine on the snow and receive our friend­ship.  How lucky we are to have fall­en into each oth­er’s laps, across this mag­i­cal road.

John’s last cud­dle with Jes­samy (too bad he real­ly does­n’t like cats)…

Final­ly today, a dri­ve into New York — that city of our hap­pi­est mem­o­ries, our sad­dest mem­o­ries, our strongest mem­o­ries — to drop Jes­samy off with Alice, her Pri­ma­ry Moth­er, and to drop me off for lunch in town with Alyssa, for Avery to spend a bliss­ful after­noon shop­ping — Avery Goes Shop­ping Alone! — at Sepho­ra, Amer­i­can Eagle, JCrew, in SoHo all on her own!

Alyssa and I ate splen­did­ly at The Lit­tle Owl in the West Vil­lage.  Their sig­na­ture tiny meat­balls on a cheesy bun, scal­lops and lob­ster with a rock­et sal­ad and a dress­ing of capers, lemon juice, baby leeks and melt­ed BUT­TER, and pos­si­bly the best French fries in the city.  Most­ly, it goes with­out say­ing, gos­sip, shout­ing with laugh­ter, our usu­al menu of friend­ship.  As we stood out­side on the cor­ner wait­ing for cabs, we agreed that we sur­vive quite well see­ing each oth­er only twice a year, until… we see each oth­er.  Like chil­dren who are fine about babysit­ters until they get one.  It’s as won­der­ful to be togeth­er — shar­ing mem­o­ries of our daugh­ters’ ear­li­est years as babies in Tribeca — as it is sad to con­tem­plate not being togeth­er.  Let’s con­cen­trate on the former.

And how gor­geous to amble into Dean and Delu­ca, choose three of the hunki­est pork chops in the world, relive all the years I spent gro­cery shop­ping there as if it were a gro­cery store!  Lo, in the old­en days of our new­ly­wed­hood.  Car­ry­ing baby Avery in a Baby Bjorn, pick­ing up the first of the world’s fin­ger­ling pota­toes, baby radic­chio, goat cheese fresh from France, del­i­ca­cies New York had just discovered.

I crossed the blink­ing­ly sun­ny New York street, rev­el­ling as usu­al in the unbe­liev­able right of pedes­tri­ans ahead of cars!  How fun­ny to trade in two so dif­fer­ent car cul­tures.  On to Sepho­ra, look­ing for my daugh­ter, up to JCrew, and there she and her dad­dy were, fresh from a shop­ping spree, her first alone in New York.  The first of many, I hope and fear.

Home to begin to orga­nize our depar­ture.  The last loads of laun­dry, orga­niz­ing din­ner to use as many ingre­di­ents as pos­si­ble!  Clear­ing coun­ter­tops of hol­i­day paper­work, fin­ish­ing the “Alice in Won­der­land” puz­zle.  Avery and I decide to leave both puz­zles in place, to dis­cov­er at sum­mer­time, to help us remem­ber our holiday.

And so it has wound down to the last few hours.  We are anx­ious­ly watch­ing the weath­er fore­cast, heavy snow fore­cast for just around the hour our plane is due to take off.  I refuse to wor­ry.  All will be well, and with any luck, you’ll hear from me next, suf­fer­ing from jet­lag, pre­sid­ing over Lost Prop­er­ty, in Lon­don.  But what  mem­o­ries we will car­ry with us.