. . . . I found a discarded Christmas tree on West Eighty-fourth on one of those metallic gray days late in January, and the overturned decoration was not a tree at all but something artificial, a fake cluster of branches no more than three feet high, and seriously, though somewhat unevenly, sprayed silver. It was the quintessential appearance of the appearance. When you touched the nettles on the piteously skinny though eternally glittery stems, random twigs and flecks of silver paint came off in your hands. I fell in love with it instantaneously and hauled this painted shard of simulated forest back to the apartment. Then I placed it on a dresser and kept it there until May, when most of the “foliage” had fallen onto the floor, creating a nostalgic, formless little carpet of bright needles. It made me feel good to do something my mother would not have dared. Once, at Christmas time, as a small child in Europe between the two wars, she had attempted to sneak into her house a tiny, toy evergreen, elaborately festooned and no more than six inches high- nonetheless it was the ultimate forbidden signifier of despised and feared Goy-dom next to all those nasty little crucifixes- and apparently it did not end well. . . .
What a lovely holiday gift to your readers. This is a charming tribute to your mother and maybe Charlie Brown too. You made me love that scrawny little tree.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this vignette very much and it works just as it is. It's lovely, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. The next part, the part that "did not end well" can only be ugly and, as a reader, I wouldn't want the mood changed and spoiled.
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