Smiling Back

"The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why."

―G. K. Chesterton

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Dear Kate,

Hotel Georgia.  A special one for me.  Never stayed there.

Elvis was.  I can imagine him rubbing half the world against his hip in the 1927 Lobby Lounge.

Years ago when my kids were young we went downtown to look at Christmas lights.  (Did they like it?  I just realized I've never asked this question until now.)  It was cold, frigid.  I don't remember what brought us inside, probably the cold, more likely to see if there's any beautiful Christmas tree.

It doesn't matter, for there is only one memory to recall: that we were served apple cider at the door.  (Did Chesterton ever write anything about cider?  Of course he did.)

To explain to you the cider's aftertaste now is to speak about the taste, the aroma, the warmth it has lost since then.  No point to expect anything different: people grow up, grow out of stuffs, and there's no growing back.  I went back alone every year since then to recollect what I thought was mine.  They were no longer serving the stuff.  It's probably from powder packet anyway.

Before COVID every Saturday I would visit a long term care home, just go around the building to talk to residents, mostly seniors, of course.  A lady would tell me all about the Hotel Georgia, the Palomar Club, and the old Woodward's Building, how she worked as a line cook and swung herself between these shiny artifacts during the Swinging 30s despite what she called a "lack of talent."  The Head Chef asked me to, that's how she put it.  (The Head Chef liked me enough to ask me to.)  If I had time to go around the care home twice she would tell me again the exact same stories the exact same way.  I think she actually knew what she was doing, breaking into her litany of songs between protracted muteness, but just couldn't help crooning to me like I was her first and last devotee.

And I was.  Every time, anew.

Sometimes a nurse would look at us and smile.  And I would smile back.

Yours, Alex

PS. I took this picture last night.  My favorite so far this Christmas.