forcing christmas

I run into a kid walking down the street. Literally run into him; I’m looking down at my phone, he is just starting at his feet slowly walking along. His four front teeth do not have any other beside them, and stick out a little bit over his lower lip when he smiles. He doesn’t smile much though, not until I made a dumb joke about him being cold with not much more than a long sleeve t-shirt on. He is fairly talkative though, as he looks up at me with these hazel dough eyes. After each sentence his right hand sweeping his bangs further over to the right because whenever he begins to talk they slowly drift down to cover his face. He almost looks like a caricature from a Nickelodeon show, like main character from The Fairly Odd Parents.


He seems about the same age as my brother, ten or twelve or so, and I am wondering what ever could make him look so gloomy. At that age six days before Christmas I was nothing but smiles, running around and running just about everywhere, unable to sleep with anticipation. Anticipation for what I’m not exactly sure, because Christmas was never too much of ado in my home. But I remained relentlessly excited for those few hours that frosty morning.

I asked this kid if he was lost, if he needed help or if he wanted me to call his parents. I basically just barraged this little boy with considerate questions, because it was peculiar that he was walking all alone on the side of the road and looking rather down.
“What’s going on buddy? Are you sad?”
“no.”
“really?”
“yea.”
Perhaps in the city this conversation with a stranger would be odd for a child to have, but around here it is not so strange at all. So I keep him standing on the side of the road for minute, pushing him to tell me what is wrong.

“It is almost Christmas, aren’t you excited? ... Your parents must live around here, do you guys have a tree up yet?”
“I’m excited, I dunno.”

“What’s your favorite part about Christmas buddy? This season has to cheer you up!”
This was going to be my blog topic of the week, cheesy, yes, but oh I am sucker for the holidays this season (typically I am not so enthused). But I feel this silly holiday spirit taking over me and am indulging myself in attempts to cheer this little guy up.

“Well my favorite part was Christmas pancakes. My dad cooked it, and he never does that.”
“So there you go- there is something to look forward to.”

“My dad is not here, he traveling or something, and he has not lived in our house for months, he moved out a while ago…”
As he says this no tears run down his face, no real change in facial expression at all. He just keeps looking up at me, brushing away his hair every thirty seconds and blinking/squinting from the glare of the sun.

"its good though, because they used to fight all the time, and I would record it on my phone... i don't think my mom is very happy."
He states this just like he states any old life fact, i can imagine he telling me that ice cream cone melted with the exact same tone. The stoic face of this kid is creepily impressive. At least the sun has given him a more confused expression, rather than the almost expressionless face I was looking down at before. But still, this is not the conversation I was hoping for. I'm almost intimidated especially because before this moment I had that 'talking to a kid' voice going strong, and now I realize his maturity level probably deserves to be spoken to as a peer.

“Buddy I’m sorry. Surely you’re dad will come home soon, and you’ll figure it out.” I have no idea what to say.

“No, it doesn’t matter. My mom says she’s signing papers after Christmas, and she never wants to see him again.”

“Oh my gosh, are you talking to anybody about this? Are you all right?”

“Yeah I have a counselor. Thanks though. I’m going to keep on walking home now…”

“Bye kido, merry Christmas.”

And he waves good-bye still looking right up at me, and then begins walking forward. This kid must not be ten; he just looked so, because his conversation ability was much better than the average ten year old. But I could not help but write about this little encounter. I find that sometimes in the spirit of such togetherness, many of us are faking; because often it is farce and so many of us feel actually feel more isolated, but have no other option other than to trudge along.

He was coming back home after visiting his parents and I was headed to visit mine. We met each other at the mid-point, some two thousand feet above ground traveling over the midpoint of America. I hadn’t reached the mid point of my lie and he had not long past it. These people I seem to have nothing in common with, I always end up having the most. The home I’m traveling back to is something different than the home he’s traveling to. The home that I have he no longer has anymore.

Both of his parents live in assisted housing. His father lives in the very assisted nursing home part, and his mother on the independent apartment style living, but both require lots of attention. His father is suffering from dementia. He cannot tell you what he did two minutes ago, nor twenty years ago, but he can describe to you in perfect detail the first time he bought his son an ice cream cone. He can recalls to his son the first time his father raised his voiced, and the first time his mother told him that she loved him too. The man I’m sitting next to has a gentle demeanor, it is almost nervous because he pauses frequently and second guesses what he has just said, but it is so confident and reassuring that after five minutes of talking with him, you realize the nerves are no more than honest contemplation. I’m contemplating what to do with my life and this man is contemplating what he has done with his. Seeing your parents in the state that his are in, he explains to me, practically forces you to become reflective. His father’s loss of memory has thrown him for quite the loop, not that it is especially surprising, but the scenes that his father does remember fascinate him.
His father was a hard-hitting economist. Who worked closely with the government most of his life, and therefore kept most of his work consuming him and a secret to his family. The man sitting next to me, at the time just a boy, rebelled against his father’s conservative ways all his life, with the intention that someday he would pay attention to him. Of course this dynamic is also not uncommon, and rarely successful.
His mother frequently tells his father, “oh your memory is just so terrible these days.” And the father responds, “yeah but my forgetter sure is in great shape.”

We dwell on this idea. That potentially an active forgetter is a positive. The son, the man I am sitting next to, explains to me how much closer he and his father have becomes since he starting forgetting. He notices that this father does not remember passionately discussing the economy, but passionately doing nothing at all. Spending time with his wife and kids, which he rarely did, remains in his mind as a daily occurrence. The man sitting next to me perceives his father’s exclusive slipping memory as some sort of sign. And he looks at me so assured, with no hesitation in his usually stuttered voice at all: what you remember are the personal connections. Those moments that add up to nothing at all.

It's a Small World

“These were taken before you were born.” I hear a voice speak up from behind me. I think he probably saw my head turn slightly over my shoulder as I passed by, and said this hoping to keep my interest for just a moment longer so that I would slow my walking pace to a pause. It worked. So well that I stopped my beeline for the hot apple cider booth, for almost half an hour.

I love these booths; with their holiday lights strung neatly around each edge connecting one to the other, and their various knick-knacks that I typically find useless but at this moment find charming, the necklaces sold by the woman who made them and the gingerbread cookies sold by the friendliest Asian couple at the hot apple cider booth. There is something about this somewhat theatrical holiday fair that I absolutely adore. When I wander around the half moon shape every day I allow myself to get a little lost, in not just the booths, but the holiday cheer that sometimes disappears.


He is wearing a black fleece north face zipped all the way up to the top, and is shifting his weight from side to side, but considering the worn blue baseball hat on his head, harms hung loosely by his side and tanned face looking quite alive – it was hard to tell if he was hot or cold. But quickly stops my pondering, by interjecting: “This heater back here has me all confused- you too though, right? You think I’m freezing just stand back here, but I’m actually quite warm. The confusing part for me is that my ankles are on fire, but neck is cold.”

His face has a few brown spots that come with age, his crows feet are prominent and he has a few white hairs peeking out from the edges of his hat that match the color of his eyebrows perfectly; each feature conveys his age is well past fifty. He likes to point this fact out as well, by continually repeating the “before you were born” line and doing the math of how much more than three times my age he is my senior.
His name is John. Born and raised in New York City with no intentions of ever leaving. The table between us has piles of t-shirts propped up on display. Lining the walls of his temporary store are canvas and prints. His booth has a different feel than most of them around here; it is calmer and darker- but not in an unwelcoming way. Everything for sale is of gray tone and has a legitimate, not faux-vintage look.

“I took these myself long before you were born.” Again with the age joke. They are all photographs he took in the 70’s and 80’s. They are primarily images of inside the subway system. Various works of graffiti. Trash lined along the tracks. A girl with cornrows blowing her bubble gum. A mom holding her daughter’s collar, while pointing her finger at her son facing the other way. An old man sitting up against the tiled wall with a blanket, playing guitar. Three adolescent boys sitting on the bench in a row, the middle on spinning a basketball on top of his finger and the other two smiling down at the train’s floor. A toddler standing on his mother’s knees, wearing and ‘I heart NY’ onesie. He points at the teenager with the basketball.

This guy- right here, Daniel Bishop. Did I ever tell you I met this guy years later? His friend cam by this very booth a few years back. He recognized his friend in the picture and so we started talking. Turns out this guy still lives in Brooklyn and I told his friend I’d love to meet him- I mean considering I’m selling art with a picture of his face. So a few weeks later we met right here at Union Square and talked for while. Great kid- gave him a bunch of shirts.
Hold onto everything you have – wait twenty some years and some one your age will want them again. See who’s that guy- Gubli- Guliano- you know, the mayor or something - well he, he knew this. So I told him to clean this place up, and he did.