The Christmas tree

I have a thing about Christmas trees, I simply love them. Perhaps it’s a by product of being born on Christmas Day. Santa must have sprinkled some Christmas dust on me that day.

My favourite trees are real ones, the ones that come with built in pine scent and sometimes an abandoned nest or two. As a child my dad would buy a small tree at the corner lot. We lived in two rooms of a house and the Christmas tree was placed on top of Mama’s sewing machine in our bedroom. The head of my bed was next to the sewing machine, which meant I literally slept below the boughs of the tree. In the evening I would sneak away to lie there looking up at the lit tree and dreaming of Christmas.

As a teenager we used to drive out to the country and cut down a tree. This was years before we settled for an artificial tree after picking pine needles out of the furniture for six months after Christmas. The cutting part took less than five minutes but the choosing of a perfectly symmetrical tree took hours. We’d walk deeper and deeper into the tree farm forgetting that the further we got from the car, the farther we’d have to drag that tree back. At the entrance to the tree farm, the owner would place our tree in the binding machine to close up the tree like an umbrella and off we’d go.

One Christmas stands out as the year the Christmas tree and I bonded. My Dad didn’t believe in the store bought metal tree stands, he used a combination of an old bucket, some carefully wedged brick pieces and sand. That year the Christmas tree was placed in the corner of the living room as usual. One night as I sat in the living room, my dad came in to put water in the bucket. He left the room to go to the kitchen and I sat watching the television. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the movement of the tree as it began to fall over. In that split second, I had a vision of the glass ornaments my mother so gingerly brought from Italy in a steamer trunk, making contact with the hardwood floor and I leapt up and grabbed the tree in a hug. I started to scream and my family came from various parts of the house to stand and stare at the sight. Then they started laughing and I must admit I was probably quite a sight. That’s when Dad declared, “I must have forgotten to put the brick pieces in the bucket”. When they pried the tree from my arms I looked down and saw that some of the pine needles had become imbedded in my arms and I was now bleeding. That’s the closest a Christmas tree and I have ever been.

A few years ago, in mid December, I was watching the television and channel surfing as is my habit when I came across a news segment on a Christmas tree. This was no ordinary tree; it was tall and appeared to be indoors, carefully lit to showcase the most amazing decorations I had ever seen. The tree was decorated from top to bottom with porcelain angels and cherubs beautifully hand crafted in 18th century Naples and culminated with a stunning “presepio” at the base of the tree. Where was this tree? I strained to listen to the commentator and hoped he’d tell me where this tree was, but the segment ended without the information and the vision of that tree was soon relegated to memory.

The day after Christmas that year, I headed to New York City with Koji and Brian for my first visit to the Big Apple, the Mecca of theatre aficionados. With theatre tickets, city maps and subway card in hand we descended on Manhattan. Every Yellow cab and New York accent made us feel like we were in a movie. It seemed almost ordinary the night we passed Mira Sorvino and Quentin Tarantino out for a stroll in the upper West side.

The week flew by with theatre productions, gallery visits and trips to numerous museums. On our next to last day we hiked to the Upper East Side to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum is so large that we decided to split up and meet later at the gift shop. The galleries in the museum, especially the replica Frank Lloyd Wright designed cottage and the Tiffany glass, were absolutely breathtaking. I got to the gift store before the others and started to wander around the gifts and books. All of a sudden I came across a book that stopped me cold. A book titled “The Angel Tree” lay before me. When I turned over the book with trembling hands there was the tree. I quickly opened the book in hopes of discovering where the tree was. Imagine my shock when I read “The annual installation of the Christmas tree at The Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, is an event cherished by visitors and scholars alike” The tree was here! But where? I ran to the nearest store clerk and asked about the tree. She pulled out a museum floor plan guide and highlighted a gallery in a far corner of the museum. I paced the floor waiting for Koji and Brian to arrive and they found me breathless with excitement. We headed off in our quest to view the tree. Finally we found the gallery and in the centre of the room, the tree standing majestically, the beautiful pieces of art on it lit by spotlights.

A small group of people circled the tree gazing in wonder and I joined them. After a week of New York City cacophony this silent moment in the gallery with that tree, felt like a solemn benediction. This was my Christmas miracle. Not gifts, or carols or parades, but the baby child nestled in the pine branches of what had now become, my Christmas tree.

Earl Grey Tea

“Hi Nad, do you want to go out for a coffee?”

It had been a year since I’d heard from you or heard that phrase. In hindsight, it’s funny you always referred to going out for coffee, when we in fact would end up drinking tea.

Tea had been foreign to me until I met you. We were coffee drinking Italians. The only tea we knew was camomile tea, which was dispensed for medicinal purposes for everything from menstrual cramps to pneumonia.

You were Japanese and tea was a constant in your home. I can still remember your late mother gracefully preparing a pot of tea in your family home. You introduced me to tea and I soon discovered that I liked tea, if it was strong and sweet and laced with milk, the way I liked my coffee. I like the aroma of tea and perhaps the romance of tea, the way royalty was always depicted drinking tea. I tried to imagine the Queen with a mug of coffee and the picture just didn’t look right.

So now a year after our fight, we’re sitting at the Coffee Mill and I’m playing with an Earl Grey tea bag. Once I place this bag in the cup and pour the hot water we will have come full circle. My heart will be whole again and I will have my best friend back. There is so much I want to tell you, but it can wait. For now I want to savour this cup of tea, Earl Grey tea, strong and sweet and laced with milk.

The Phone on the Wall

The phone hangs in the dining room on the wall, so there is no privacy. It’s the only phone we have in the house so there is no way to take it somewhere, so you can have a private conversation. If the phone rings during dinner, you have a built in audience to your every word.

It’s been a year since our fight and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about you. You, who had been my best friend. You, who have now missed a year of comings and goings in my life. If we even get back together, how will I remember all you have missed.

Let’s face it, it was a stupid fight. You knew I was afraid to drive on the highway, yet somehow you tricked me into it. Linda sat there in the car with us not knowing what to say to make it better. I just wanted you out of my car. I was so mad at you. Later that night as I lay in bed, I would relive the evening and think of how stupid we could sometimes be.

I was out the next day when you came by to drop off the envelope. When I opened the letter, the $10 you owed me fell out. The letter was short and to the point. You took responsibility for pushing all the wrong buttons the night before and apologized. But then you went too far. You said that maybe we needed a break from each other. The words started to run together and I realized I was crying. This was nuts, a break from each other? We were joined at the hip. Such close friends that we finished each others sentences. No one knew me like you did. Our friends never understood the bond, assuming we were secretly dating.

Once my girlfriends found out about the fight, the battle lines were drawn. It was them versus us, the boys versus the girls.

A year later, almost to the day, the wall phone rang after dinner. My sister Anna answered it and started excitedly talking to the caller. She described her high school classes and teachers and I got up to leave the room to offer her some privacy. I didn’t take two steps before she handed me the phone. “It’s for you, it’s Koji”, she said and I stopped in my tracks. I really didn’t have any time to think so I took the phone and quietly said, “hello?” “Hi Nad, do you want to go out for a coffee?” a phrase he’d repeated countless times during our friendship. “Yes”, I answered breathlessly, not quite believing it had come to an end. “I’ll pick you up in 15 minutes”, he said and hung up the phone. I stood there dumbfounded staring at the phone in my hand. Then I turned to my family and announced, “I’m going out for coffee with Koji”.

He was late, but then again, had I really expected anything different. He finally pulled up in front of the house, driving his father’s car. I’d missed the Rambler station wagon almost as much as I’d missed Koji. For that past year, I’d looked for it in all our favourite haunts and was always happy to see it. The plaid interior was classic and the fact that it had no radio meant there was never a distraction to our endless conversations.

I don’t remember much about the night except that we went to our favourite coffee shop “The Coffee Mill” in Yorkville. I remember that I talked incessantly about what had transpired that year, needing for him to be caught up on my life.

When he dropped me off at home that night, he kissed me and hugged me. He made me promise that we’d never fight again. Friends since we were 15 years old, we’ve never fought again.

The Genie in the Bottle

I don’t want to let the genie out of the bottle. God knows I’ve spent decades ensuring he didn’t get out.

But one night it happens. Somewhere between John’s awkward hello kiss, his gentle blue eyes and the Caesar salad, I pull the cork out. No, I don’t just pull it out; I fling that cork clear across the room, ensuring the bottle can’t be stopped up again.

The genie and I are old friends and he has waited patiently for so long to be let out. Now he’s going to savour this victory. He sees the look of sheer panic on my face and smiles a knowing smile. It’s getting really warm in the room, is it the Zinfandel, a hot flash or is it the genie?

Suddenly I’m back in the 9th grade, when a crush had me following a boy named Peter around like a puppy. Yet this is different, or maybe I’m different, it’s hard to tell which. Unlike then, I’m not feeling like I’m about to be sick to my stomach. This feels comfortable, warm and utterly terrifying.

Six hours fly by. I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath the whole time. Then as I drive home, alone with my thoughts, the genie sits triumphantly on the dashboard of my car with his Cheshire grin. As I close my eyes I hear him whisper, “Come on, you know the drill. Your wish is my command!”

Italian Halloween

When I was a little girl, Halloween was a special time. The opportunity to dress up and roam the neighbourhood to secure more candy than you ever saw at one time was irresistible.

But Halloween was also a strange time for me because I was the child of Italian immigrants and there’s no such thing as Halloween in Italy.

The first issue was the costume. Well what was the sense in spending money on something that couldn’t be worn in public except for that one night? My sensible mother solved the problem by deciding I would dress up as a housewife. Or at least a caricature of a housewife. She’d put a scarf on my head, an apron around my waist and to ensure that people understood I was dressed as an adult, she’d apply her lipstick to my childish lips. My mother wore Electric Red lipstick in those days and I can remember it would take days for the colour to wash off.

There is, of course, a candy protocol for Halloween. Children expect to receive candies, chocolate or perhaps exotic items like candy apples which children on TV always seemed to get. No one told the Italians in my neighbourhood about the candy protocol, so they invented their own. You got peanuts in the shell, walnuts, Italian cookies, loose popcorn and sometimes pennies. My dad loved the Italian candy protocol and he usually ate most of what I brought home, but I think he should have worked for it like I did.

Italians also didn’t understand the concept of giving the candies at the door. With Italians you were required to parade into their kitchen while various relatives sat around loudly talking, drinking wine and laughing, until you wondered what you were auditioning for.

My biggest regret at Halloween though was the pillowcase, or for me, that lack of one. There was no way my mother was going to allow one of her pillowcases to be paraded around the neighbourhood gathering treats. Inevitably I’d be given a paper shopping bag and sent out into the night. Every year I’d dread those last 15 minutes when the rain would finally soak through my bag and spill the contents onto the sidewalk. I’d pick up what I could, place it in my apron and scurry home.

I think someone really needed to explain Halloween to the Italians.

Marygrove Camp

I’m jolted from my sleep by the persistent prodding of my ribs. As my eyes slowly adjust to the little light in the cabin, I make out the form of my little sister.

“Wake up, I need to go to the washroom”, she whispers. I can’t believe she’s come all the way over from her cabin to get me to take her.

The washrooms are in a separate building, behind the row of cabins at the girl’s camp. I have been coming to the camp for the past few years. This is my sister’s first time at camp and her greatest fear in the washroom. I slowly get up and try and find my running shoes. They’re damp and I can feel the grit of sand between my toes from our trek down to the beach earlier that evening.

We step outside the cabin and I shudder when the cool air hits me. My summer pj’s are no match for the breeze in the wooded camp. We start to walk past the outdoor sinks with rows of faucets where we brush our teeth and attempt to wash up before breakfast each day.

We follow the cement sidewalk that leads to the washroom building and my sister’s hand tightens its grip in mine. She’s terrified, I know, but she really needs to go to the washroom. A few days ago when my cabin went on an overnight sleep over in a tent, my sister actually went 24 hours without using the washroom. I can’t remember her ever being so happy to see me as she was that day.

My sister thinks I’m brave but the truth is I’m just as afraid as she is, but I must not show it. She’s my responsibility while we are at camp and I want to keep her safe.

We get to the washroom, I pull on the screen door and it creaks loudly. It is totally dark inside and I know where the light switch is, but I hesitate. This is the part that’s terrifying. If we could find our way in and out in the dark then maybe we could pretend that they’re not there.

The secret is to get in and out as quickly as possible and just not look at the walls of the washroom stalls. I turn the light on and it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. I see them then, on the walls, just sitting there, Daddy long leg spiders. My sister shudders and I tell her to just run and sit and keep the door open. “Just look at me and not the walls”, I remind her. She hurriedly goes to the washroom and we run out, my sister giggling at the fact that she wasn’t devoured by the spiders. At least not this time.

I get her back to her cabin and go back to mine. I’m just about to drift off to sleep when I realize I need to go to the washroom. For the second time that night, I climb off the bunk bed trying not to wake everyone in the cabin. Attached to our cabin is a separate room where our counsellors sleep. I knock on their door and I hear one of them shuffle to the door.

“What’s the matter?” she whispers as she rubs the sleep from her eyes.

“I need to go to the washroom”, I quietly answer. She picks up a flashlight and takes my hand as tells me not to be afraid as we head out down the path. If feels good to have someone braver when you have to go to the washroom at camp.

My World is One Block Long…

My world is one block long and two blocks wide. In inter-city Toronto in the fifties it is still possible to live on a street where English is rarely spoken.

I am four years old and I live on this street with my Mamma and Papa. Although I was born in this city, I cannot speak or understand English as my parents have only been in the country for five years. In this neighbourhood, Italian is the language of the grocery store, the language of gossip and the language of the church. There is yet no need to learn English.

We live in a house with a family who has three children. Nine people share the only bathroom. On the second floor of this house we rent two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. The kitchen strains to contain a table, four chairs and a hutch. It is where we eat and where we entertain friends, the chairs often overflowing into the hallway. Down the hall there is a bedroom which holds our beds, two dressers and my mother’s Singer sewing machine. It is a pedal powered sewing machine positioned in front of the bedroom window to take advantage of the natural light.

In each of our two rooms there is a large picture of a blonde little boy holding a ball. His name is spoken in hushed reverence of a life ended too soon. My brother Renato, who I never knew, died the year I was born. His death paralyzed my Mamma with grief until she realized she was pregnant and had a new life to live for.

The sewing machine is right next to the head of my bed. At Christmas we always have a real tree and it sits precariously on top of the sewing machine. We decorate it with glass ornaments my Mamma brought gingerly from Italy in a steamer trunk. The ornaments were the only things to arrive unbroken after that harrowing ten day trip across the ocean with a sick little child. They were a reminder of her first Christmas as a bride back in Italy and the loss of the other things in that trunk was easily forgotten. We adorn the tree with a string of brightly coloured bulbs and paper icicles that catch the light as they move about. At night, when I go to bed, I gaze up at the tree from below it and feel somewhat like a Christmas present. In a year that had known so much grief, Mamma said I was a gift, born on Christmas day.

My neighbourhood smells like an Italian kitchen, the scent of tomato sauce simmering on the stove drifting out of the open windows into the street. Occasionally a cellar window is open and in the fall you can smell the wine fermenting in the giant oak barrels. In the summer I play on the sidewalk outside our home, hopscotch or when someone is lucky enough to have a skipping rope, games of double-dutch. Between each sidewalk square the tar bubbles up in the summer heat and I take my sandals off and pop the bubbles with my toes invariably covering them in tar. Mamma will not be pleased as she scrapes the tar off my feet.

My Papa is tired when he comes home from work. Long hours of working in the sun and rain have made him much older than his thirty-three years and his face is deeply tanned. I wait on the sidewalk and watch for his familiar shape and gait in the distance as he draws closer, swinging his lunch pail. When he bends to hug me, he smells of sweat and cement, the dust clings to his clothes and face. He disappears downstairs to the basement to change out of his work clothes emerging as the Papa I recognize, in his favourite plaid shirt and no longer wearing the construction hat that hides his wavy hair.

Mamma stays home to care for me. In that cramped kitchen, she cooks marvellous meals. Dishes our English neighbours would never have known; osso bucco (stewed veal shank), polenta (cornmeal) and baccala (salty stewed fish). She sews magic with her sewing machine, taking second hand clothes bought at church rummage sales, and turning them into nearly-new looking dresses for me. Some days, as a treat, she takes me to the park where she pushes me on the swing, or gazes anxiously as I climb the monkey bars, inevitably falling and scraping my leg.

One day, when we go to visit family friends, I am left behind with no explanation. Time seems to be suspended, the few weeks that I actually spend there. I feel lost, confused and voiceless to express my feelings. Why am I here? Where have my parents gone? The couple, Maria and Gino, close friends of my parents, have a little girl my age. They live in big house, with a yard full of flowers the likes of which I have never seen. I am inconsolable. Their house in unfamiliar to me, with many doors, most of them closed. I am frightened by a cuckoo clock in the hall which loudly sounds the hours while the little bird jumps in and out of his little house. Each time I walk by I pray it won’t ring. Too young to be able to read the clock face, I can’t predict the next time the little bird will come out and the clanging will begin, so I try to avoid the hallway or scurry past it.

Eventually I am returned to my home, but something has changed. Grief hangs in the air and my Mamma is very sick. She never leaves her bed, unable to walk on her own. Each morning, after breakfast, I pull the kitchen chair to the sink and wash the breakfast dishes as best as I can, trying to be helpful. I make my way down the hall to the bedroom and spend my day sitting on the carpet at the foot of Mamma’s bed playing with my doll, carefully changing her in and out of the only cotton sundress she has and pretending she is my little baby. The days turn into weeks. Mamma cannot take me to the park, yet I am content.

For now, my world in one block long and two blocks wide.

* * *
With time, Mamma will regain her strength and walk again. It will be many years before I understand what happened. That Mamma had gone to the hospital to deliver the twin boys she had carried for nine months, only to lose them both during delivery. I will be an only child for two more years before my sister Anna is born and it will take six more years after that before our brother Paolo arrives.

Vanessa

I’m running late and even though I planned my route to avoid the Marathon, I forgot about the Ten Commandments. Not the commandments themselves, but the fact that they are being displayed at the ROM for the last day today and Bloor Street has suddenly become a parking lot.

I’m taking my mom down to Covenant House on Gerrard Street, for the annual volunteer and donor appreciation event. We haven’t been down there since 2005 when I received a certificate for 10 years as a donor.

As we hurriedly make our way into Covenant House past young people opening doors for us and welcoming us with open smiles, my irritability over the traffic chaos melts away.

This building is a wonderful place, warm and inviting, as it was planned to be and as it must be if it is to achieve its goal. We’re directed to the cafeteria for refreshments of sandwiches, cheese, fruit and sweets. Nanaimo bars, oh my God, they have a platter of Nanaimo bars!

Mom and I fill our plates and find a spot in the crowded room to sit. The food is fresh and tasty and I try to imagine this as the first meal in days for a homeless young person. I want to go into the kitchen and hug the staff.

As the room starts to empty a little, I see that some of the young people are clearing the tables to make room for arriving guests. That’s when I spot her, a young woman probably not even 20 years old, with long brown hair. She’s wearing a NYC sweat shirt and a pair of jeans that are frayed at the feet. She looks out of place in this room full of donors wearing business suits and Sunday dresses. It’s her posture that has me puzzled as she’s always looking down at the floor, hardly looking up at all. She passes close by me and I see the reason for her timidness. She has terrible acne and most of her face is red with awful sores. She is trying to help out and remain invisible at the same time. Her name tag says Vanessa.

It’s such a pretty name and I wonder what her story is. Where does she come from and what has landed her at the doorsteps of Covenant House. Was she seen as a leper amongst her peers and ostracized? For twenty minutes I try and make eye contact with her as she floats silently amongst the tables collecting empty dishes and cups.

Finally, she makes it to my table and I lift my plate and hand it to her forcing her to raise her face to look at me. I smile and say “thank you” as she takes my plate. She softly says “thank you” and I glimpse a small smile on her face. Her beauty suddenly illuminates the room.

I want to go back to the people lined up outside the ROM who are waiting to see the Ten Commandments. I want to tell them there is a woman at Covenant House named Vanessa, who has just shown me the face of God.

The Bouquet

In our basement we have a second kitchen. Over time the kitchen has turned into a receptacle for anything worth keeping or anything that refuses to be thrown out. On the countertop amidst the Christmas china set, an old knife block and a balloon hand pump there sits a dusty bouquet.

The bouquet is mine, or at least I think it’s mine. Anna and I were bridesmaids at our brother’s wedding and when she flew back to Nova Scotia, she left her bouquet behind. I remember keeping the better of the two and tossing the other one out, but whether it was mine or hers that got tossed, I don’t remember.

The bouquet reminds me of the bridesmaid dress hanging upstairs, never to be worn again. Anna took hers home and announced that she’d probably turn it into throw cushions for her couch.

But what the bouquet really reminds me of is my brother’s military styled planning of the wedding. As an engineer, he prepared Gantt charts with every detail of the wedding referenced and cross referenced. Each of us received our own personalized Gantt chart clearly indicating where/when/why and what we were to be doing every moment of that day. From the early morning hair salon appointment to the end of the day car pooling, it was a study in precision.

Unfortunately, the only thing I remember about the Gantt chart was that it demonstrated Paolo’s inability to spell. For there on everyone’s copy of the Gantt chart almost at the end of the evening was listed an event I was certainly looking forward to.

10:30pm Gina throws the bucket.