SANTA CLAUS IS REAL

I read with dismay an article about a second grade teacher in Nanuet, New York, who told her classes that there is no Santa Claus. She said that parents are the ones who bring gifts to children on Christmas. Well, I’m here to set the record straight.

When I was little, my parents took my brother and me up to the North Pole, New York, which everyone knows is the official headquarters for Santa when he is in New York. Of course, he spends most of his time at his home in the North Pole at the top of the world, reading Christmas lists, supervising the Elves who make all the toys, and eating lots of delicious gingerbread that Mrs. Santa Claus makes for him.

As soon as I saw him I knew he was the real Santa Claus. My parents had already explained to me that Santa has thousands and thousands of helpers who go to stores all over the world during the Christmas season, writing down the names of all the children and the toys that they hope to get for Christmas. They wear the official uniform of the North Pole, which is the familiar red suit with white trim, and black boots. Many of Santa’s helpers also let their beards grow so that they are nice and long for the Christmas season. But this Santa Claus – the real Santa Claus – looked a little different from what I expected. He was wearing a plaid shirt and work jeans, and his official red uniform coat was draped across the back of his big chair. He was also wearing work boots and not his official black boots. When I asked him why he didn’t look like all of the Santa’s helpers that I had seen in the stores, he said that he only wears his dress uniform on Christmas Eve. Otherwise, he wears his work clothes, so that it is easier for him to do all the work of planning for Christmas.

We had a long talk that day. He asked me if I had been good that year, and I had to admit that I sometimes argued with my brother. He explained to me that it’s natural for brothers and sisters to argue sometimes, but the important thing is to love each other. He said that even people who love each other can argue once in a while, but they still love each other, no matter what. Then he asked me what kind of toys I wanted for Christmas. That’s when I asked him the question that had been bothering me for a long time. I got really brave, looked him in the eye and asked,

“Do you really bring us the presents or do they come from our parents?”

He smiled knowingly and chuckled a little. Then he looked me straight in the eye.

“Suzy,” he said. “Of course I bring the toys. When you were just a baby, I brought all of your toys. When you got a little older, I asked your parents to help me, and they bought one or two presents. Then when you got much older, I told your parents that I really needed their help. I explained to them that I make sure to personally deliver presents to all children; especially the very young children. But the world is very big and I need a lot of help. So when children get a little older, I get in touch with their parents and show them their children’s Christmas lists which come to the North Pole. I tell them which toys I can bring, and they help me out with the rest. Usually, they buy the sweaters and scarves and I bring the toys that we make at the North Pole.”

I was surprised and a little disappointed.

“But Santa, “I said. “I thought you brought all the toys to all the children.”

“Well now, Suzy,” he continued. “As I just explained to you, the world is very big and there are so many children who want so many toys. That’s why I need helpers. I have my helpers who go to the stores, and I have my secret helpers – all of the parents in the world. Christmas is a very important holiday. We celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ on Christmas. As Jesus taught us, we must all help each other; rich and poor, young and old, black, white, yellow, brown, red… all the people in the world need to help each other.

“And now there is something that you can do to help me.”

“Help you, Santa?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed. When you grow up, if anyone ever tells a child that I don’t exist, I need you to tell them this story. Tell them that you met me and we talked about the real meaning of Christmas. Tell them that I am very real and I most certainly bring presents to all the children of the world. Childhood is a very precious time, and it is a very short time. Children need something to believe in. Tell them that they can believe in me.”

This year, I finally got my chance to help Santa. I am telling all the children in Nanuet, and Rockland County, and New York State – and in the whole world – that Santa Claus is real! He’s real and he’s kind, he brings the presents and he loves us very much. And I should know, because I met him when he was out of uniform!

And it Was Such a Beautiful Day

It’s almost 5:00 in the morning of September 11, 2011 and I cannot sleep. I almost feel that it’s going to happen all over again and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Let me bring you back ten years ago to that day from my perspective. My husband and I were on our annual vacation to Cape Cod. I woke up, grabbed a shower and made my breakfast to eat out in the backyard of our rented cottage. As soon as I got out there, though, I realized that it was too hot. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky and it was already about 80 degrees at 9:00 I the morning. So I came back inside where it was cooler, and put on the television to watch the weather report. I saw an image that confused me. It was the image of one of the Twin Towers, completely shrouded in smoke. Dan Rather was saying something about a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. I called my husband from the next room and said, “A small plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers. How awful.” I also noticed the now ubiquitous headline crawl along the bottom of the television screen. I started to read it, but that was long before we were used to watching an image and reading the crawl at the same time, so I soon gave up. From what I was able to glean from the crawl, it appeared that a Cessna or other small plane had gone off course and crashed into one of the Towers. We started talking about the time when a small plane crashed into the Empire State Building. We felt terrible for the pilot and any passengers, and hoped that there wasn’t too much damage to the Tower.

Concern turned to shock, though, as I heard Dan Rather say that the second Tower appeared to be in danger of collapse. I thought that it must have been a terrible jolt for one little plane to cause the other Tower to be at risk. Then I said, “Wait a minute. There’s something wrong. I can’t see both Towers. Where’s the other Tower?’ My husband, Jim, thought that it must have been hidden by all the smoke. I started to drink my coffee and eat my bagel. Then I watched the Tower collapse before my eyes. I said, “They’ve imploded the Towers. Why would they implode the Towers?” Then I heard Dan Rather say, “And the second Tower has collapsed.”

I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. I could barely breathe. I tried to speak but no words would come out. When I was finally able to mutter something I said, “Those Towers hold fifty thousand people. Fifty thousand people.” I could feel the bile rise into my throat and I ran to the bathroom to vomit. When I came back out, Jim told me that there were several other planes in the air which appeared to be heading towards Washington, D.C.. One had reportedly crashed into Camp David. And then I knew. I whispered, “We’re under attack. My God, we’re under attack.”

As we watched, sketchy reports began coming in. The White House had been hit. No, it was Camp David after all. I asked, “Where is the President?” but Jim didn’t know. No one knew. Time stopped. My husband’s face was ashen. I asked, “What’s happening?” and he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Who could have done something like this?” I choked out the words, “Bin Laden. It could only be Bin Laden.”

We stared at the television screen for hours, too shocked to cry and barely able to speak. We saw people jumping out of windows. Jumping out of 110 story windows. I wondered if they were showing the same footage in New York. I wanted to call my parents who lived about 25 miles north of New York but I didn’t want to tie up the phone lines for the emergency workers. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go to New York, my beloved New York, the city of my birth, the city of my ancestors’ birth. I wanted to do – I don’t know what. Help rescue people? Help clean up? Help somehow? Jim said that we needed to stay put until we had more information. I felt the need to be with people. I needed to go to the beach. Jim said, “Let’s go do something normal for a while. I can't stand watching this anymore. Let’s go play mini-golf.” I didn’t want to play mini-golf. I wanted to go to the beach. I wanted to be with people. I wanted to go home. But we went to play mini-golf. Like two zombies, we bought our clubs and asked the man at the desk if he had heard. We told him we were from New York. He laughed and said, “I bet you’re glad you’re not there now.” I said, “No. I wish I were there now, helping my City.” He looked confused. We played mini-golf. Then we drove around aimlessly. We found ourselves in Chatham, wandering around. We stopped into the only store which was still open. The owner was about to close. She said that a man had come in earlier, also stunned and wandering around. He said that he worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and was on vacation. He said he had nothing to go back to. Everyone he worked with was dead. We drove somewhere else; I don’t even remember where. A store. Maybe a department store. I must have bought something. I don’t know what. While I was on line, the two women ahead of me were talking. One said to the other that her husband worked at Otis Air Force Base and they had gotten the order to scramble.

As we drove back to our cottage, we saw hastily made, hand-written signs for a candlelight ceremony on the beach that night. I asked Jim if he’d like to go. He said “No.” We put the television back on when we got in. Someone was saying that there was no truth to the rumors that fighter jets had scrambled to try to intercept the jets that were flying into buildings. We learned that the Pentagon had been hit, but apparently the White House had not. There was another plane in Pennsylvania that had crashed. We finally managed to put a call in to my parents. My father said that there had been an enormous jet flying low over their neighborhood, flanked by F-16’s. My father would know because he had been in the Army Air Corps during WWII, and in the Air Force Reserves for some years afterwards. I told him that we had heard on the news that the President had ordered Air Force One to fly over the World Trade Center site, and that he must have seen Air Force One. Then I asked him if this was what it was like when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He said, “This is worse.” At that point, I began to tremble because that was the first time in my life I had heard fear in my father’s voice. He said that they could see the smoke all the way from lower Manhattan, that fighter plans were flying overhead and they were terrified. I told him that I wanted to come home and help with the rescue effort. He said, “Don’t, Sue. You’ll destroy your lungs. Don’t go down there.” I told him that I loved him and would call again the next day. I could hear a catch in his voice as he said, “Love you, too.”

I went to the candlelight ceremony on the beach by myself that night. It was beautiful, I guess. Someone handed me a candle and someone else handed me a rose. We lit the candles, said some kind of prayers and then cast the roses into the ocean. Someone was filming for the local news. He asked me where I was from and I said “New York.” He couldn’t say another word.

******

Two weeks later we were back in New York. Jim had gone back to work and I went to the City. I could only take the train down to 14th Street, so I walked the rest of the way downtown. It looked like a war zone. It was a war zone. Tanks and jeeps were in the streets, National Guard were everywhere. I didn’t recognize anything. Everything was closed, boarded up, destroyed. I asked a National Gaurdswoman where I could go to pay my respects. She said, “You can’t get any closer than Trinity Church, ma’am. It’s not safe.” I thanked her and tried to find my way to Trinity Church amid the smoke and ash. I kept looking up, as if I expected to see the Towers. I kept closing my eyes, then looking up, hoping that it had been a dream. But all I saw was smoke and ash. When I got to Trinity Church, dozens of people lined the barricades, looking in the direction of the Towers. I fell to my knees. They were gone. They were really gone. Some people sobbed, some people spoke in hushed tones. Most people prayed.

The most vivid memory I have of that day is the smell. As I got closer and closer to the site, I kept smelling something horrible. The ash became so dense that I had to cover my nose and mouth with a cloth. A wave of revulsion hit me as I realized that I was smelling still-burning, decomposing bodies, and that the ash that I was breathing in had once been three thousand human beings.

After a time – I don’t know how long – I went into the only shop that was still open that far downtown; the Au Bon Pain Pastry shop. I ordered a coffee and a chocolate croissant. Nothing has ever tasted so good before or since. Amid the destruction, the rubble, the ash and smoke, life was going on. The clerk told me that they had stayed open continuously, making gallon after gallon of coffee for the First Responders.

******

It has now been ten years since that horrific day. As I said at the top, I keep feeling that I can someone stop it from happening. That I know now what’s coming so I can warn someone. But it already happened. It happened a long time ago. It happened a moment ago. And it was such a beautiful day.

FREEDOM

I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom lately. What does freedom really mean? Does it mean different things to different people? Can there be any one definition of the word?

235 years ago, freedom meant that a group of British colonies, suffering under enormous tax burdens and the tyranny of a far away King, wished to chart their own course. They wished to break away from their mother country, the country in which many of them were born, and to live as a new, independent nation. Benjamin Franklin spoke of how we had already become a new nationality – we needed a new nation. He was talking about change. Evolving needs for an evolving people.

Thomas Jefferson’s brilliant Declaration of Independence became a shell of its original form as compromises and changes were made to the document. Certainly the greatest of these changes was the institution of slavery. The entire economy of the Southern colonies was based on this unspeakable institution. Indeed, without the removal of the abolition clause, it is most probable that Independence would not have come into being. It would take nearly another hundred years, and a bloody civil war for this horror to be abolished. And it would take all the way into the Twentieth Century until civil rights legislation passed Congress and was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

But this new nation was still not much more than an idea. White, male, land-holders were full citizens. Africans and women were property. There was still a revolutionary war to be fought and won, and win it we did, against seemingly impossible odds. Now we had our new nation – and nobody seemed to be able to agree on what sort of nation it ought to be.

The United Colonies evolved into the United States. Wise men evolved their thinking to include Africans and finally even women as full citizens. We expanded westward and fulfilled our manifest destiny. And we decimated an indigenous population along the way. Towns and cities began to spring up. A railroad stretched from one end of the continent to the other. The industrial revolution drove a growing economy. And we went to war again. And again, and again, and again.

Today, we face a new kind of war. A war based on the corruption of religion. A war which would catapult women back into the Nineteenth Century; A war which has shut down access to basic reproductive care in several states. A war which would define marriage in the most narrow of terms. This war seeks to deny science and the discovery of new medicines and new treatments for devastating diseases. This is a movement which is turning back time; turning back our nation to a time before Evolution was proven to be a fact. Turning back time to a point where religion was not separate from the State. Where the personal, religious beliefs of a bunch of white, land-owning males are the basis for deciding what is best for everyone. Where civil rights are trampled in the name of “security.” Our every movement is caught on camera; our every keystroke recorded for posterity. And why? Because “our God” is better than “their God.” Our shiny new nation, filled with such hope for the future and yet tarnished by such corruption, is evolving once again. This time, it appears to be evolving backwards.

But I see a glimmer of hope over the horizon. I see New York State, the site of our nation’s first capitol, standing once again as a beacon of equality. I see people taking to the streets to protest rights which are being stripped away from them. And I hear a voice, way in the back of the crowd, saying “But I’m not really free. I’m not really an equal citizen. That’s wrong, and that has to change.” What is freedom, America? To me, it means respect for every human being, regardless of whether or not I agree with them. It means compassion for those in despair, both in our own nation and around the world. It means no longer denying oppression and despotism when it occurs around the world. Freedom means choice. Freedom means that the State doesn’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body, or who I can or cannot marry. It means being able to watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July in public with my newly engaged gay friends. It means to me what it meant to John Adams; “All Americans, free forevermore.”




What does freedom mean to you?

Daddy on the Edge: Daddy on the Edge of Weddings, Equality and "Evolving"

Daddy on the Edge: Daddy on the Edge of Weddings, Equality and "Evolving"

WHO CARES WHAT I'M WEARING?

There is a column in the Sunday New York Times Styles sections entitled “What I Wore,” in which people of whom I’m never heard tell us what they’ve worn in the past week, day by day, outfit by outfit. This usually includes references to high end designers and second hand shops in the East Village. These people have some wardrobe, let me tell you. I can’t imagine where they fit all of these clothes in those notoriously tiny NYC closets. Sometimes I think they must turn an entire bedroom over to their wardrobe. I know one woman who has turned over the entire upper floor of her Park Ave. duplex to her extensive designer wardrobe. And I mean designer. Gucci, Chanel, Valentino, Prada, Balenciaga (the real one), Halston. It’s wardrobe Heaven up there. At 80-something, this fine lady is still a perfect size zero and still occasionally models. She drives a red Jaguar, which is garaged next door to her apartment, to her country house in New England on the weekends. I had the great pleasure to work with her on a play in which she played a beautiful, fine lady with a great wardrobe. One stultifying humid September afternoon, I spent hours with her, going through her closets to find the perfect outfit for her character. (I was the costume designer on this particular production, though I usually work as an actor. When there’s work. When I’m not directing. Or coaching. Or designing. Oh, you know, it’s show biz.) When we were done, we took our repast of Haagen Daas vanilla ice cream and instant coffee. She regaled me with the story of how she had a coupon for the ice cream and was able to get it for half price. She always uses coupons. Always. Why pay more than you have to for anything? Smart lady.

So I was reading the Times column today and thought, “No one has ever heard of me. Why don’t I go through my wardrobe day by day for a week and send it to the newspaper so everyone can read about what I wear, why I chose it and where I bought it?”

Monday: Dark wash jeans (Sears), a black camisole (Target. These are genius! Cotton and just enough spandex to act as shapewear and a layering piece. And at $8.99 I scoop them up by the handful in every color) and blue, cotton-rag sweater (JC Penny.) I love that sweater and often wear it on chilly days. It’s so comfy and it looks like denim so it pairs nicely with denim. On my feet where my black Rockport’s. I have two or three pair in black and one pair in brown. Approved by the American Orthopedic Association, they are classically styled oxfords that go with absolutely everything. I topped it off with a brick red, full length down coat which was a Christmas present from my parents about 15 years ago. (That Lands End wears like iron.)

Tuesday: Dark wash jeans (Sears), a black camisole (Target) and a black cowl-neck, three-quarter sleeve sweater (Sears clearance.) Black Rockport’s and a London Fog trenchcoat (Macy’s) completed my look.

Wednesday: I worked from home so I chose to stay comfy: black yoga pants (Target), Black camisole (Target) and an orange hoodie from my favorite Cape Cod outlet, Cuffies, alas, no longer there. (I so miss that Cuffies. Of course, there’s still the Cuffies in Dennis, but the one in West Yarmouth was so big and well-lit, brimming over with T-shirts, shorts, my beloved hoodies, baseball caps, all conspicuously emblazoned with the words “Cape Cod”… Ah well.) On my feet were my stand-by tan suede moccasins (Lands End).

Thursday I visited my mother at the nursing home so I wanted to look nice. I wore dark wash jeans, a black cotton long-sleeved top (vintage) over a black camisole and for a pop of color, a teal cotton flyaway sweater (Marshalls, if memory serves) and teal pashmina (from a film shoot.) Black Rockport’s and my trusty Lands End down coat served as outerwear.

Friday was another dreary, rainy day in the suburbs of New York, so I opted for comfy and warm: dark wash jeans, black camisole, cranberry colored cashmere sweater (Gap) and a red plaid chenille scarf under my red down coat. Black Rockport’s kept me on my feet and stylish at the same time.

Saturday we went to see a fabulous production of “Tartuffe” at Seton Hall. I chose dark wash jeans, a black camisole, black cowl-neck sweater and rusty-burgundy lacy cotton top. I love this piece. I bought it at a shop in the Cape Cod Mall years ago and it is my go-to blouse when I’m feeling “arty.” It looks vaguely like something you’d see at the Renaissance Festival, but I refer to it as my “Stevie Nicks top” because I would wear it to sing rock music. If I were in a rock band.

By the time Sunday came around and the weather still had not warmed up nor dried out much, I actually recycled a look from earlier in the week. Dark wash jeans, black camisole and black cowl-neck sweater, minus the teal flyaway sweater. Black Rockport’s and my London Fog trench kept out the damp.

So, that was my week in fashion. New York Times, I’m waiting for a reply.