Fifth Avenue Rich
Fifth Avenue at the base of Central Park–within arm’s reach of the gargoyles of the Plaza Hotel–is the place to be rich. I always think of this. Possibility and a brilliant future loom large when you walk past the row of Hansom cabs, tuck into a warm bowl of minestrone soup in the elegant, low-ceilinged confines of “Cipriani’s,” admire the silks and cashmeres in the window of “Bergdorf Goodman.” I walk these beautiful blocks alone in the summer and wintertime thinking about the gold watches I want to buy, the roof-top terraces I will own, the vacations I must take and then describe in letters back home. When the July heat beats down, I step into a store perfumed with retail extravagance, cooled down to the temperature of my local Cineplex back home. In the bitter February snow, I warm up by the fires of street vendors roasting chestnuts or on the dark, velvet banquet of the St. Regis. I’ve always been able to go anywhere and do anything because I’m young and just pretty enough. But, now all that is changing.
Ever-present in my mind: Granddaddy, Jamie, babies. It’s not just me anymore. I know that Pappy is now somewhere watching, praying that I don’t miscalculate my future. Jamie is cooking and struggling and hoping that I don’t expect too much. The babies, well, just thinking about a little one makes my heart swell and my throat close up.
There is something beyond money and Fifth Avenue and my original New York City dream. This hits me hard.
Granddaddy and I used to tango on the back porch. It was nothing like the dance I learned in Buenos Aires (or like they practice at “Belle Epoque” on Broadway) but, it made the cousins laugh and Grandmother smile that gorgeous smile of hers. Cheek-to-cheek, arms extended, we stared down the long, sun-filled room out to the lake and then the lake beyond. This is what he liked to do when the sun tucked behind his tall, strong pines–right before the deer came up to feed. “If I go down like this, with a beautiful blonde in my arms, I’ll die a happy man.” my Pappy told me more than once. His life was rich. Our life together was rich. We were leagues away from Fifth Avenue and the Plaza Hotel…
January 30th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
“Measure your wealth not by the things you have, but by the things for which you would not take money.” -?… I don’t remember who
January 30th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
I dont think life or what it means ever hits you until someone you love dies. When they do…thats all you think about.
January 30th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
“That very night at the end of a vaudeville performance the orchestra played ‘Dixie’ and Sally Carrrol felt some thing stronger and more enduring than her tears and smiles of the day brim up inside her…”
“…her own old ghosts were marching by and on into the darkness, and as fifes whistled and sighed in the low encore they seemed so nearly out of sight that she could have waved good-by.
‘Away, away/ away down South in Dixie!’”
F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Ice Palace
Just found your blog today. Beautiful stuff, sister. You’ve got the gift. Take care of yourself.
From a Marylander
January 30th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
There are two ways of getting rich, one is to have lots of money, the other is to have few needs.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
It’s so true. You never realize how rich your life is, until you stop and take a moment to see all that God has blessed you with. It’s also good, that you realize the riches you already have at an early age, rather than go through life trying to amount to somebody’s idea of worth.
January 30th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
How proud he must be of you to be making these discoveries so young. The greatest legacies are the impartation of the soul.