A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday, before the tree came down, I sat before it with the laptop as I have so many mornings these last few weeks, reading and writing in the quiet hours before dawn. The last holiday movie I saw this year was “Scrooge,” one of my favorites. This is not the dark comedy version of A Christmas Carol  starring Bill Murray. It’s the lovely if corny musical version of A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney.

What makes the film is the music by Leslie Bricusse:

Sing a song of gladness and cheer
For the time of Christmas is here
Look around about you and see
What a world of wonder
This world can be. 

Like any self-respecting writer who finds herself down the Google rabbit hole when she should be focusing her attention on the page, I spent a few minutes Sunday morning looking up this composer, at first hesitantly because I very much wanted him to still be alive, then eagerly once I found out he was. Not only did he write the music for “Scrooge,” the LP of which I once hunted down for years and finally found in  a moldy basement of a record shop in the West Village, but he also composed the score of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and teamed up with Henry Mancini on “Two for the Road” — two more favorite flicks.

There’s a certain satisfaction in learning that some of your favorite scores are written by the same person. It makes you want to know that person a little better. So I found an interview with Bricusse, now 86. At the end of the interview was what I would call the “nut graph,” the news value of the story — why there was an interview with Bricusse last November. It was because Scrooge, the musical, was just revived at the Curve Theater in London. In fact, its final performance was happening two hours from when I read the article. Not quite enough time to hop the pond and get there in time. But that’s not to say I didn’t think about it.

(Movie posters: Wikipedia)

In honor of the Epiphany/”Little Christmas”/Three Kings’ Day, here are poinsettias in their natural habitat, which, in this case, was Burma! They put my potted version to shame.

These were growing wild on a walk I took last year in the town of Kalaw. I wasn’t expecting them, didn’t know they grew there. Which was even better than if I’d been looking for them.

They were tall, a bit gawky, but their deep crimsons and maroons stood out among the greenery. It was my only afternoon of leisure and I was able to walk into town, mosey around the market and find a path on the way home that led into the hills.

They were the natural part of that country’s beauty. Here’s another part: the Golden Pagoda seen on a balmy night last November.

Gratitude is best when it’s specific. So herewith, a list:

The volunteer red maple tree is the far corner of the yard.

The view out the conference room window at dawn.

Copper with a day-glo orange ball in his mouth.

The sound of Drew’s voice on the phone.

Celia humming as she sautés onions.

The light on the carpet in the living room.

The Air Force band playing their song at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

The stuffing in the oven and the coleslaw in the fridge.

The pumpkin praline pies in the car.

Family gathering from far and wide.

Ah, yes, “fall back” — the extra hour of sleep, the long morning. It was all fine until about 5 p.m. Then the early darkness (especially with yesterday’s clouds and rain) and the news from Texas of the country’s latest mass shooting made it all too clear that we’re heading into the dark days of the year. 

Two years and a day ago I was coming home from work, switching from the Red Line to the Orange in the dark underground of Metro Center station, when my phone rang. It was Ellen. “Mom sounds a little stronger; I’ll put her on.”

For the past six days, Mom had been in the Annapolis hospital with Ellen, my doctor sister, keeping close watch. I’d been there for all or part of most days but had worked in the office all day that Friday and planned to spend the weekend in Annapolis.

My cousin Julie lives in Santa Rosa, California. She lost her home in the California wildfires. She and her husband escaped in their pajamas. Everyone is fine, but everything is gone.

“Our house had a certain smell to it,” said Jennifer Pierre in an article in yesterday’s Washington Post. Pierre’s house was also destroyed in the fire, even though houses another street over were spared. A sudden shift of wind.

“It was our house. When you come home it has that smell. How can I replicate that smell for my kids. Or is it gone forever?”

When I read this I thought of Suzanne’s friend Katie. One day Katie walked in our house — this has been years ago now — took a long whiff and said, “Your house smells like … West Virginia!” Quickly realizing that this might not have been a compliment, she added that it smelled like West Virginia in a good, spending-a-week-in-a-cabin sort of way. I laugh about that still. What it meant to me was that the house smelled musty. But musty or not, it was one of the few times I heard anyone directly address the aroma of our house.

What would I do if it was gone forever? How can we comprehend the enormity of it all?

In another excellent Washington Post article on the fire, the author Michael Carlston wrote:

We’re trying to function, but it’s difficult when you lived in one world, and now it’s totally different. There’s before, and there’s after. My wife and I are two active and directed people, but we find ourselves sitting and staring in confusion. When everything is lost, what do you do? What are the rules?

I heard them in the flower hedge, a bank of New Guinea impatiens aglow at summer’s end. Sparrows, I guessed, or one of the other nondescript birds.

They were chirping and chattering, calling to each other. Maybe they were squabbling over a crust of bread or a late-day worm. Maybe they were planning their winter escape. Or maybe they were just commenting on the perfect air, the weightless wonder of the afternoon.

I stopped. I listened. I didn’t care who was behind me, who might have had to stop short.

I brake for birds. That’s all there is to it.

For months I’ve kept my eyes on a house at the other end of the neighborhood. While other Folkstone homes sold quickly, this one languished. There was nothing wrong with it. I know this because I toured it, went down the weekend of the first open house and walked through the rooms (of which there were many).

It had four levels, four bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, family room, walk-out basement,  conservatory. It had a long driveway and a fancy patio. It even had a view: You could look east down Fox Mill Road and see green yards, the land rising and falling.

But for far too many weeks, it did not have a buyer.

The realtor was diligent. He held an open house every Sunday, tacking up red balloons to pique interest.  They made me sad.

But yesterday when I drove past, the for-sale sign said “Under Contract.” It wasn’t any of my business, of course, but for some reason this made me very happy.

I’m thinking about today’s to-do list and realizing that personal correspondence ranks high on it. By this I do not mean sending emails.

I mean penning a note to tuck into a birthday card to a friend I made in a church choir when I lived in Chicago. And dashing off a quick thank-you to the hostess for last Friday’s dinner. And this is after yesterday, when I wrote a sympathy card.

This is not exactly 18th century in scope. But it’s three times more cards or letters than I send in a week.  It’s real mail, that which I love receiving and still send … though not nearly often enough.