Already pajamaed, I watched fat snowflakes land in succession on the glass ceiling over my head. Sleeping? Impossible when there was such unstoppable falling.
I thought about sneaking downstairs barefoot, just to see if anyone was around to share the view, but decided to sleep on it instead. When I awoke a few hours later, the snow still poured down.
In the New York City square, he asked me if I was a registered Democrat. I told him I lived in Iowa, and that I was registered there.
“That’s the hub of it all,” he said. “I’m guessing it’s wild.”
“It is,” I said, as my friend continued toward Filene’s Basement. “I’ve never seen the Caucuses. It’s weird to be in the middle of things way out there.”
He nodded and held his clipboard to his chest, no longer interested in my signature.
“I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll sing along to the next song,” said the man who had just finished a slice of cheese pizza.
The radio switched to “Proud Mary,” and everyone in the joint murmured.
The girl’s smile spread across her face. “I don’t know the words,” she said, but she knew enough to prove, using her Sprite bottle as a microphone, that she was not afraid to channel Tina.
The littlest ones wander, more interested in the prayer book on the priest’s chair than in standing with other shepherds and angels. A blonde girl breaks her prayer pose to wave at her mother just before Silent Night begins.
And, by the manger, the girl kneeling as Mary avoids eye contact with the boy serving as Joseph. He stares intently at the manger, as overwhelmed, in his own way, as the man he represents.
The mailbox clanged shut. “There you go, honey,” the mother said. “Your letter’s on the way to Santa Claus.”
The knee-high girl tilted her head up so her face poked from her purple quilted hood. She slid a hand up the mailbox as if Santa Claus might be inside, might know that she was outside holding her wishes tight to her heart, even as they sat inside in their envelope.
Then she turned and toddled after her mother, peeking back every few steps, just in case she was missing any magic behind her.
Things pair up in my memory of Germany: a thunderstorm and the green sofa my friend and I used as a ship to ride it out, hard candy and the velvet of the seat at the Cologne opera house, the lighting of purple candles and singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel with my parents at the dining room table, the whole house dimmed in reverence.
“That one,” I told my friend. “That one is my favorite carol of all.”
Over the sushi bar, a flat-panel television played ice skating. It seemed the perfect sport for the meal, the dazzling combos, the emphasized artistry, the way the skates glided over the slippery ice as fish slid down my throat.
The sushi chef, between orders, moved to the end of the bar so he could get a better look. He wiped rice from his hands with a damp towel as the woman on the screen spun on one foot, her opposite leg lifted effortlessly behind her head.
100 Proof 