It's Christmas Eve, and I've spent part of the day restoring order to the house after what might have been the best solstice party ever. (See pictures taken by my good friend Jim Henkel.)
And that's saying something, because I think I've been making latkes for friends--the main event of my solstice parties--for 41 years, ever since I graduated from college.
I'm not sure what made the party so wonderful. Part of it, I'm sure, was the help I got from my friends: Janet Zimmerman (who's standing to my left in the bottom picture) went shopping with me two weeks ago and lugged the wine, beer, and other heavy stuff to the basement for safekeeping until the party; Janet and Diane Lauver came over about ten days ago to help make the latkes; Janet came back on Saturday afternoon to bring stuff up from the basement and help move furniture around; Jim showed up early the day of the party and volunteered to shovel and sand the front walk. I've never had--or asked for--help with the party before, except for the year (1981) I had just been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, and my sister Susie flew in to Madison from wherever she was then living (Olympia, Washington? ) to help. This year I wondered why I'd always thought I could, should, do it alone. It was so much more fun to shop and cook with friends!
The weather yesterday was really terrible: snow, ice, very high winds, bitter cold. Several people called and said they didn't want to leave their houses, or they wanted to but their car doors were frozen shut. I was sure that the weather, combined with the fact that a lot of my friends were leaving town, or trying to leave town, to get to their families for the holidays, would mean the party would be very small. Well, it was perhaps smaller than the average solstice party, but there were still about 60 people here. And because the crowd was a little thinner than usual, I think it was more comfortable. Often, we're squeezed so tight around the table full of delicious food (everyone brings a contribution) that it's almost impossible to move!
Of course, part of my feeling of celebration was just knowing that I'd made it to another solstice party. Last year at this time, I really wondered whether I'd be around to give the party in 2007. And here I am! It's hard not to read too much symbolism into the return of the light, because I feel so much better than I did just three months ago. Of course, that's because of the chemo, and we know that eventually the chemo will stop working. But the point is, at the moment, things are fine.
The sad part of the party was that two long-time friends and solstice party regulars were missing: Jane Henkel, who died earlier this month, and Sasha Sternberg, who was swept out to sea off the Cape of Good Hope last May, when he (along with his wife Helen and their daughter and son-in-law) was visiting his son Pasha, a college junior who'd been studying at the University of Cape Town. Sasha was only 52, and his death was a terrible shock, and a terrible tragedy. I never imagined that I woud outlive him, and suddenly--he was gone. But one of the lessons of giving a party for all one's friends every year is realizing how friendship patterns shift: how people come into our lives and leave them. The Henkels were probably the only people in attendance at the first Madison party, in 1976, who were still on the guest list 30 years later. And even they weren't around for the first parties, which were in California. I'm still friends with the people for whom I made those first latkes, in 1966: I'll see Claire Gorfinkel in LA just after New Year's; I just got a lovely card from Laura and Bruce Saunders, now in Seattle; Chris Emerson Salo, an old SF housemate also now in Seattle, emailed to say she still makes "my" latkes. But of course, it's been many years since any of them has actually made an appearance at a solstice party.
Still, one of the wonderful things about the solstice party is the reminder of all the friends I have; all the people who've supported me (and my kids) through the years, from parents who stood with me watching endless soccer games in the freezing cold, to fellow founders of the Madison Children's Museum, to old neighbors and car-pool drivers.... Well, I think you get the idea.
I can't let Christmas Eve pass without mentioning two memorable Christmas Eves, quite different, from my past. One, when I was perhaps twelve years old, made me perfectly miserable. My father had volunteered me to babysit for a colleague of his, a Belgian with a couple of small kids, while the parents went to midnight mass. After serving the children dinner (the memorable part was frozen French fries with mayonnaise instead of ketchup!) and putting them to bed, I settled down to watch TV. Every channel featured something that had nothing to do with me: Christmas services, Christmas movies, Christmas carols on the variety shows. I felt completely left out. I was convinced that everyone in the world except me was enjoying a wonderful, cozy holiday with their perfect families. I wouldn't have put it quite this way at the time, but it really sucked to be a Jewish pre-teen on Christmas eve.
The other memorable Christmas eve was in 1982. I had been in Palo Alto for almost a month, having the third (and last) series of radiation treatments for Hodgkin's disease. Everyone at Stanford Hospital took a break for Christmas, and my sister Susie came down from Washington so we could spend the holiday together. We drove through San Francisco to Pt. Reyes that evening, stopping in the city for dinner (at a wonderful ethnic restaurant featured in a "great meals for under $5" article in the Chronicle). We also stopped into a very ritzy wine shop on Union Square to buy ourselves a bottle of port. "This one will be very nice," the proprietor said. "But tell the lucky recipient to set it by for about ten years." Oh no, we said: we wanted something for ourselves, to drink right away. I think he was horrified, but he directed us to a less distinguished (and much less pricey) bottle. Which was delicious, when we opened it several hours later. We proceeded up to Pt. Reyes, and the next day hiked and then had dinner at a fine Czech restaurant full of Jews, atheists, and assorted Christians who were happily escaping their families' celebrations and neuroses. It was a terrific Christmas.
This year, Susie and I tried to find a time, today or tomorrow, when we could have a long Internet chat. But we couldn't. Oy, I said. The Jews are so busy ignoring Christmas they don't even have time to chat!
I'm off in an hour or two for (Jewish) comedian Jodie Cohen's more-than-slightly-irreverent Christmas eve show, followed by dinner at a Chinese restaurant. And tomorrow, I'll be at a movie (Juno) and dinner at some other restaurant run by people for whom December 25 is just another day when the light grows a little stronger.
But for all of you who celebrate rather than (try to) ignore these holidays: have a wonderful Christmas! And I'll be back later in the week, before I take off for New Year's with my kids.
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