A Winter Visit from Marion

It was a cold weekend, but a wonderful one, because I spent it entertaining my dear hometown friend Marion here in the city! During a visit to her now-home in San Antonio in October, I suggested (somewhat hopelessly) that she should come visit. December, I said, would be a good time. Perhaps it was the margaritas we were drinking, but Marion pulled out her phone and, to my surprise, began researching plane ticket options then and there. After taking a bit of time to research her options-and to let the margaritas wear off, I assume-she'd booked, and I ecstatically welcomed her on Friday for a weekend of fun in New York!

Cozy!

Marion, who has lived only in Texas and California, was rather nervous about the weather that was forecast for her visit. But she spent the weeks leading up to her trip assembling long underwear, warm hats, and a sturdy-but-stylish pair of waterproof boots. We had a very nice dinner our first evening, then had a few drinks at a nearby lounge. It was cold when we'd set out and even colder when we made our way home, and we clung to each other for the last part of the walk. The next morning, we woke to steadily falling snow, strong wind, and a layer of white accumulating slowly but surely on everything that hadn't been salted. Marion mostly hid her trepidation as we bundled up. She borrowed a warm coat of mine, and we walked into the West Village for a late breakfast and a bit of shopping. As is often the case in New York, some streets were fairly calm, but others were invisible wind tunnels, just waiting for two unsuspecting walkers to wander down them. We made it to a restaurant unscathed, and enjoyed watching the snowfall, and people and dogs both bundled in warm coats, through the window. It was great to have enough time to really catch up! It seemed a luxury to have one of my wises and most fun friends around for long enough to really enjoy each other's company instead of frantically trying to fit in all the filling in there was to do from long months apart.

Snowy West Village

We spent a bit more time poking around the Village, stopping occasionally to mop ineffectively at the mascara that streamed down both our faces. It really was lovely; this part of town is usually quite charming, but it was made more so by Christmas decorations, and their charm factor was amplified by the picturesque snowflakes that continued to drift gently down. (Occasionally exfoliating blasts of flakes were less welcome.) If that didn't put us in the holiday spirit, the crowds of Santas certainly did. Saturday just happened to be Santacon (short for Santa Convention, an event many locals celebrate by dressing as Santa and getting drunk in bars all over the city), and we saw Santas walking in groups down streets, smoking cigarettes outside bars, and tipping back drinks on the other side of windows. We saw even more of them when we boarded the subway for the east side to get to our next stop: the Morgan Library.

Letter by Poe, who had lovely handwriting

I'm always cautious about taking people to museums when they visit NYC - that's not the kind of trip some people are after. But Marion has been here a few times before, so she'd see lots of the highlights already. And the Morgan really is one-of-a-kind, and just up Marion's alley. We saw A Christmas Carol in Dickens' own hand (I'd seen it before; they must haul it out for the holidays every year), letters by Washington and Lincoln, scores by Wagner and Mozart, and loads of ancient books of hours, stamps, and maps. The main exhibit in the Morgan at the moment is a collection of poems and letters by Poe, which we enjoyed very much. There was also a Da Vinci exhibit, which was interesting but somewhat disappointing, as a lot of it consisted of work done by his students under his supervision instead of his own drawings. We did enjoy marveling over his trademark backwards handwriting, however, and spent some time flipping through a digital collection of his analysis of the flight of birds. And it's always wonderful to see Morgan's lush study and his dream-worthy library.

That night was a full one. Our first stop was a restaurant on the Lower East Side, an area that's tough to get to via subway. Hailing a cab wasn't likely, though, since they are always in very high demand in inclement weather, so we ended up using a car service for which we had a gift card to get to the restaurant. After a nice meal, we walked to a bar to have birthday drinks with our friend Kumanon. As forecast, the weather had begun to warm up. This, alas, was not good news, as the gentle snow had turned into hard little pellets of ice that stung as the wind flung them at my face. It was tough to tell how Marion was faring, as she was wearing a face warmer that most New Yorkers would consider overkill, but from the small sliver of her eyes that peeked out between her hood and the mask, I could swear she was smirking. I was relieved when we finally arrived at the bar after more than 15 minutes of trudging with a lowered head. After a bit of time with the birthday boy, we set out for the final stop of the evening, a Christmas party at a friends' apartment. It also, alas, was far from a subway line, and the hard ice pellets had softened by now into a steady drizzle. These conditions are never ideal for walking, but without an umbrella, and with temperatures in the mid-30's, we were especially loath to attempt it. By some miracle, however, we managed to hail a cab after only a few minutes of huddling under an overhang. We made our way home from the party at the end of the night by leaping into a cab outside our friends' building just as a homecoming resident was vacating it.

At the holiday concert

Sunday was a day of performances. After breakfast, Marion and I went for a walk around Central Park and browsed in some shops and in the Christmas market that had sprung up in Columbus Circle. The snow had mostly melted from the sidewalks and pavement around the city, but it remained on the lawns of the park. This was lucky, as Central Park is always especially bewitching when covered with snow. We must have seen at least twenty snowmen, and it was fun to watch the squirrels scurrying about over the soft, white blanket. We went straight from the park to nearby Lincoln Center for a performance of holiday music by a brass band from the philharmonic. They were joined by a trio made up of a piano player, a percussionist, and an upright bass player. This was Marion's treat to me, and it was a really wonderful show. We listened to music from various traditions and parts of the world. I particularly enjoyed watching the piano player. Set at an angle to his grand piano was what looked like a standard wooden upright but turned out to be a celeste (the instrument that makes the high, tinkling notes you hear in The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy). The musician would turn from one instrument to the other, and sometimes played the celeste with his left hand at the same time as he pressed the piano keys with his right! It was quite amazing, and I left feeling nearly full of holiday cheer.

Luckily, I still had room for a bit more seasonal merriment, because after dinner with Ed we headed to Radio City Music Hall to see the famous Christmas Spectacular. I confess that I was a tiny bit skeptical about this excursion. When Marion suggested it, I decided I'd be happy to see it with her because it was a classic New York experiences I'd never had, but I didn't expect to enjoy it much. It seemed like the kind of thing tourists come to do because they don't know any better, to say nothing of my feelings about the commercialization of Christmas. Instead, the show was a surprise and a delight. The famous Rockettes dominated the first half of the show, sometimes dressed as reindeer, sometimes as toy soldiers, and sometimes in other spangly costumes. I loved a lengthy tap dance to The Twelve Days of Christmas and was blown away by their precision in number after number. It really was mesmerizing.

The famous Rockettes-cum-reindeer

Stars of the show

The show was incredibly intricate. The sets were wonderful, the costumes dazzling, and the music (sometimes live, sometimes recorded) was of the highest quality. I marveled at how many parts of the stage moved. One number included a male and female figure skater who performed beautifully on what I can only assume was a real oval of ice decorated to look like a frozen pond in Central Park. The show had a few scenes dedicated to a fairly weak storyline about a girl who wants a video game for Christmas to the dismay of her mother who laments the days when kids played outside and read books. Santa saves the day, of course, but it was rather corny and forced. I much preferred the dance numbers, of which, luckily, there was plenty. We were in for another surprise as the show reached its end: a procession of the three kings and their entourages, dressed lavishly in beautiful costumes led live camels and a donkey across the stage! The animals reappeared, accompanied by about six real sheep, in a final nativity scene. I imagined them retiring to the green room afterward, where they'd relax and graze at the refreshments table with laughing Rockettes.

After fighting our way out of the throngs leaving the theater, we stopped to see the tree in nearby Rockefeller Center, which was just as lovely as always. The city really does a wonderful job of decorating this part of town for Christmas, and even though it was crowded I found myself filling with a deep contentment quite unlike the overwhelming irritation I feel whenever I have to walk through Times Square. Looks like all those carols paid off.

It was, of course, fantastic to see Marion, and I feel lucky that we'll be together again before too long when I head back to San Antonio for a friend's wedding in April. And it was wonderful to spend a wintery weekend experiencing New York through her eyes, thus gaining fresh perspective on the city I love.