Paper Party Hats and Confetti

It’s New Year’s and I’m thinking of when I was young and how my mom used to take my sister and brother and me down to Poppies, our restaurant, to see my dad every New Year’s Eve. It was so lively there with everyone celebrating and we got all bundled up and fancy and got to blow horns and wear party hats and pop those little plastic champagne bottles that blow out paper confetti. It was warm and happy around that wooden bar in the dark greens and reds and candles and the snow outside with everyone singing and blowing on those whistles that don’t make any noise but just unwind a tube of paper. And I was young and everything felt filled with wonder and safe and life was an adventure. And the confetti from those tiny plastic champagne bottles was exciting. And the whistles with no sound. And paper party hats. And everything was good. 

Now Z’s in Colorado for the holidays and he called me and his mom was walking the dog and she fell and broke her hip and now she’s in the hospital and has to have surgery and all of her kids are there with her on New Year’s. And it reminded me of everything. Of being with your family and being a kid and then a grown up and goddammit how hard it all is sometimes. 

I was thinking about all of these things. About being young and excited about paper horns and hats. About parents and children. About how none of it seems to turn out quite like you ever thought it would and everything feels more fragile than it once did. 

And then I lost it. 

I just lost it, in the kitchen, and just broke down and sobbed. Which is something that just happens when you’re alone and thinking of all of the beautiful things in your life and how hard it is still and how hard it is for everyone and all of the love and sadness. And these moments stringing themselves together. And memories. And you still don’t know what you’re doing or supposed to do or how to make ends meet as it were or what to do with your brave little self who has so much joy and just feels it being squashed sometimes. And you’re just losing it in front of your refrigerator and you have to find a way to pull yourself together and kind of laugh a little at how ridiculous it is to be crying in your kitchen just because you opened the refrigerator and thought of something sad that made you think of everything. And how life is just not going how you thought it would or how you think it should even though you are so lucky in so many ways and so blessed to be loved and cared about and have friends and family. But sometimes you just find yourself all alone in the kitchen and you can’t help but cry. 

Because you’re longing for the delight of paper party hats and confetti. And a world that felt secure. 

Right Here

I wonder sometimes if anyone else feels like we’re all just a bunch of aliens. I mean, that requires there being other aliens, I guess, speaking strictly dictionary. Otherwise, we just are what we are.  But I look at us so often as aliens, walking around and driving and building things on the surface of some strange floating planet. 

And even though I might sound like I’m gazing out of the window of some psych ward, seeing the world like that, I guess it’s just what I do because I get a lot of time to sit and watch the world around me when I commute. Because at this one spot on my drive to work, the view feels like I’m driving over about half of the whole planet. Like the sun’s always in your eyes and the road wraps over a huge curve in front of you forever, and to get form here to there might take a week and you’ll end up upside down (or at least sideways). And there’s some weird all-you-can-eat fish buffet on one side of the freeway and a whole city peeking through smog far away on the other, but that road just wraps over a globe in front of you and there’s just weather patterns in between and endless space surrounding it. 

So you really see where you are. And it’s the proper noun planet Earth, right between Venus and Mars, the one you learn about in science class, floating in sky. And I’m on that planet. And that’s pretty much nuts. And then I look around at everyone else, and then that’s nuts. And then we’re all aliens. 

That’s how that goes.

Which leads me to wonder about what to do and what this is. Or what I am or who we are or what we’re all doing. Sometimes it’s a good thing. Since there’s not a whole lot of pressure being an alien on a planet. That sort of just means you get to be an alien and do what aliens do which is exist mostly.

And sometimes there’s kind of a sadness about it, but that’s more just when it feels confusing being alive in general, even if you’re not an alien, because you want it to mean so much and sometimes the world hurts and those days are hard. Because you feel lost. 

And then I remember something about my Papoo (which is the Greek name for Grandpa, even though he wasn’t Greek, but my Grandma was, she was a real Ya Ya, so we just called him the Greek version anyway). When he was young and clearly lost, someone came up to him and asked, “Are you lost, kid?” and he giggled and said, “No, I’m not lost, I’m right here!” 

Which means a lot to me when I’m feeling lost.

Other things that mean a lot to me seem to be the most simple things. Those make a lot of sense. Like when Z and I order Indian delivery, which is pretty much our favorite thing, besides Bossa Nova delivery, and besides making our own pasta and eating it out of the new pasta bowls that are basically perfect and anything tastes better in those big white bowls. Like the Greek rice from my childhood. And soup. 

And brunch with friends. That means a lot. And going to movies is good. And dancing around at work because you’re bored. 

And when we curl up and go to sleep. That makes sense. Then the world just holds us. This weird planet, we just lie down on top of it. We close our eyes, we breathe, the earth spins, the universe expands.

There will be commutes and sun in your face and Papoos who aren’t Greek. But no matter what we are, and no matter what we’re supposed to do, we’re really never lost. 

We’re right here.

Boomerang

There’s a memory we all have and it’s of my dad and how he would come up right behind you and wrap one of his arms around you. Arms that built our home. Arms that chopped the wood to keep our two sweet fireplaces glowing all winter. Arms that plowed the driveway and made the best steel cut oatmeal every morning that mostly no one ate. Arms that made pancakes from scratch on the regular and whisked milk for cappuccinos and drummed on the tables and hung upside down on yoga ropes and dug out sled runs on the hillside and fixed all the cars and gave you presents and wrapped a scarf so cozy around your neck before you left the house. Arms that pulled on your toes to wake you up in the morning and waved to all of the locals when we would go downtown to get the paper and you could see in their eyes that they felt lucky to know him while you felt so lucky to be able to have him come up and wrap one of those arms around you and hold you close. And in that place, with his strong arm around you, everything was good and safe, and you were loved more than any single thing on the whole planet. 

Christmas and Paris

There are some things that get you thinking.  Like when Z and I went over to visit our friends Phil and Amanda the other night, to see their new place and mostly because we’ve magnetized toward each other as people do who love similar things and for whom life is a similar battle but a similar landscape of meaning nonetheless.  They made the sweetest little home down the street from us and brought us in to this warm, this intelligent, this thoughtful evening with them.  And I thought about how I felt like I was finally in Paris with my Hemingway crew that I’ve always dreamed of.  Because they’re interested in things, like art and writing and poems served with martinis and cheese and jazz.  And it just made me think about how do I want to live and who do I want to be and I hope I’m doing this all right and other things like that.  Big questions, but small. The day to day of making sure you actually live the life you get while you’ve got it.

And today it’s Christmas, and Christmas is always a little bit sad. Z and I were just talking about this, how we always get a little bit sad around the holidays. And I suppose it’s because, well, when we were young, it was such pure unabashed joy and it was before all of the worries and when everything was all right all of the time. Jumping off the roof giggling into the deep fluffy snow and hot chocolate and the warm kitchen and records playing and mom and dad and mittens and knowing that everything was ok. And I guess there’s just something a little bit sad about that. And yet, still, everything’s ok. 

Now, every day on my way to work, I pass the muddy green hills of the cemetery, expansive and rolling, and lately the graves are bedecked with Christmas trees and poinsettias and sometimes I see people just sitting out there on the hillside together. And I think of Christmas and love and how we last somehow, anyway, even when we don’t, I guess. And it feels important to live with a certain beauty and delicate concern for the things that you love and the things that are special to you. And to make moments here and there with your friends, pretending you’re in Paris.

Everything That Makes Us Love

There was something so wonderful about this past week, mostly because of friends and how life moves along and all of these beautiful moments. 

Z and I met up the other night at Umami with our friends Chris and Phil and, later, Amanda, and we just ate delicious food, like truffle fries and too tall of burgers, and sat at that round table on the patio laughing and talking and it was so good, just really good to be with these wonderful new friends in this little life here, so far along, link connecting to link, bringing me, bringing me along. 

Then I was nostalgic because that particular Umami used to be a Cobras and Matadors that sprouted up after the first one got so popular and then it got too popular and then it all imploded and now there are no more Cobras and Matadors. But I walked through that restaurant looking around, remembering how many days I’ve lived and how much love there is. 

I made a toast that night, to friends, and also to the fact that Cat Stevens has a new album out. Because I’m so happy about both of those things, especially about the Cat Stevens album. Because he’s my favorite pretty much and reminds me of growing up and experience and loss and bravery and everything about having to go on this long big journey all by yourself and more beautiful things even than that, like the light in the windows and the wind and staying up all night in Chamonix singing along to the Best Of Cat Stevens tape because it was the only tape in that wooden house in the Alps that one summer so long ago with my family.

And then it was Thanksgiving and I went hiking early in the morning and I passed one of the old Polish guys that I’ve always seen walking up the trail with his six friends every morning.  All of these years hiking up there, the Polish group in the mornings. Just yack yack yacking away. And then the two Polish women would always break off and play tennis together on the rickety, broken court in the hills. So happy and active running around on that court with the tree branches poking through the concrete. I love that group of people. And I used to always try and say good morning to them, a long time ago, and they were so wrapped up in each other, they never said hi back, so I finally stopped trying to say hi to them, but they became a real part of the scenery for me.

I hadn’t been up there in a while and then, on Thanksgiving morning, I was walking down the path and just saw that one Polish guy sitting by himself on a bench down near the end of the trail. And I thought about friends and Umami dinners and the old Cobras and Matadors and Cat Stevens and everything that makes us love.  Maybe the rest of the Polish group had just gone home already. Maybe. But, I just thought, in any case, one day, there will just be one Polish guy sitting on a bench. And all of that love trailing behind him. 

Quiet Slow World

Sometimes, here in this big city, I’ll stop and think about home in Aspen. About growing up and the mountains. About the windows and the moonlight on the ground.  When I would just sit by the fire circling things I liked in catalogues, like gourmet gift baskets, apple baskets with chocolate covered popcorn, from Harry & David. Or maybe sweaters from Eddie Bauer that I didn’t really want but were the best thing in the catalogue so I circled them anyway, while the quiet snow fell outside.  

Now it’s so fast all the time. And loud. Traffic and subway stations where there’s a guy behind my shoulder asking me to help him because he just got out of jail, while I’m the only human being in the whole subway station just trying to buy my fare at the machine and that’s just not the right way to ask me to help you, by saying you just got out of jail and hovering over my shoulder too close. And then I take the slightly wrong train in my panic so I have to get off and wait for the next one and I’m mostly alone again at a stop I don’t know and somewhat worried but keeping myself together because you sort of have to all the time and it’s just the subway even though no one seems to ride it here at night except me and the two people waiting with me.  

I just miss it sometimes. I miss the quiet snow and the fireplace and not having the world beating down on you and your job grading your performance and too many horns honking for no understandable reason and politics and waking up to go make money and being grown up and everything you have to think about. 

Except that it was pretty funny the other morning when the toilet wouldn’t stop flushing and I tried to fix it and it started spraying on me out of the pipes and I woke up Z, not because he would know how to fix it or anything but just to join me in the hullaballoo because it was funny and maybe he would know how to fix it anyway. He didn’t. He just got sprayed too.

I know there’s a lot of beauty in this. And humor. And I do love it, this whole thing. But still, I miss the quiet slow world sometimes. Curled up with catalogues, circling things.