New York Minutes

I can't even remember the last time I saw the Christmas tree in full lighted bloom at Rockefeller Center in person. Even when I used to stay on a few days after Thanksgiving, I would still be gone by the time of the ritual tree-lighting.

The ice sculptures are gone. My kids didn't believe me yesterday when I told them they had been there once, the ice sculptures. Maybe the lattice work angels and reindeer were what I had been thinking about. Maybe they just glistened more on colder days. It used to be much colder in December, if I remember correctly.

New York City is filled with a lifetime of memories for me, real or imagined. As I watched the Zamboni clear the ice in the Rockefeller Plaza rink yesterday, I recalled how my parents would take us there to go skating every year. Maybe it was only once or twice, but it's a part of my story -- the rented skates, the rubber floors, waving to my parents as they watched from above with all the tourists, under the flags. The skating part always seemed to go so fast. So fleeting.

We walked back out to the street, looked across Fifth Avenue at the holiday window display at Saks Fifth Avenue, the grand old store that bears no resemblance, in my mind, to all the glistening satellite stores that have popped up in malls over the years. I can still hear the clang of the metal elevator doors being pulled open, still see the almost invisible elevator operator sitting quietly at the controls, except to announce the arrival at a new floor. The lady with the jet black hair who knew my mother by name, and helped her outfit me in the finest designer dresses and matching socks. I remember worrying that my father was waiting for us in the car, long past the time my mother had promised we would be done. We had no cell phones, and shopping in Saks was serious business for my mother. My father could wait. He always shook his head at us when we finally appeared, but he seemed strangely content in his cloud of cigar smoke with his New York Times spread before him.

My daughter and I walked past my old elementary school in Brooklyn yesterday, on our way to the still gritty train station. I could still see myself on assembly days, in my blue pleated skirt, my crisp white blouse, still feel the thin, filmy softness of my green assembly tie. I could hear the din of my childhood companions, playing, with the black girls double-dutching off to the side, their braids flying in all directions. The ebbing and flowing of young friendships, all rose colored now since we have reconnected via social media from all corners of the globe. I remember the store where my mother had bought me a box of crayons on my first day of first grade. At least I think I do.

For a couple of days this December, I walked paths with my grown children where I had once walked, long ago. The memories are sometimes crisp, sometimes faded, and sometimes downright muddied, but always potent. Startling and predictable at the same time, like the tree at Rockefeller Center.