Before I realized what form this year’s Holiday Stroll would take, I was haunted by the faceless mannequin displays at Macy’s in Downtown Crossing, Boston – at which point this rendition of a BTS song came over the sound system, and everything fell into place for the duration of the music.
The power of a potent pop song – the sillier the better.
For anyone struggling this Christmas day, or during any point of this purportedly most wonderful time of the year, I offer some solace and empathy and understanding. Know that you are not alone, and there are plenty of us who no longer find the magic of Christmas for whatever reason – and that’s ok.
So take a moment for yourself, clear some space around you, and just let loose to this ridiculous song.
A crescent moon hung low in the sky the other night, unfairly juxtaposed beside a garish Christmas light display that threatened to steal its unassuming glory, but my eyes were mesmerized by the moon. These days my preferences run to the natural and subdued – more crescent moon than riotously-bright rainbow tree displays. It portends where this blog will be headed at the turn of the new year.
Subtlety. Simplicity. Sanctity. For now, I sit before the Christmas tree, enjoying the colors of its ornaments and lights, but more than that the scent and shade of its evergreen nature. The ornaments, while beautiful, are merely extra – and for perhaps one of the first times in my life, I’m a little over being so extra.
The cynical/realist part of me knows it won’t last. We will try for a day, and we might make it stick for a bit – perhaps even into the new year if we piggyback it onto some resolutions – more promises destined and almost designed to fail.
But we are not there yet, and right now the hope is still alive. That’s what matters. Merry Christmas to all.
My brother led us deeper into Chinatown to a place he and Noah had gone before, where an enormous crab covered in ocean dust guarded the entrance and lorded over a collection of lobsters in a fluorescently-lit tank. It was already after eleven o’clock but a large table of at least ten sat in a corner finishing their meal, and another group of six was coming in behind us. Chinatown has traditionally been the place to grab a late-night meal when other places have shut down.
We ordered family-style – some soup, some duck, some pork, some Chinese cabbage, some rice – and as we filled ourselves I recounted the first time we had Peking Duck – at the wedding of our cousin in New Jersey when we were just children. Telling Noah about it, we realized that I remembered it better than my brother, though the reminder brought back the way the dish was served. We didn’t delve too deeply into conversation as it was nearing midnight, and really, it was enough just sharing a meal together.
The wait staff were starting to get antsy too, so we finished just about everything on the plates before us, piled on our coats, and made motions to head back into the cold night, reasonably warmed and fortified. Before stepping out, we came up with a game plan for getting home: we would walk out of the traffic entanglement of Chinatown, head down to the Four Seasons overlooking the Public Garden and splurge on an Uber from there to the condo.
Three Ilagan gentlemen weaved their merry way through Chinatown, over a hundred years of living between the three of us – and soon found ourselves skirting Boston Common and a stretch of trees lit in various Christmas colors. My brother asked about Kira then, saying he had seen I’d written something about it but hadn’t read it, and I was suddenly touched by his remembering, as well as by the return of my old friend to this holiday season, if only by reference and recall.
It struck me then as we crossed the midnight hour, that this was the Holiday Stroll. Without planning or fanfare or even the most rudimentary understanding of how it all happened, we were in the middle of our very first Midnight Holiday Stroll, and my brother and nephew were part of it. Sometimes tradition finds a way of happening even when you’ve given up on it. As we walked past the Boston Public Garden, site of our very first Holiday Stroll – we ducked into the Four Seasons and looked at Uber rates. They were starting at $30 for just a few blocks, which seemed criminal, and, truth be told, I wasn’t quite ready to end our walk, so we continued on, my brother and my nephew and me.
When left to our own devices, my brother and I usually get along quite well, and I was just starting to see how other family members have inadvertently set us up in adversarial roles over the years, through various expectations and unfair comparisons. Comparison is the thief of joy, especially when used among siblings. We may not have realized that in time, but we were together now, and there was still the love of two brothers between us, and that’s all that mattered on this night.
It’s been years since my brother and I spent any time together in Boston, which seems a little sad given how much we each love the city and how easy it would be to meet up here. Alas, the years went by and nothing ever lined up until this day, when he and my nephew Noah were in town for a show at House of Blues, and I was preparing for a holiday gathering the following weekend.
With Kira off the grid, I welcomed the presence and distraction of my brother – and if you know my brother at all you know there is no greater presence or distraction. On this Saturday afternoon, it was precisely what I wanted – and as I returned to the condo after a few more errands, I was happy to find him and Noah there, where Christmas lights twinkled and holiday music played on the little stereo. The decorations I’d put up hadn’t been totally wasted then, and as I lit a few candles the afternoon glowed inside as the outside grew dark.
The three of us sat around the table overlooking Braddock Park, a random assorted of cheese, crackers olives and soda on a board messily assembled without rhyme or reason. An atmosphere of holiday coziness settled around us, and my brother recalled his and Noah’s late-night Chinatown dinner tradition; they’d spent several post-show/post-game nights over dinners in Chinatown – one of the things I used to do with Kira. He said they would do it again that night and invited me to join them after the show. I said that would work, and asked them to text me when they were done, at which point I’d meet them at the Boylston stop since they’d be coming from Fenway – we could walk from there to Chinatown and have a late dinner.
While they headed out for their show I brought my notebook to a nearby cafe for an hour or two of cafe culture, whereupon I began the ramblings of this recounting (and yesterday’s posts). By the time I returned to the condo to get ready for dinner, it was beginning to feel a lot more like Christmas. ‘Meet Me In St. Louis’ was playing on the television and I decided to get a head start to the Copley T station while soaking in the festive fireplace environs of the Lenox Hotel lobby.
Pulling a hood over my head and letting a long coat billow behind me, I hurried down the stairs to the street below and made my way through the Southwest Corridor Park then down Dartmouth toward the Lenox and its fire-lit warmth. Merry-makers decked out in holiday finery sat around the fireplace, but a chair was open for the taking, and I sank it, quickly warming to the picturesque scene. Soon – too soon, really, as I was just slipping into a relaxed state for the first time that weekend – my brother was calling, telling me they were on their way. I pulled my coat back on and headed out, arriving at the Boylston station a few minutes before they got there.
We walked to Chinatown, recalling that holiday classic ‘Gremlins’ and its opening scenes of pricing a Mogwai. I told Noah the story of how his Dad and I saw it in the theater when it opened, and how sick I got, either from fear or summer heat – and almost didn’t make it home without throwing up in our neighbor’s caravan. Ah, to be a kid in the 80’s…
Decades later, and after several years of distance, my brother and I were back in Boston, walking to dinner in Chinatown with his son, and uncertainly completing a circle, one circle of several on our journey.
The idea of a solo Holiday Stroll was formulating in my head as I stood in the cold wind outside Fanueil Hall. What, after all, was the point of traditions? Why did it feel important to maintain them? In some way, it was one of the only things of reassurance in a year that found nothing assured or safe. There was comfort in tradition, but maybe coming out of one’s comfort zone was the only way to grow and evolve. I still wasn’t sold on the idea of carrying this one on solely for the sake of tradition; I also wasn’t against ending this still bit of holiday folklore I’d created so many years ago and starting over, or not starting again at all. Some endings should stand on their own. I resumed my solitary walking, nearing a lone bull market stand where sausage sandwiches were being assembled, and the aroma of peppers and onions smoldering beside them made for a deliciously cozy smell at the late lunch hour. Music played from the proprietor’s phone, and though the song that was playing, ‘Fire and Rain’ by James Taylor, had never been a favorite of mine, today I listened, and it spoke in a new way, opening up like classic songs tend to do when you are ready to receive them.
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I’d see you again
In that moment, the grayish sky began dropping large but mercifully-spaced-out snowflakes, more pretty than menacing, more beautiful than annoying, at least at this initial stage. Our very first Holiday Stroll happened on a snowy morning of similar loveliness, and suddenly it struck me how close the word ‘loveliness’ is to ‘loneliness’.
My mind travels back to that snowy stroll through the Boston Public Garden with Kira, and as snowflakes instantly melt into tears on my eyelashes, I understand that I carry her with me. More snowflakes fall into my hair – silver piling upon silver, simultaneously stinging and tickling when they reach skin. Hastening my steps, I pass the building I used to work in, and those hilarious days of retail flood forth from the memory bank, along with the years of finding solace in my retail family – Barrie, Suzie, John, Ginette, Spencer, Jose, Ola, Simon, and Kim – all of them come rushing back. At a time when I felt out of place at school, they gave me one of my first glimpses of what it was like to be accepted, and adored, for being nothing but myself. My own family hadn’t always made me feel like that, and to find it with people who started as strangers was somehow more poignant. It brought back the upstate New York retail family – Dawn and Matt and John and Justin – and I realized I carried them with me too. Memories of my John Hancock office job – with JoAnn, Kira, Tamekia, and Bettina – and the whole microfiche community crossed my mind, and my last long-term love in Boston – Paul – and our time together, reminded me that even absent, they were a part of this.
Nearing the front entry of Faneuil Hall, I recalled the side-splittingly funny episode Skip and I shared listening to a man sing a rather catchy song about diarrhea – and all the riotously comical BroSox Adventures rushed into my mind – as did a stormy but sweet night with Sherri and their kids at the Boston condo. I thought then of my current co-workers, and the friend who brought me into my longest office home – Marline – as she and Gretchen had seen ‘Plaza Suite’ in Boston (a show we were scheduled to see just as COVID hit)- and more co-workers past and present who have become friends in their own right – Lorie and Sue and Doris and Betsy – they were all there with me as I climbed the stairs up past City Hall.
Andy reached out a hand from memory then, and the many moments we have shared in Boston – from the day we secured our wedding license at City Hall (strangely moving) to our wedding day at the Public Garden, and all the anniversaries and visits before and since. Every step of every stroll I’ve ever taken or will ever take in Boston comes with an accompanying loved one, often several, and even when I’m alone they are still with me.
Been walking my mind to an easy time My back turned towards the sun Lord knows, when the cold wind blows It’ll turn your head around Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line To talk about things to come Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground
Back on the T, I remember the first time my brother and I rode the green line from Copley to Government Center when Mom thought we were just walking around Copley Place Mall. Our fledgling motions toward independence – it was a thrill as much for its illicit nature as for its empowering glimpse at what it would be like to be on your own in Boston. And then I thought of Mom’s first visits to the city with us in tow – she introduced me to the magic of the city, and its access to all that was beautiful in museums and stores and history – and then I thought of Dad, who literally gave us our home on Braddock Park many years later, and so many years ago. They were with me now too, the way they would always be.
As I rose from the T stop near Copley, the snow was falling more heavily. The afternoon was beginning its turn. Passing the area where I met the first man I kissed, I thought of our brief time together – not the damaging, darker part of it, but that sunny September day when two young men walked along the Charles River together, unsure of anything and everything other than a shared spark of attraction, an empty and beautiful afternoon, and the possibility of a promise of an entire world and lifetime in the air. Walking deeper into the South End, I remembered my friend Alissa’s first apartment, and a photo shoot we did there, and all the ensuing years of friendship that found us reconnecting in Boston at every major interval in our lives. She was with me too, and so was Chris, who introduced her to us just as they started dating. Chris and Suzie and Anu and Kristen and Tommy and Janet – and all the love we shared through these past decades – the holiday children hours, the weddings and births and deaths – I felt them and our shared history there, strolling beside me, linking spiritual arms and charging through life, always together.
I was hurrying a bit now as the sun was coming down, and I thought back to one of my earliest Boston memories of my Uncle Roberto, tying a scarf around his head as we ran back to the condo after watching a James Bond movie on a frigid January night – parts of his original painting job remain – the gold accents and green stripes – and I knew he was with me as well, even though he’s been gone for over twenty years. All of my loved ones – whether near, far, or sadly departed – walked with me as my snowy stroll neared home.
Maybe there is no such thing as a solitary stroll. Maybe all of our ghosts walk with us once we’ve experienced and amassed a certain amount of living. Maybe this wasn’t My Holiday Stroll for the year – maybe this was Our Holiday Stroll.
Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I’d see you, baby One more time again, now Thought I’d see you one more time again There’s just a few things coming my way this time around, now Thought I’d see you, thought I’d see you, fire and rain, now
Trudging up the final steps and unlocking the door, I stepped into the room and remembered that I was no longer alone. A backpack and sweatshirt were thrown on the couch – my brother and nephew had arrived in town for a concert that night – and they were about to turn the solitary stroll I’d just reconciled in my mind on its head…
I haven’t quite decreed because I haven’t quite decided. As I sit here in a Copley cafe on a Saturday night (hello cafe culture!), sipping on a delicious lavender latte like the fancy fucking princess I imagine myself to be, I contemplate whether this was an official Holiday Stroll, or if it would be better to close off another ancient tradition and make room for something new. Nature does so abhor a vacuum, and I tend to follow her lead. My heart and head would genuinely be all right with either.
As Holiday Strolls have historically gone, this wouldn’t be a bad one, but it was the first without another friend to join me in the journey, which made for some mixed emotions. If we were to recap a proper stroll, we would begin with yesterday’s landing in the city, whereupon an early solo dinner at House of Siam set a quiet beginning to the weekend in motion…
By the time I returned to the condo, light had drained from the sky and the remains of a super Cold Moon rose behind the bare branches of a tree outside the front window, lending a magical backdrop to the holiday-decorating scene taking place in my underwear. That was written poorly, but I like it so I’m leaving it. (A bonus wardrobe aspect of not being burdened by company is running around the place in whatever I want, or don’t want, to wear.)
With each decoration that went up, and each strand of garland that got hung, I felt little pangs of sorrow in the absence of my usual strolling companion. Kira haunted this business of decorating, as she was such a traditional aspect of being in Boston during the Christmas season. When I was done, I sat on the couch as Christmas music played, and as I surveyed the surroundings in their glowing warm lights, I felt a small sense of loneliness – but the atmosphere was warm, the memories were sweet, and overall it wasn’t completely heartbreaking. This is how people move on, I thought – from loss, from change, from tumult – and we just keep doing this dance until it’s over.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when I sat alone in Pho Pasteur and a glorious bowl Pho Tai arrived, that I looked across the table, saw the empty seat, and had a moment of sadness. The pho was hot and filling, and I finished the entire bowl. Walking toward Downtown Crossing, a cold wind blew past me, and I thought how much like ghosts we all were, the way the world could go right through us, leaving us empty.
Haunted.
And in that very moment something else presented itself in my mind – the idea that I might make this the first solo Holiday Stroll – and that it might not have to be so sad if I chose for it not to be. We do have a choice and say in such matters, if we allow ourselves to take such control of our emotional narrative.
There is always a choice.
Emboldened by this, my steps gained in purpose and power. My confidence returned, and I found myself, yes, strolling.
Was this then the new version of our Holiday Stroll? You and me, dear reader, because no one else was there. Would a solo rendition be the path forward for ensuring the survival of a cherished tradition? It felt for a moment like that might be the case. Certainly that was a sustainable twist – I could always count on myself, as the previous half-century had proven; other people had always been the questionable part – the messy, life-affirming, disappointing, and vital part – the part that every once-in-a-while made all the heartache worthwhile.
I was passing through the shortcut I used to take when I worked at Structure, a lesser-known side entrance to Faneuil Hall, and a silly lunch with Kira at the Sugar Factory came to mind, followed by memories of a fortuitously-timed holiday stroll years ago when we happened upon the very day the Christmas was being lit here… and then a summer day by the waterfront spent watching a group of young men playing a volleyball game on a patch of green grass…
Yes, perhaps solo strolls would be the route to move forward, I thought somewhat sadly, because I was sad. I felt it. It was hurt. It was loneliness. It was sadness. And at the same time, it was somehow ok. I felt that too. It was ok to be alone, to be lonesome sometimes, even on a Holiday Stroll intended to celebrate the season. Not wanting to shade this new tradition, however, if that’s indeed what I was inadvertently creating, I decided to turn things around with a sweet treat of chocolate chip cookies.
I held the bag of them in my hand as I sat down on a bench near the North Market building, feeling indulgently sorry for myself as I settled in between two men whose wives or partners would soon return for them. One by one they paired off and departed, leaving me along on the bench, which was better anyway. By the time I finished the last cookie, the brief sense of feeling ok with my present circumstance of a solo stroll had departed, and that dull sadness, that gnawing emptiness of having lost a friend, came back.
Slowly, with the requisite creaks and cracks of fifty-year-old bones that lately hadn’t been accustomed to this much walking, I rose to my feet. Thought briefly of going through the scant smattering of shops that remained on the North Market side, then decided against it, opting to round the far side of the market, by the exit that would lead to the waterfront if I’d taken it. On a warmer day, perhaps… Turning back along the South Market side, I took in the expanse of the cobblestones, and once again marveled at how long they had been there, how many feet had tread upon them, how many people they’d seen pass by – a thought of history that attends many places for me in Boston, and always a good realignment of time and perspective.
There were those whom I had lost – Dad, Uncle Roberto, Gram, Alissa – who were here for meaningful stretches that have continued long after their physical departures, and there will very likely be others I will lose before I leave this earth. I walked with them now as I continued this lonely holiday stroll as hints of snow started falling from the sky…
For those who may have missed my holiday photo card, here’s a fun reminder, and a scandalous GIF below. The high holiday week is upon us – may your hands be filled with Christmas spirit and all that jizz… let’s erect this holiday recap in the best sense of the word…
One of the traditions that Andy taught me a quarter of a century ago was the burning of wishes on the seasonal equinoxes. It is on this day when we write our wishes/intentions for the upcoming winter on a piece of paper, then light them up for the universe to take up in its arms and manifest their hopeful completion.
It turns out that licking Donald Trump’s diaper-ridden butt (allegedly) and being a vile and viciously obnoxious jerk (allegedly) isn’t a winning campaign strategy, so Elise Stefanik has dropped out of the governor’s race in New York (where all the polls had her abysmally trailing Governor Hochul by embarrassing double-digits). All her sucking-up to Trump and defending his indefensible actions couldn’t get him to endorse her (he’s just not into you Elise) which makes this somehow more pathetic for her (not counting that time she was practically booed off the stage in her own state).
Personally, I know of only one person here who might vote for her, and he’s already established himself as a bit of an asshole anyway, so it seems the sane and sound among us are over this kind of hateful MAGA crap. In many ways, Trump himself may be largely responsible for Stefanik’s relatively quick fall from where the hell she thought she was. People are tired of the hate, tired of the GOP vitriol, and tired of anyone who bows down to Trump so shamelessly and, in hindsight (or foresight of the rest of us), so stupidly.
This may be the first year in which I am genuinely excited to welcome in winter. We’ve flirted in the past, because it does take a certain courting period to get me to warm up to, well, anything. Lately though, I’ve been leaning into the season of rest and slumber, embracing its icy beauty, and wondering at its life-lessons.
I think it started with the last couple of winters Dad was with us in our old home. To give Mom a break, and to spend time with my father, I’d take a day off from work and drive to Amsterdam, setting up camp while Mom ran errands or just took some time for herself. On the dim gray days, I’d light candles and make tea, then join Dad for whatever black and white movie was on television.
In the early days of his decline, he’d peruse his paper, and later on a worn collection of fake money. We’d amble in to the kitchen for whatever lunch Mom had left for me to heat up, and if the sun was out all the light would pour into the kitchen like it did for so much of my childhood. Back when he could get around, we’d take brief walks outside, but in winter we could only take a walk through the dining room and living room, where he’d pause and look out the windows.
Sometimes we’d sit in the living room – the place of Christmases past, and birthday parties, and extended family dinner gatherings – the space where the most special events played out, and then the most important event of them all: time with my father.
This winter I’m looking forward to the quiet that follows the holidays, the way candles can flicker and glow even in the daylight, and the slow shift of the sun as it begins elongating the days. The stark, lean, cruel beauty of tinter – we will take our time, letting the days slowly pass, growing longer one by one…
This really should have been a proper Holiday Card, but since it wasn’t I’ll just keep reposting it when Christmas rolls around – it will always tickle me and me nether regions in the warmest and fuzziest way.
We don’t always have the entire say in what memories pop up, or when they decide to rear their heads, but we can embrace and engage with the good ones, while acknowledging and letting the bad ones go. I’ll hold onto this happy one for as long as possible.
Making what will likely be his final appearance here to close out the Autumn of Oud, he rather ironically wears an Amouage fragrance titled ‘Overture’ (and little else) in the promise of a beginning and an ending at once – the very essence of incongruous impossibility. Such has been the conundrum that is the existence of Mr. Oud. For those seeking resolution or revelation of who Mr. Oud really is, this post will not go very much further in illuminating that. If anything, he departs leaving more questions, more mysteries, than we had before his arrival.
Mr. Oud artfully ingratiates himself into your world, making you think of him in a way he will never think of you – his exquisitely-fragranced coat and scarf floating in the air as more of a ghostly apparition than any physical embodiment of personhood.
He is Scrooge and Santa and little baby Jesus as much as he is not, balancing precariously between worlds, straddling the dangerous space where the precious clashes with the permissible, and what you want to see diabolically overrides what you actually see.
Mr. Oud has only ever been who you want him to be – a mirror and crystal ball that invites the indulgent luxury of getting to put him in whatever box you’d like. Like smoke and perfume, he can find his way through he smallest openings – transporting himself invisibly, riding on the wind and infiltrating the mind because he was never quite real. Mr. Oud was an idea and a ghost, and once his purpose was served, it was like he was never there.
But what purpose was that? What role did he actually inhabit in your world? What does anyone really mean to anyone else?
Maybe he was just fashion and movement, pose and provocation, fuckery and trickery for a fall of dreams that went unfulfilled. Maybe he was the tragedy you could enjoy, brush up against, and thrill at from a distance. Maybe you made him do your dirty work, and maybe you were just a little envious that he got away with it. Maybe you were mad because he dared, and maybe you were glad.
The many maybes of Mr. Oud hang there in the air like filigrees of incense, curing elegantly into a darkened sky of almost-winter, studded with the sparkling promise of starlight from the past – the ultimate illustration of the multitudes that that the universe contains.
And so he ends his brief time with us on the note of Amouage’s ‘Overture’ – his ironic little wink of a name, coupled with a potent and polarizing fragrance, to be appreciated only by those with the most exquisitely refined taste – and abysmally irritating for those who like their scents sweet and safe. This one reads dangerously mythic, with notes redolent of the dark season – myrrh, frankincense and sandalwood – along with a hefty collection of spices like cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and saffron to keep things in the gourmand camp. It is most definitely and deliciously not for for everyone – just like Mr. Oud himself.
