brooklyn gal for a while

Phyllis

Do you ever have a memory overwhelm you? I was dining at Palacinka tonight and I'm not sure if was the smell of coffee, real butter, the perfume of a fellow dinner, the warm air or talking with strangers at least half a generation older than me, but all of a sudden I was in Phyllis' house. The little area between the dining room and the front room, where the Christmas tree would go for caroling parties.
Phyllis is/was my aunt. She was the one part of my mom's family that was always around. Well, not around in that we saw her all that often, but she lived in the area and I dont remember a time before going to her house for caroling or for Christmas lunch when we were little.
She was scary to me when I was younger, but sometime around college I started to understand her sharp wit, admire her courage and strength. As my brother has said, it was just when we started to appreciate her that she died.
But the caroling parties I keep referring to were these annual gatherings of the extended family of a bridge club from the late 60s. We would drive through Silver Spring to the homes of home bound individuals (shut-ins as we said prior to the PC revolution) and later to nursing homes, and sing Christmas carols. Inevitably most people would be underdressed and tucking hands in armpits as we sang, while whoever was 2-3 years old would have bells that they could jingle. The last song we sang at everyone's house was We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and all the tone deaf individuals would stand in the back of the pack and try to get us started with "Weeeee Wiiiissshhhh" as soon as possible. Then after we all returned to our minivans and drove over 95, through University Ave to Phyllis' house, there was a big pot luck dinner with plenty of bottles of wine. Eventually all the kids got a wack at a pinata filled with quality candy and all the non-tone deaf adults would try to harmonize and sing again in the dinning room, slurring one song to another.
Since there was a big age gap between our mom and her siblings, my brothers and I were somewhere between our first cousins (20 years older than us) and our first cousins once removed (10 years younger than us). Needless to say we were not thrilled to be there for most of our caroling party years. But, of course, now that there are no more caroling parties, and a good chunk of the attending partiers have died, I fucking miss all that.

posted by gordian knot @ Saturday, November 12, 2005