Winter holidays at the Pompton Lakes cottage were a mixed bag of traditions, improvisations, logistical nightmares, and general hilarity. The living room was smaller than the average bedroom in houses built in the 1980s. But into that room we crammed a Christmas tree (invariably the largest one my father could hide from my mother until time to set up), the only television, the only record player, all family and guests, plus drinks and food. There was an ancient German blown-glass ornament that my Dad’s father gave to my Mom. For some reason, she would hang it from the low ceiling entry to the dining room. And then, every time anybody produced a ball, a dart gun, or water pistol she would shriek “NOT NEAR THE GRAPES”! It became our favorite chant for the holidays. I wish I’d gotten a tattoo before my Mom died… .
Throughout the holiday season—which we stretched out to encompass my birthday on 12 January—we packed into the living room. Given small space and numerous relatives, we formalized a system of visits. Christmas Eve we went in to Union City, to the 27th Street row house my Mom grew up in. There, depending on the year, there could be the resident families, us, and other expats in from the suburbs, plus the next door neighbor (who still resided there some years ago when Molly and I visited the neighborhood). I would guess a typical Christmas Eve saw 2 dozen people cooking, arguing, conversing, drinking, and smoking. Essentially 100% of the adults were heavy smokers, and the airflow in a narrow city house was not particularly active. Sports were on TV in both main floor apartments (hard to believe they could cut one floor of a townhouse into two apartments), and alcohol flowed like…uh…alcohol. The Germans stayed away from the kitchen in favor of the Italians—we weren’t the slickest family in North Jersey, but when it came to food we weren’t idiots. Grandpa demanded we kids run his empty longnecks out into the stairwell and trade them for full, cool Knickerbockers. One of the cousins (still alive and retired in Florida) worked for an airline and received a smoked turkey as her annual bonus. This bird was eaten mostly as appetizer, along with a salad of shrimp and elbow macaroni in a mayonnaise dressing, followed by ravioli and then an unsmoked turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and gravy. People ate ravenously. Mostly because they wanted to get to the espresso and after dinner drinks. Debbie the Irish Setter—nobody ever explained how they ended up with an active sporting dog in a city apartment, especially since nobody in the family was particularly fond of dogs—hunted scraps all evening. Eventually, as the adults approached too-drunk-to-drive, we packed up presents and leftovers for the trip back out to Pompton.
Next morning, we did family presents and breakfast at home. Then we went out to my father’s family in Dumont and nearby Haworth. These visits started out rather small and quiet in a garden apartment until my Aunt Helen (Dad’s sister) had her 4 kids and they moved into a big house in Dumont a short walk from the Haworth house that Dad’s father still occupied. Then things achieved a fair portion of the craziness dealt with the evening before in Union City. In Dumont they had a roaring fireplace, color TV sets, and a large area of dining and sitting room decorated in pristine, bright white. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??? Depending on how many of Uncle Tony’s relatives came out to visit, there would be anywhere from 7 to a dozen children running rampant. Carrying grape juice, coke, oily appetizers, etc. In a house decorated in pure bright white! Aunt Helen had the Zen of the holidays, though. She’d slurp a Manhattan, smoke cigarettes, and hope somebody else would pull and carve the turkey at suppertime. Her strategy worked great. We invariably had a great time, and after the two days of running parties, we kids were exhausted. I’m sure my parents were thoroughly hungover.
Everybody in our house was arc-welded to the education system. Both parents were teachers (except a number of years when my Mom was in business) and we were in school. So we all had the week off between Christmas and New Years. Dad was Department Head of English and Sociology, and was regular drinking buddies with 10 or 15 colleagues (including, for some reason, several defrocked priests. As a lapsed Catholic, Dad had an odd penchant for hiring same), all of whom, along with a few former students, stopped by to visit. Then my high school and later college friends, and then my sister’s, and then my brother’s, also came by. The teeny tiny kitchen produced snacks and appetizers like a James Beard catering operation.
Mom and Dad did a rotating New Year’s Eve party with other teachers. When they did it at our place, it required every square centimeter of open floor space to pack them all in. By the time I was in high school, my brother and sister and I served as caterers and waitstaff, since the kitchen was the only place left with room to breathe. I remember the year one teacher came without his wife, who sent him with huge trays of ham spread on toast that needed to be reheated in the oven. The guy was really proud of those canapés. Couldn’t talk about anything else. As we pulled them from the oven, I slipped and dumped one of the trays all over my shoes. We quickly swabbed down shoes, the floor, and the oven and dumped the evidence. Then we served the remaining toasts. The guy noticed instantly that we were missing half the toasts. We told him “they were so good, man, that we couldn’t help ourselves. We ate them while we were heating them up”. It is perhaps a measure of his alcohol consumption that he bought the story without a question.
And that last anecdote points the way to another rule I’ve had to add to my how-to book of life. It is simply this: “Roll With It”. When things happening are beyond your control, or have no easy fix, or maybe no fix at all, your best bet is to simply relax and let real life wash over and through you.
Of course, this new rule sits side-by-side with the other Zen acceptance aphorism, Live ‘em While You Got ‘em Because They Are Not Forever.
I have managed to learn a lot about myself as an outcome of my cancer and its treatment. Growing while dying, I am learning, is not only possible. It is necessary if I am going to survive for the maximum lifetime available. There is no sense trudging to death. I’d like to leave a better world behind me, maybe with just a little perspective arising from the debris of life associated with cancer.
So. I love you all. I miss you all. And I commend carefully managed acceptance of experience to you as one more tool to help keep your life running with the key in the ignition and a case of beer on the back seat. Rock and Roll, everyone!!!
PS--here's a photo from Beth of Christmas at the Pompton cottage:
You know, they always had one or more cats in that house, for some reason. The doctor refused to treat my chronic asthma unless they ditched the cats…I still have the glass Christmas grapes here. Have a great New Year's, Linda!!
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