Gimme Some Sugar!

GIMME SOME SUGAR!

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Gimme Some Sugar!

Sweet holiday treats to swap or gift

Photos and recipes by Jasmine Comer

’Tis the season for merry-baking! We asked our resident food columnist, Jasmine Comer, to whip up a few culinary cookie delights suitable for gifting neighbors or swapping with friends. Inside our little box o’ goodies, you’ll find three delectable treats.

Chocolate chip cookies are for basic bakers. Kick yours up a notch by making brown butter chocolate chunk cookies. No one needs to know about the pound of butter you burned on your way to achieving toasted-golden perfection.

Sweet, spicy and nutty. Could be a charming dating app profile. Could be white chocolate pecan cinnamon cookies.

American novelist Henry Miller once said, “Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.” He clearly hadn’t had one of these classic sugar cookies. A bellyful of these will have you caroling and spreading good cheer in no time.

And — just for you — we volunteered as taste-tester and can assure you these cookies are so good that you’ll wanna keep ‘em for yourself.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk

Makes 12-13 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons salted butter, divided

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cane sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cornstarch

5 ounces dark chocolate, chopped

Directions

Brown the butter: place the half cup of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. After the butter melts, stir it continuously, over the heat. After about 5 minutes, the butter will start foaming and browning in the bottom of the saucepan. At this point it should smell nutty and fragrant. Continue to stir until the butter reaches a dark, golden brown color, being careful not to burn it. Burnt brown butter tastes bitter.

Transfer the butter to a bowl and stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. This adds some of the moisture back into the butter that evaporated while browning it. Let the butter cool completely.

Whisk in the brown sugar and cane sugar until combined. Then whisk in the egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cornstarch. Fold this mixture into the butter and sugar mixture, followed by the chopped chocolate.

Scoop dough into balls (about 2 tablespoons) and refrigerate overnight or up to 48 hours.

When ready to bake: Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the cookies on the sheet 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Classic Sugar

Makes 10-11 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup salted butter, melted and cooled

3/4 cup cane sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cornstarch

Directions

In a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar until combined. Whisk in the egg and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and cornstarch.

Fold the flour mixture into the sugar and butter mixture.

Scoop dough into balls (about 2 tablespoons) and refrigerate overnight or up to 48 hours.

When ready to bake: Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the cookies on the sheet 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Pro Tip:

Flour brands make a difference. I use King Arthur All Purpose Flour. Using a different flour brand may yield different results due to how flours are milled. When measuring your flour, make sure it is loosely packed. Scoop it from the bag or container and level it off gently with the back of a butter knife. Do not pack the flour down. Too much flour makes cookies dry and fluffy. These cookies should be tender and moist.    

White Chocolate Pecan Cinnamon

Makes 13-14 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup cold salted butter, cubed

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cane sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup oats

1/4 cup toffee

1/3 cup pecans

3.5 ounces white chocolate, chopped

Directions

Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, blend the butter, brown sugar and cane sugar until combined. This may take about 7-8 minutes. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl every 2-3 minutes.

Blend in the egg and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch and cinnamon.

Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture and blend just until combined, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Blend in the oats, toffee, pecans and white chocolate just until combined.

Scoop dough into balls (about 2 tablespoons) and refrigerate overnight or up to 48 hours.

When ready to bake: Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the cookies on the sheet 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

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Squirreling Away the Worst Christmas Ever

A ghostly green trail recalls the dispirits of Christmas past

By Cynthia Adams

One of the things we must navigate in our marriage is different perspectives on Christmas. My husband does not feel the same joy I do. For him, it’s more about acceptance. Losing his father when he was a boy left him painfully marked. Even now, the holiday is simply too much for him — the gifts, the preparations, the decorating, the meal planning. It overloads his pleasure circuits, which blow out as predictably as tree lights. 

I gamely ignored him until the most horrible, awful year hit, when Lady Luck turned on me. But that year didn’t stand out solely because of an unfortunate Christmas. The whole year had slid progressively downhill, like butter off a hot corncob, leading to its concluding wreckage, resulting in a hot, slippery mess around New Year’s.

The year of disappointments was ushered in by a family death, which was already a lot to handle. But then I came home for lunch one workday to discover everything on our front porch — the charming front porch with freshly restored Chinese Chippendale railings — was stripped bare apart from the mailbox. Someone had backed into the drive we shared with our Westerwood neighbor and loaded up a wicker sofa, two wicker chairs, a large antique ceramic vat that held our sneakers and an antique-pine room divider, leaving behind a single chair cushion. And our sneakers.

I wept. 

This was before exterior cameras and Ring wireless doorbells captured every package delivery and any porch pirate. These criminals practically had carte blanche. If they’d had more time, I imagine they would have taken the porch swing I’d recently repainted to match the house trim and removed the window box.

The police were sympathetic, but seemed to have nothing to offer beyond suggesting we speak to the neighbors to suss out any intel. Our neighbors, a bit elderly, had heard nary a peep.

By the holidays, I’d been in a yearlong funk. My husband attempted to cheer me up. “Let’s go Christmas shopping and get you a Christmas tree!” he announced one Friday night with enthusiasm. I looked up, startled. “Really?” I stammered. 

“Let’s go!” he said, suggesting we carry cash to shop more efficiently. Both of us had a few Benjamins in our wallets. We went to the mall, splitting up for various errands, and my heart lifted at joining the bustle of shoppers. As I stood with an armful of toys, a nicely dressed woman bumped me. “I can’t make this line go any faster,” I reproached, arching my brow when she did it a second time.

By the time I reached the register and deposited my gifts, I noticed something odd. The leather gloves on top of my bucket-style bag were gone. Heart thundering, I realized the wallet beneath was, too.

I stammered to the clerk that someone had taken my expensive wallet, a gift from my best friend, and she summoned mall security.

As I waited for them outside, my husband arrived, frowning. I kept it together until we got to the car. 

“I had nearly $500 in cash,” I moaned, tears streaming. My husband patted me, looking miserable.

“Honey, let’s go buy a Christmas tree and salvage this night.”

I took my hands down from my face and blew my nose. “I don’t think I can,” I sputtered.

“We’re getting a Christmas tree!” he insisted heartily. 

It was late. Many of the tree lots were closing. We cruised along High Point Road until we got to the former Hechinger’s, which had a tree lot out front.

“Here!” my husband soothed, parking. I protested. I was tired. Dispirited. “You can decorate it tomorrow!” he said, hoping to jolly me along. The odd fluorescence of mercury-vapor pole lights made all the trees unappealing and I stood listlessly.

“I’m picking one out,” he said, insistent.

He chose a tree, noting it seemed to shed a bit while dragging it to the car. I kept my mouth shut. 

“We’ll put it in a bucket of water till morning,” I suggested lamely. 

After spending Saturday morning verifying that credit cards were stopped and reporting the stolen checks, I pulled decorations out of the attic to redeem the day. In the glare of sunlight, the tree looked strangely green. Unnaturally green. And still droopy.

We dragged it in, strung lights and swept up dropped needles. By the time it was decorated, it seemed to have shed at least a fourth of the needles. I didn’t much care. “Why aren’t these needles brown?” I asked my husband, cupping them in my hand. 

“I . . . think they spray painted a dying tree green,” he said, avoiding my eyes.

“Per-fect,” I said, biting off the second syllable

But as the days passed, I learned things. Our insurance agent suggested we file an official police report, versus the mall security report, in order to take a tax loss. Familiar faces came to the house to take my statement. They remembered me, too.

“Tough year,” the officer murmured. “Thanks,” I managed. 

The officers reached out after Christmas with an update.  Asking if I could identify my robber, they produced a sizable album of mug shots. Having pointedly ask her to stop bumping me I knew I could. Thumbing through pages, I found her: polished-looking and business-like. 

She could have been a school principal, or bank exec.

“That’s her!” The pickpocket was known to hit busy shopping areas. The bump-and-lift move was a classic technique.

“She’s a professional,” they said. 

My emptied wallet was found among others discarded in a Durham hotel trash can. 

When they left, I sank down before the Charlie Brown-pitiful Christmas tree. I wanted it gone. The strings of lights practically slid off, taking more of the determinedly green needles with them. I stripped off the ornaments and dragged the very dead tree out to the curb.

In coming months, ground squirrels would quickly scamper over the nuclear green tree needles. Even after we moved two years later, a stubborn ghost trail remained from the front porch to the sidewalk.   

Embedded. Evergreen. Impervious.

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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Finishing Touches

How Katherine Min’s last novel came to be

By Anne Blythe

The story about the making of The Fetishist, Katherine Min’s posthumously published novel, is almost as interesting as the book itself. It has been touted as a novel ahead of its time — a comic, yet sincere, tender and occasionally befuddling exploration of sexual and racial politics.

The story is told through three main characters: Daniel Karmody, a white Irish-American violinist from whom the novel gets its name; Alma Soon Ja Lee, a Korean-American cellist, who’s only 13 when the first of many fetishists she encounters whispers, “Oriental girls are so sexy”; and Kyoto Tokugawa, a 23-year-old Japanese American punk rocker who devises a madcap assassination plot to avenge the man she believes to be responsible for her mother’s suicide.

The novel starts 20 years after the estrangement of Alma and Daniel and ends with them reconnecting. In between, readers get to see Kyoto’s zany failed assassination attempt of Daniel and subsequent kidnapping. They’ll learn of his dalliances with a cast of women — many of them musicians, such as Kyoto’s mother, Emi — while he longed for the excitement and thrill he felt with Alma.

The intertwining of the narratives of these protagonists and the intriguing significant others in their orbits lead to alluring plot twists and a timeless appraisal of the white male’s carnal objectification of Asian women. But let’s start with the end of the book and the touching afterword by Kayla Min Andrews, Min’s daughter, a fiction writer like her mother, who explains how The Fetishist came to be published.

It almost wasn’t.

Min was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and died in 2019, the day after her 60th birthday. She was an accomplished writer who taught at the University of North Carolina at Asheville for 11 years, as well as a brief stint at Queens University in Charlotte. Her first published novel, Secondhand World, a story about a Korean-American teen clashing with immigrant parents, came out in 2006 to literary acclaim and was one of two finalists for the prestigious PEN Bingham Prize. During the ensuing years, Min worked on what would become her second and final novel, The Fetishist, reading portions to her daughter over the years.

“My new novel is very different from Secondhand World,” Min told her daughter during a phone call Andrews details in her afterword. “It’s going to have many characters, omniscient narration. Lots of shit is going to happen — suicide, kidnapping, attempted murder. It’ll be arch and clever, but always heartfelt. I’m gonna channel Nabokov. And part of it takes place in Florence, so I have to go there as research.”

Min completed a draft of The Fetishist sometime in 2013, her daughter writes. “I assumed she would pass it to me when she was ready,” Andrews wrote. “But she was still revising, polishing.” Then the cancer diagnosis hit.

Although fiction had long been Min’s forte, she stunned her family shortly after getting the news, letting them and others know that she no longer was interested in what she had been writing and instead found purpose in personal essays examining her experiences with illness and dying.

“She never looked back,” Andrews wrote. “When anyone asked about The Fetishist, Mom would say, ‘I’m done with fiction,’ in the same tone she would say, ‘I’m a word wanker,’ or, ‘I’m terrific at math.’ Matter-of-fact, with a dash of defiant pride. She didn’t refer to The Fetishist as an ‘unfinished’ novel. She called it ‘abandoned.’”

And that was that.

As Min’s life was coming to an end, she and Andrews discussed many things, such as where she wanted her “remaining bits of money” to go, and how the playlist for her memorial service should include The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” DeVotchKa’s “How It Ends,” and Janis Joplin’s “Get It While You Can.”

“What we did not discuss in the hospice center was her abandoned novel. Or her essay collection. Or anything related to posthumous publishing,” Andrews wrote. After several years of grieving, therapy and a new celebration of her mother, Andrews and others saw to it that The Fetishist, found nearly completed in manuscript form on her mom’s computer, would be shared with others. Andrews helped fill in the story’s gaps.

“I am so happy Mom’s beautiful novel is being published; I am so sad she is not here to see it happen,” Andrews wrote. “I’m happy The Fetishist’s publication process is helping me grow as a writer and a person; I’m sad Mom’s death is the reason I’m playing this role. I suppose I no longer conceptualize joy and sorrow as opposites, because everything related to The Fetishist’s publication makes me feel flooded with both at once.”

Sorrow and joy are among the emotions that flood through The Fetishist, too. Min had it right when she told her daughter her novel would be “arch and clever, and very heartfelt.” The author’s note at the beginning of the novel sums it up well:

“This is a story, a fairy tale of sorts, about three people who begin in utter despair. There is even a giant, a buried treasure (a tiny one), a hero held captive, a kind of ogre (a tiny one), and a sleeping beauty,” she advises her readers. “And because it’s a fairy tale, it has a happy ending. For the hero, the ogre, and the sleeping beauty, and for the giant, too. After all, every story has a happy ending, depending on where you put THE END.”

The Sweet Life of Lindsay Emery

THE SWEET LIFE OF LINDSAY EMERY

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The Sweet Life of Lindsay Emery

On Suite One Studio and hand-making a life full of everyday beauty

By Cynthia Adams

At 38, Lindsay Emery has managed enviable successes, despite a once-in-a-century pandemic and all which that entailed for a small business. Above all, she learned to pivot and nimbly found her mark.

When Emery first launched Suite One Studio in 2009, her delicately embellished, airily romantic, handmade ceramics swiftly gained national press: Bon Appètit, Elle Decor, Food & Wine, and Coastal Living. She made the September 2014 cover of Better Homes & Gardens and, in 2015, House Beautiful spotlighted the “soft, irregular” porcelains. 

“Bowls are thrown on a potter’s wheel, and platters and plates are rolled out by hand,” House Beautiful wrote. “Emery washes each in colors that fire into watery glazes” sold as one-off pieces online.

That year, Better Homes & Gardens named Emery a “Rising Stylemaker,” before she ranked 34th among Country Living’s 100 most creative people three years later (hailing her work as “the next wave of pottery.”)

You might guess — wrongly — that the brand’s name was drawn from an address. Suite One Studio was inspired by Emery’s student waitressing days, when a favorite customer dubbed her “sweet one.” 

Which made her smile. And Emery smiles easily and often, especially now when discussing her spouse, Kim Cannan, their nearly 2-year-old toddler, Lydia — or Suite One, which she calls her “first baby.”

“The day before she was born, I was loading a glaze firing.”  Heavily pregnant, she kept to her work amidst their pre-holiday busy season. “Twenty-six hours later, baby!”

Whereas most North Carolina pottery is primarily utilitarian, Suite One Studio’s wares differ from the familiar. They are painterly — Emery was first a painter — possessing a delicate softness, punctuated by pastel shades and light touches of gold, a contrast to the earth-toned sturdiness of most Seagrove pottery. 

“I love florals, and the blue-and-white, traditional palette for porcelain done in a modern way.” Emery’s designs echo a nostalgic beauty that works well with heirloom pieces, she says.

She describes a “near reverence” gathering around her great-grandmother and great-aunt’s table. “They spent hours cooking and then serving everything ‘just so.’”

Those family meals felt intentional and important. “When I design and create tableware, I’m reaching for a similar feeling.”

Her theme, “time at the table,” whether with pottery or, now, painting, signifies the underrated, “small moments of everyday beauty.” 

Her creative odyssey took a surprise turn when she was a student at Guilford College, where she met Cannan, who was also studying psychology and art. 

“Ceramics was not my intended path. I planned to paint, and then I planned to do art history.” 

Adapting to Guilford College’s offerings, Emery fell in love with pottery, making more pots than she knew what to do with. “I started gifting them to friends and family, and then I started selling them online on Etsy.”

Surprised by sales of a “squat little mug set,” she added trays and platters to her Etsy shop.

“People were getting more comfortable buying online. Etsy was doing more advertising. I started to get exposure in areas I would never have gotten exposure.”

Food bloggers “found my work on Etsy and started buying plates, platters and bowls. It gave me a sense of what people were attracted to . . . I was finding my way.” 

Not a techie by nature, Emery’s strength is in recognizing trends. “I think that served me really well.” Soon able to live comfortably from online sales, Cannan joined the company, coordinating operations. 

By 2011, Instagram offered yet another social media avenue. Emery jumped in as an early adopter, developing more extensive relationships with food bloggers and up-and-coming influencers, allowing her business to spread via digital word of mouth. Collaborations came with online retailers Chairish and Anthropologie. Working with Chairish, she styled her feminine pastel pieces with vintage tableware to help collector’s “rethink vintage pieces.”

“Platters, trays, serving bowls are almost always accent pieces mixed with items they [customers] inherited,” Emery says.

She designed wine glasses for her website, having studied glass blowing earlier in Norfolk, Va. Working with glassblowers in Star, N.C., “I was able to bring ideas in glass to life,” later featured in magazines and at Chairish. 

When Anthropologie dispatched a team of stylists and photographers to Greensboro, Emery had only just moved. The creatives were somewhat surprised by her modest garage studio.

She designed a series of mugs for Anthropologie (laughing at the irony, given she dislikes making mugs), with the retailer handling mass production. A “watercolor-inspired” collection, Mimra, was sold at selected Nordstrom stores in partnership with Anthropologie Home.

Pressures mounted along with success.

Bon Appètit commissioned an oversized platter for a photo shoot in its December 2018–January 2019 issue, with only six days to produce. “Which meant freehand carving the form,” she says. Emery managed.

Eventually, British stores carried Suite One Studio housewares. Commercial success demanded more staff producing hundreds of pieces monthly. By 2018, Suite One Studio moved into a 1,200-square-foot studio with two huge kilns. Running high production, Cannan handled the back side of the studio and the couple eyed expansion. 

Emery’s relationship with Anthropologie continued for a few years, leading to other possibilities. What seemed like success on the outside, Emery says, didn’t feel like it. Social media had created a hungry beast, even throughout COVID. Keeping up with the demand “felt like a really hard pivot.”

Potters. Weavers. Printmakers. All face an endless demand to produce, Emery says. “You want more. The more you can make, the more you can market and sell. And streamline. And the more orders you can fill.”

Ultimately, Emery decided against creating a small factory, sticking with small-batch production.

“I had to close [my studio]”, she adds. “I changed the trajectory of my business from being focused on volume and production to being focused on self-fulfillment, creativity.”

“I wanted to do less and love the work more. That’s when I made the shift. For things that look successful now, there were things I had to give up,” says Emery. 

Anthropologie was surprised by how small her business was versus her large brand recognition.

“How are you making this work?” its team members asked.

She spun off complementary businesses, consulting and teaching fellow artists the art of social media.

During 2018, Emery and fellow artist Allie Dattilio cofounded The Studio Source. Their online program taught artists “how to build their dream online art careers.”

“We ran it for six years. It has been a place for online learning for artists, who are starting to grow their online services. Support, training, everything they needed to know. Photography, marketing, collection releases,” she says.

Over 1,100 artists went through The Studio Source. Many left unfulfilling work places to start six-figure creative businesses. Then, Emery stopped doing that, too.

“I don’t like feeling stuck.”

She loved working one-on-one with artists. And being a painter working on actual canvases, something she had stepped away from due to her work with ceramics. She missed it. And having a child was life-changing. So, she pivoted again.

On a late summer morning, Emery stands among metal racks in her home studio stacked with various pieces awaiting painting, glazing and firing.

All of which, from the raw clay to those final, shimmery plates, platters, vases, pitchers and vessels, are created and finished by hand.

What does Emery’s family eat on daily? 

“My plates,” she answers. “I like basics. A lot of the stuff I kept for myself is simple, white porcelain. I have some pink. Sometimes with a gold rim, but usually just plain.” She likes the heft of her plates — their conformation. “I find them comfortable in the hand,” she says. “They feel nice.” 

Not too heavy, not too thin.

Just white.

Lydia, playing on the floor, calls, “Mama.”

For nine years, Cannan worked alongside Emery as “the one behind the scenes — keeping things organized and on track.” 

Cannan was also Lydia’s primary caregiver during the day until recently accepting a position with the City of Greensboro.

There are still adjustments to their new dynamic. “Slowing down my business and closing my other business has been a huge decision, but I can feel in my gut there’ll be other opportunity to hit the gas.”

She smiles. Lydia is at the core of that decision. The secret to her success, she reflects, “is I had a great support system behind the scene,” meaning Cannan.

Lydia swings a broom among the stacks of porcelains, but her mom never flinches.

“This is what I want to be doing,” she says, “and it’s such a short time that she is little.” Emery wants to model running a business to her daughter too.

“I had the banana bread going, and my baby was napping, and an interview going,” she says happily, “and I like that! That’s what I’ve always wanted with my business, for it to fit into my life.” 

The business has been adapted to fit her life, she adds proudly. 

Lydia cries, “Draw . . . draw!”

Emery finds paper and pencil. Her daughter happily draws.

She tells a story about a friend relocating to the Triad after years of being apart. Helping her unpack, Emery spotted items she had made. In that moment, she understood how, despite years of separation, she was a part of her friend’s dinner parties and memories, “through pieces I made, objects we take for granted.”

When she sees her friends using sometimes completely forgotten work, she is moved. “But they remember, and I think, ‘Ah, I made that!’”

From a young age, Emery’s own parents supported her love of art, which she wants to do for her child. “The human condition, I think we’re wired to create things, but fear gets in the way, and insecurity.”

A plane goes over. Lydia pauses. Watches, then speaks. 

Emery interprets her daughter’s baby-talk as saying “art.”

“I love now having someone mentor me,” Emery says, standing near an easel.

Having spent 15 years working three-dimensionally, Emery worried her painting skills “had gone dormant.” Putting brush to ceramics is not the same as painting on canvas.

Before Lydia’s birth, she signed up for a painting class with artist and teacher Kelly Oakes throughout the 2021 COVID surge. Now, the two artists share a studio in a former factory, now the Eno Arts Mill in Hillsborough. A vaulted ceiling, pale walls and a tall window provide light, even on a gray day. 

Artworks line the walls and Emery’s still lifes wait on an easel.

Figs. Peaches. Soft colors and vivid fruits find their way into Emery’s feminine, color-saturated works. Occasionally, her ceramics are part of the composition.

Even the fruits have a story. Mango was Lydia’s first solid food. “At 9 months, Lydia decided they were her favorite food.”

Looking back on leaving with a friend to attend a 2023 Better Homes & Gardens influencer event, Emery winces at the memory of leaving 10-month-old Lydia at home for the first time. While away, she noticed a piece of blue fabric.

It symbolically figures into a painting. Interestingly, their studio is in a former cloth factory, she mentions.

The red fabric in another painting is an apron specifically worn for a Southern Living feature at an editor’s request. 

“I was the first artist to get a studio here,” says Oakes about the industrial building, “and then less than a week later COVID hit.” Until pandemic restrictions relaxed, she could only use the studio if isolating alone. She values Emery’s creative company. 

“Kelly has been so supportive of my motherhood dream, too,” she says, as the toddler plays at their feet on the polished wooden floor. 

Katie Murray, executive director of the Orange County Arts Commission, has since opened offices there, too. During First Friday events each month, artists open their studios to the public. 

“It has become a real known event since we first started,” says Oakes, who teaches classes, accepts art commissions and does portraiture since retiring from art education.

“I do think if you’re doing anything creative, you have to think if you want to monetize it; you have to develop a plan for that. If you don’t want to, and are just learning about it to deepen your own creative life, then that is fine,” Emery says as Oakes offers Lydia a toy. “But find a mentor if you can.”

“She has this exceptional brain,” Oakes says about Emery, adding that she is equally left- and right-brain, a rarity.

As Cannan pursues her new career, Emery occasionally brings Lydia with her to Hillsborough.

You work toward having art fit into your life.

“You don’t stretch your life to fit your art,” Emery repeats. Her art now conforms to fit her life.

It is her mantra; a wife, mother and artist’s North Star.

***

Keep up with Lindsay on her new substack, Courage & Creativity (Lindsayemery.substack.com). Thanks to the Thompson family for allowing us to shoot in their bright and beautiful kitchen, recently remodeled by Triad Flooring & Bath (triadflooringandbath.com).

Almanac

ALMANAC

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Almanac December

By Ashley Walshe

December is a bite of ginger, a dusting of sugar, a thick swirl of molasses.

Beyond the kitchen window, the quiet earth glitters in gentle light. Birdsong warms the frosty air. Save for the twitch of slender ears, a cottontail rabbit sits frozen in a sunbeam.

Just as the seasons announce themselves with unmistakable clarity, so, too, does this day. You reach for a hand of ginger, a paring knife, a timeworn recipe. Today is the day for ginger cookies.

As you peel and mince, the redolent fragrance of fresh ginger awakens your senses. Imagine growing in the darkness as this root did. The way life might shape you. What gifts for healing you might hold.

Butter softens on the stovetop. You stir in the ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon and molasses. A pinch of sea salt. Vanilla extract. Another pinch of sea salt. 

Whisk in the egg. Add the flour and baking powder. The steady dance of wooden spoon stirs something deep within you, too.

This is how it goes. Homemade cookies send you time traveling. As you shape the dough, the timeworn hands of the ones who shaped you begin to clarify. 

Memories are sharp and warm and sweet — here and gone like frost across the leaf-littered lawn.

As for the cookies? Same, same.

Sink your teeth into the golden edges, the chewy centers, the sugar-laced magic. Delight in the depth of flavor. Let the ginger bite back.

Sprig and a Peck

Here’s a fun fact about a favorite Yuletide parasite. The word mistletoe is derived from the Old English misteltan, which roughly translates to “dung on a twig.” You can thank its high-flying seed mules for that. Although the white berries are toxic to humans, many bird species rely on mistletoe as a mineral-rich food source throughout the barren days of winter. If you find yourself standing beneath a festive sprig with the one you adore, consider tucking the etymology morsel away for later.

Moment of Gratitude

Cold air makes for dazzling night skies. Check out Aries (the ram), Triangulum (the triangle) and Perseus (the hero who beheaded Medusa). Not a night owl? Christmas Bird Counts happening across the Carolinas this month are a constellation in and of themselves. If rusty blackbirds and yellow-rumped warblers are more your speed, consider joining a local count to get in on the action. (Map available at carolinabirdclub.org.)

Stars and birds aside, don’t forget to count your blessings. The great wheel continues to turn. Winter solstice arrives on December 21. As we celebrate the longest night of the year — and the promise of brighter days to come — give thanks for the warmth and brilliance in your own life. You know what they say: The best things in life aren’t things.

December has the clarity, the simplicity, and the silence you need for the best fresh start of your life.

— Vivian Swift

From Borough to Boro

FROM BOROUGH TO BORO

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From Borough to Boro

 . . . And back again

By Cassie Bustamante

Photographs by Amy Freeman

When Brooklynites Alec Pollak and Swati Argade took haven in her parents’ Greensboro home in May 2020, they thought they’d just perch there for a short time. After all, Argade’s mother and father were stuck in India, unable to travel back to the United States due to COVID restrictions, but they’d be returning. 

Argade, who had grown up just a block away, had sworn she’d never move back to Greensboro. Home, to her, was in Brooklyn, with her husband and their then 9-year-old daughter, Indie. Plus, she had opened a storefront called Bhoomki in 2012, “a Brooklyn-based responsible textile-obsessed brand & laboratory.” (She closed the physical storefront in 2022, but maintains an e-commerce site.) And Pollak, who works in marketing, is a born-and-raised New Yorker. Having grown up in a household that was both Catholic and Jewish, he had never lived anywhere other than Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn — all boroughs of New York City. 

But as the pandemic pressed on, it became clear that a return to Brooklyn was not going to happen as soon as they hoped. The borough they called home had become “an atmosphere of fear and the unknown, and it was just tripping us all out,” says Pollak. “Not to mention, just knowing there were these outdoor morgues that they were setting up.”

Four years later, they’re back in Brooklyn, reflecting via Zoom on how they not only warmed up to Greensboro, but, in fact, bought a fixer-upper and found themselves becoming part of a community that, over the decades, seemed not only accepting but welcoming to newcomers. In turn, Argade organized a book club with new — and old — Greensboro friends where the focus was diversity. Women from various backgrounds read works by authors of color every other month. It became, Argade recalls, “this place where we could have conversations around what is it like to be Jewish? What is it like to be Hindu? What is it like to celebrate Christ, you know?” 

And though the couple ultimately moved back to their beloved New York City, the experience offered Argade healing from her own past. “I didn’t ever feel accepted growing up in Greensboro,” she says, recalling classmates who ridiculed her and her identical twin sister, Jyoti — the only two young Indian women at Page High School that she can recall. “I was told that I was ugly every single day of my life growing up.”

“It was more shocking that you moved to Greensboro than that Indie and I did,” muses Pollak.

Snuggling on their sofa with their tan-and-white Corgi nestled on Argade’s lap, the two of them look back on their experience in Greensboro — and reflect on to how it changed them and maybe some of the people in Greensboro they left behind. 

While sheltering at her folks’ place, Argade’s childhood friend, Soumya Iyer — who remembers teenage Argade babysitting her — planted a seed, suggesting a Starmount Forest home her friend was putting on the market. “‘I know that you don’t want to move here,’” Argade recalls her pal saying, “‘but why don’t you just come and see the house?’”

With the guidance of Realtor Melissa Greer, the couple toured the home on a lark, and, as it turns out, fell in love with it. “It was beautifully done and had this massive backyard, which was a big draw,” says Pollak.

They knew how competitive the real estate market could be. In fact, they’d just gone through the process in Brooklyn and, after putting in 12 offers, were under contract with a place there. (Thanks to COVID, Pollak and Argade were able to break it.) They went full-bore on the Starmount home, putting together a strong offer they were sure would make the home theirs.

“We didn’t get the house,” says Argade.

But, says Pollak, “it triggered something in us.” What else could be out there? they wondered. And what they knew for certain was that they were not ready to go back to apartment living just yet, especially after a few months in the Gate City that he calls “such a breath of literal fresh air.”

The couple quickly went from considering the possibility to urgently wanting a Greensboro home.

“That’s exactly what happened,” says Argade with a laugh.

Plus, they knew investing in a home was wiser than renting in the long run. “A friend once told us, ‘Don’t think of it as spending money. Think of it has a house-shaped bank,’” quips Pollak.

Greer took them to see a couple other homes, including a circa 1927 house on Chapman in her own Sunset Hills neighborhood.

With its penny tile and existing color scheme — blues, grays, blacks and white — “It felt like old-time New York spaces,” says Argade, something she was sure would appeal to her “dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker” husband.

“We saw it at 3 in the afternoon,” says Pollak, “and we were under contract by midnight.”

Curled up together on the family sofa, Argade and Indie are known to often watch the HGTV show of No Demo Reno, which features homes redone beautifully with zero demolition. “And constantly during the show,” says Pollak, “Indie is like, ‘Mama, you could totally do that.’”

He agrees and adds that his wife has always had the ability to design, whether it’s been for friends or in her store, “but never had a full canvas to express it.”

Paintbrushes in hand, the couple got to work and continued the theme of blues — “an homage to denim and indigo,” Swati says, inspired by both Greensboro’s rich fabric history and her own background in sustainable textiles. Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue now covers the walls in the living room, trimmed by the same shade in a high gloss. In the kitchen, the cabinetry was already blue, paired with a black-and-white checkerboard floor, but the couple painted the walls white with black trim. And on the library walls? “Bell Bottom Blue.” But there was a major problem they soon discovered after moving in that no amount of paint could remedy. “That fall, October and November of 2020, I think it was the highest rainfall on record for those months,” Argade recalls. Their backyard flooded and became “like quicksand.”  But that’s not all. The basement filled up with water, too. “We also discovered there was a 2-foot-by-2-foot hole in the brick wall of the basement that was covered up with plywood — and that’s where all the water was coming in.”

Plus, the water flow through the yard created a trench, one that Swati fell in and “pretty much got a concussion.” The couple worried about safety, especially when it came to hosting Argade’s aging parents, who, amidst a full-blown pandemic, would not enter their home, but were happy to spend time in their daughter’s backyard.

Before anything else design-show-worthy could happen, they decided to invest in the landscaping while making the necessary reparations to prevent future water damage.

“It’s a solid house now!” Pollak says proudly.

The silver lining? The backyard was transformed into a dream space where they could watch movies with Indie — including their holiday family favorite, Elf — gather with friends, and plant new gardens, which include Argade’s beloved indigo plants.

When she took that tumble, she serendipitously discovered an old, unused feature: an old-fashioned subterranean garbage receptacle. “I was lying on the ground going, ‘Oh that’s where I could put my indigo vats!’” She laughs about it now.

The intrinsic blue theme of the house even carried into the famous Sunset Hills lighted Christmas balls that conveyed with the sale of the house. “It was funny because so many of the balls that were left behind were Hanukkah blue. Do you remember that?” Argade asks her husband.

Pollak smiles and nods pensively. He had always celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas. Now, married to a first generation Indian American, he’s added Diwali to his holiday festivities and Argade has adopted his traditions as well. When it comes to their daughter, Pollak says, “We’ve put forward those family traditions.”

In fact, he adds, “We always want her to have a big world or to acknowledge that she has a big world and it is hers to experience.” Together, they provide their daughter with an abundance of cultural celebrations.

The holiday season, for the Argade-Pollak crew, “kicks off with Halloween,” says Argade. Before they even met, they each went all out for Halloween. Then, they were married on Halloween. It’s only natural that Indie embraces All Hallow’s Eve, too.

Shortly after that falls Diwali. Then comes “Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s,” says Argade, “so it’s almost like a trickle of holidays through those last two months of the year.” Actually, she says, “We would put up our balls earlier than a lot of people in the neighborhood as we were celebrating Diwali because Diwali is also a festival of lights in the same way that Hanukah is a festival of lights and Christmas itself is a festival of lights.”

Often, the family hosted holiday celebrations in their home so that friends could enjoy what Argade calls this “magical experience every holiday” created by her Sunset Hills neighborhood. It was important to her, as a person of color, to open her doors to people who had perhaps not yet had the opportunity to be invited into a holiday gathering there.

Argade notes that the original deed to the house, which they have, reads “no coloreds allowed, white only.” Now, she says, “there’s a Jew and an Indian that own the house and it’s become this multicultural gathering place in Sunset Hills — it’s a very full circle moment.”

Determined to make a difference in Greensboro, which she calls “kind of my revenge,” Argade both found and created her own community. “You started to integrate yourself into Greensboro society and culture,” says Pollak. It’s true. Argade served on the board of GreenHill Center for NC Art and was involved with the Community Foundation’s developing committee. She returned to the Indian community of her childhood. She started the book club focused on diversity.

Argade was able to “touch and get a handle on” so much in the four years the family spent in Greensboro. “But,” she adds, “my mom was also really amazing at being part of the community and teaching me a lot of those skills. Like, how do you talk about the Indian community? How do you bring people together?”

While her mother cultivated those skills, the house allowed Argade room to build a bigger table and open up space for these kinds of discussions. “Having that amount of space . . . it really activates community in a way that it’s not activated in the same way here,” she says, waving a hand around the family’s current Brooklyn abode.

Pollak, too, got in on giving back to Greensboro. When Sunset Hills sent out a request to the neighborhood for a logo to celebrate its centennial, Pollak, who had graphic design experience, volunteered the chosen design, inspired by his own home’s original windows; he’d noted that they were shaped to look like a sun setting behind hills.

And yet, in June of 2024, the family loaded up and headed back to the Big Apple. “We are kind of interwoven as our tight-knit three-person — well, you count too — three-and-a-half-person family” Pollak says, scratching Viv behind the ears, “that so much is about, well, where is Indie going to go to high school and what does that mean for where we should be.” Ultimately, they felt that Brooklyn was that place.

But, this time, there’s no more swearing she’ll never return. Between her community and house, Argade feels a newfound sense of home in the Gate City. “Leaving Greensboro this time, I felt a huge amount of love and acceptance,” she says with a smile. She currently makes a trip back every six weeks to visit friends and family and check in on their Sunset Hills home.

“We’re perched here for now in the apartment,” says Pollak, “but we’re still very much like, OK, we’re ready for anything. We’re ready to jump, to dive.” Who knows where life will take them next?

Wherever it is, says Argade, “Alec and I always say to each other, ‘Well, you know, my home is wherever you are.’”

O.Henry Ending

O.HENRY ENDING

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A Tooth Fairytale

Straight from the mouths of babes

By Cassie Bustamante

Once upon a time, a little boy named Wilder lived with his family in a wee brick house situated deep in the enchanted forest of Starmount. His father, Christoph, was a kind and hardworking man who traversed the land each week to to ensure that fellow countrymen would have plentiful CAVA pita chips. His fair, raven-haired mother, Cassandra, wove stories together for the townspeople’s entertainment.

One Sunday evening, huddled around the kitchen table with his mother and father, Wilder pushed away his plate of warm, soft pita bread and steaming lentils.

“My tooth is wiggling,” he lamented. 

“Oh, ‘twill soon fall out!” his mom exclaimed, clapping her hands together in glee.

Little Wilder’s eyes welled with tears. “Will it hurt?”

“No, my son,” quoth Christoph. “Alas, it happens to all of us. But I bear good news! New teeth doth grow in their place. Just look at your mother’s beautiful smile!”

Blushing, Cassandra grinned for her beloved. “And,” she leaned in and whispered, “if you put your tooth under your pillow, the Tooth Fairy will bestow upon you a gift.”

The next morning just before the golden sun rose above the trees, Christoph loaded his trusty steed, Ford, and promised a safe return. But, of course, that very evening as Wilder was brushing his teeth like all good boys do, he felt something strange. With his elfin finger, he plucked something white and wondrous from his mouth and beheld it in his open palm.

“Your tooth!” Cassandra exulted! 

He burst into a fit of giggles. “The Tooth Fairy is coming tonight!!!”

His mother dressed the excited child in his bedclothes and tucked him in. “Sleep well, my love,” she said, “for the fairy only visits sleeping children.”

But lo, the Tooth Fairy, who should have known this day would soon be upon her, was ill prepared, yet determined to make her first visit extra special. Little boys love insects, she thought, but fireflies were out of season. As luck, or perhaps magic, would have it, she reached into her drawstring pouch and pulled out a 5-pound gold coin — the perfect first tooth prize. 

She rummaged through cabinets, stumbling upon a strand of twinkling, tiny fairy lights. Ah, better than a hundred fireflies! Soon after, she discovered a clear purple unopened bottle of bubbles. Who doesn’t like bubbles?

Flitting into Wilder’s chamber, she snuck her spritely hand underneath his pillow and swiped the tooth. Pecking him ever so softly upon the cheek, she left her offering, glimmering magically, on his bedside table. Pleased with her last-minute merry-making, she patted herself on the back, fluttered her wings and dashed off into the starry night.

A few hours later, Cassandra was awakened by a sound. The fairy? But her door swung open and in walked a weary Wilder.

Tears streamed down his rosy cheeks as he sneezed and wheezed, tiny, iridescent bubbles emerging from his nostrils and ears. When he opened his mouth to speak, his breath smelled faintly of Dawn, his mother’s dish soap.

“The Tooth Fairy came,” he hiccuped, “and she brought me water that I don’t like!” Out came a mournful wail, followed by a string of bubbles that floated to the ceiling, where they popped in a rain of tiny, glimmering droplets.

Cassandra leapt out of bed and dashed to his room. The twinkling bottle sat with its lid ajar, easily mistaken for some sort of magic potion — or, for a parched and sleepy little one, a wonderful draught of water. 

“Did you drink this?” she asked.

Wilder nodded sadly and coughed, another bubble springing from his lips.

After an ancient cure — animal crackers — to cleanse his throat, the effervescent coughing simmered down and he settled into bed, where he quickly dozed off into blissful slumber. Every few breaths, a small bubble escaped from his nose. 

     And every now and again to this day, if a bubble blows by you on a twilight breeze, you can be sure that, somewhere, Wilder is snoring softly. As for his mother, she’s still weaving fantastical yet mostly true stories together for the townspeople.

Gag Gifts

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

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Tales of the weirdest, wildest and worst gifts ever

Is it, as they say, better to give than to receive? There are situations when that age-old bromide can be answered with a resounding YES! Especially on those occasions when you’re presented with a gift so puzzling, so bizarre — so wrong — that you find yourself asking, what was that person thinking?!?

Early one Saturday morning, O.Henry magazine dispatched editor Cassie Bustamante and a bleary-eyed Billy Ingram out to the Corner Farmers Market to ask passersby about the strangest, oddest or most unwelcome gift they’d ever received. The answers may surprise you.

Take from me my lace

“Worst gift ever? One year, my mom forgot my birthday but she said, ‘Oh, I have a gift for you.’ It was a pair of lacy underwear. I was a married woman, 40-years-old, and these panties were two sizes too small, which meant they were her size. She gave me panties she had bought for herself, but they were way too sexy for me so I know they were too sexy for my mama. She didn’t have a husband. They weren’t in a pack or a bag or anything. They were on a little raggedy hanger from the store and they still had the Walmart ticket on them.”

                                                   — Queen C

Beauty is in the eye of the ugly sweater giver

“Every year the girls in the family get the ugliest sweaters from my aunt. She loves them, but we would never wear those things. Years go by and we just keep hiding them at her house. They are so ugly. Like hot pink and cropped and not our size. Last year she gave us all matching beanies . . . and they matched the ugly sweaters! It keeps getting worse.”
— Barbara Strickland

Happy Mother’s Day! Now go away

“For Mother’s Day, my husband gave me a trip away for that weekend, by myself, anywhere I wanted to go. And I thought that didn’t really honor me for being a mother too much. Where did I go? I didn’t go. I rejected the gift.”
— Christy Douglas

Lost in translation

“I was dating this fellow from Israel, and English was his second language. After a night of passion, he left a note on my pillow that read: ‘Good morning, sweaty, kisses all over your body, love Avi.’ I told him when he got home, ‘I think you meant sweetie!’” — Susan Grant

Once bitten, twice shy

“Someone gave me a box of chocolates with several of them half bitten into — all the ones that she didn’t want. She’d bitten into them, decided she didn’t want that, and she packaged it all up in a pretty little heart-shaped box and gave them to me. Now that’s a weird gift!” — Mari Rufo

It’s the thought, or lack thereof, that counts

Someone gave me a big pencil that says ‘Souvenir of Hawaii.’ I was like, of all the things you could have brought me back from Hawaii, you bring me the big pencil? Or it will be a plate or a T-shirt that says ‘Souvenir of . . . .’; the stuff you buy at the last minute in the airport, like that Seinfeld episode. Now, when I travel, sometimes just for fun, I’ll get my children a big pencil that says ‘Souvenir of . . .’ on it.” — Anonymous

Dads not a Duke fan, honest

“The kids gave me A Touch of Gray hair color when I was starting to go gray, but I wouldn’t use it because my father had tried to dye his hair one time and it turned blue. This was right before the N.C. State basketball playoffs with Duke. I knew he was going to be there with us and I told him, ‘I don’t want you there with blue hair!’”

                   — John Kelly

What, the elves ran out of Cabbage Patch Kids?

“When I was a little girl, Santa gave me a pirate ship. I was very upset about it because I thought Santa thought I was a boy. It was a pirate ship, so it doesn’t need to be gender specific, but for some reason I was upset. But now I love that pirate ship!”
— Caroline Forman

Lived to tell the story

“On my 50th birthday, my wife surprised me with a parachute jump. It was scary, and it was not something I ever thought about doing. The company provides someone for you to jump with — you’re attached to them — so they tell you what to do and it worked out fine. It was a delightful experience, I enjoyed it enough that I would do it again although my body’s getting to the point where I have to be careful what I subject it to.”
— Steve Warshaw

On the flip side

“I was 3,000 miles from home a few weeks before Thanksgiving in the 1990s. Some distant relatives in California I’d never met invited me to their home for turkey dinner. I needed to bring something, as you do, so my new co-workers suggested Mrs. See’s candies. ‘You can’t go wrong,’ they told me. When I handed the box of chocolates to my host at Thanksgiving, she tossed it aside: ‘We don’t eat this junk in our household, but I’ll give it to the mailman for Christmas.’ The way I was raised, that was considered rude, but her husband was an admiral in the Navy, so what did I know?” — Buddy Rogers

Christmas for Dummies

“A middle-aged, female family member gave me a copy of Calculus For Dummies. She knew I was taking a calculus course at the university and may or may not have known I was doing very, very poorly in the class. It didn’t help that I had a professor whose Russian accent was so thick that virtually all of the students in the class couldn’t understand him!

“I also didn’t appreciate the intimation of the word ‘dummy.’ I went to law school and showed her!! To add injury to insult, when I opened the book, I saw lots of passages which were underlined — she had given me a USED book — a horrible book and it wasn’t even new!” — Renee Skudra

Christmas Summer’s Eve

“At our house, stocking gifts are wrapped and we go around the circle taking turns opening them and showing them off. One Christmas — after I was separated, but before I was divorced — my ex-husband’s mother wrapped up and put in my stocking Summer’s Eve wipes. So I had to unwrap them and show them off in front of the whole family.” — Anonymous

Drive it into the ground

“This was in France when I was living there, and my ex thought it would be an amazing idea to give me a gift of a thumb drive for my birthday. We had been together for 2 1/2 years. We’re not together anymore.” — Sadaf Fardanesh

Gone to the dogs

“She’ll wrap our gifts in newspapers from years ago, but then she gives us magazines from the ’70s and ’80s. One of the strangest gifts I’ve gotten from her recently was an anniversary gift — a can of dog-grooming mist for our dog, mmm-hmmm. It worked really well for the dog though!” — Anonymous

In hot water

“I think my mother-in-law forgot to get me a present, so she wrapped up a bag of pasta. It was old pasta, too, not even new pasta. We never cooked it.”

                                 — Mark Plott

Chugga-chugga-chocolate

“For one of my birthdays when I was much younger, my father made a train made out of cake — locomotive, railroad car, caboose. And I love chocolate — the locomotive was chocolate. The others were other flavors. So we get ready to eat the cake and my father says, ‘No, no, no, no! We gotta save the locomotive!’ So he puts it in the freezer and I get it the next year with two other cars. Again, my father says, ‘No, we gotta save the locomotive!’ For the third year in a row, I get the same chocolate locomotive and two other cakes. And nobody wanted the chocolate that year so we finally threw it away.”  OH

                                                  — David Lozano

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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Sagittarius

(November 22 – December 21)

You know that shameless party guest who just can’t stop with the eggnog? Darling, you are the eggnog. Rich, indulgent and best in small doses, most folks simply don’t know how to handle you. This month kicks off with a Sagittarius New Moon conjunct a retrograde Mercury in Sagittarius (read: you’re going to feel tipsy). Wait until December 5 to dive into that new project you’re all charged up about. Success may take a while, but the seeds you plant now will take root.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

The gift isn’t always obvious.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Don’t leave before the second act.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Make friends with your color palette.

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

Look under the couch.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Cut the fluff.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Invest in wool socks.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Double dog dare you to care less.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Two words: sugared cranberries.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Tacky is as tacky does.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Go for the upgrade.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Prepare to dazzle yourself.

Chaos Theory

CHAOS THEORY

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All Aboard!

A magical ride on the Polar Express

By Cassie Bustamante

The rain pelts us sideways as we stand under a flimsy Ikea umbrella, not meant to withstand North-Pole-in-the-Piedmont winds — or a light breeze, for that matter. I huddle in closely to Chris as our youngest, 5-year-old Wilder, nestles against our legs. Wilder’s rosy cheeks match his cherry-red Nikes and the Santa-suits on his gray fleece pajama pants, which are sopping wet. My own red-and-white, buffalo-check flannel bottoms are also drenched. Chris is high and dry above the waist, thanks to a red raincoat, but he clearly didn’t embrace the Polar Express spirit as Wilder and I did by donning holiday sleepwear. Instead, he wears the fabric of our city — denim. Never a great choice in a rainstorm, but when we’d left the house an hour ago, only a soft drizzle was falling.

A couple of months earlier when I’d booked the Polar Express train ride at the N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer, it had seemed like a great idea. With two jaded teenagers in the house who snicker at Santa, it’s getting harder and harder for me to conjure up holiday magic each year, even for the little one. In the days leading up to our North Pole excursion, we’d repeatedly read Chris Van Allsburg’s book. Now, “Seeing is believing” keeps echoing in my mind, reminding me why I am here. But standing amid strangers in the mud and muck as we await the arrival of our train, what I’m seeing is anything but magical. And then I remember the rest of the passage: “Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.”

“Choooo-choooooo . . . ” the train pulls up to our platform, disrupting my thoughts. The shivering crowd of families, matching pajama sets clinging damply to their bodies, erupts into cheers. Wilder’s face, along with those of the other young children surrounding us, finally begins to glow with excitement. Meanwhile, parents, grandparents and adults alike are thinking how magical a warm and dry passenger car is going to be.

“All aboard!” A behatted conductor yells as a boy dressed in jammies joins him on the platform to act out the late-night boarding scene from the book. Meanwhile the adults in the crowd of cold, wet excursionists await entrance. I hear mutters of what I’m thinking: “Just let us on the train!”

Finally, the gates open. A collective sigh of relief echoes through the cabin as we all find our seats. Along each side of the interior, garlands of popcorn and beads, red mug ornaments and greenery glisten against strings of lights. On each seat sits a golden ticket. Wide-eyed, Wilder holds his up: “A real golden ticket!”

Soon, an attendant asks for our tickets. I reflexively pull my iPhone from my pocket to show our three Etix vouchers. Big, fat, nonbelieving adult mistake. Wilder slaps his forehead. “Mom, not those!” The smiling agent rescues me and repeats: “May I see your tickets,” she says, enunciating that last word as it clicks into place. Wilder, to the rescue, proudly hands it to her.

She goes to town with a paper punch, handing our tickets back, each one featuring the letter “B” cut into it. I lean into Wilder and whisper, “For ‘believe.’” He peers at me through the holes of his ticket, his blue eyes sparkling with wonder.

The train roars to life, chug-chugging along the track. Through its speakers, “Hot Chocolate” begins to sound — Hot! Hot! Ooh, we got it! — as the train’s chefs and attendants perform a lively dance in the aisle, dispensing chunky, chocolate-chip cookies and cups of steaming hot cocoa.

While Wilder nibbles, breaking off bits with the biggest hunks of chocolate first, the gentle voice of a grandfatherly narrator begins reading the book that inspired this ride. A few attendants, holding the largest copies I’ve ever seen, walk up and down the aisle so that everyone can see the illustrations. Though he’s seen the pages a million times, Wilder cranes his neck for a good look, savoring every moment of his personal Polar Express ride.

As the train eases to a crawl into “The North Pole,” Wilder plasters his face to the window. I stop myself from ruining the magic by scolding him for fingerprints on the glass. His gaze is  locked on an oversized Santa, whose downy beard billows in the wind. And then Santa raises his hand into the air. In it, a sleigh bell. “The first gift of Christmas!” he proclaims before handing it to the pajamaed boy we saw earlier on the platform.

With a basket full of sleigh bells, Santa boards our train car and makes his way down the aisle, handing one to every passenger as the jingling slowly sweeps from front of the car to the rear. Seated in the very back, Wilder’s anticipation mirrors the chiming crescendo. With a white-gloved hand, Santa gently places the very last sleigh bell in my little boy’s clammy palm with a “Merry Christmas.” Words escape Wilder, who, for the next minute, just stares in wonder at the treasure in his grasp.

“Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe,” the book concludes. And as our ride ends and we prepare to face the bitter rain, I put my bell in my pocket and take Wilder’s hand in mine. While I came here on a mission to give Wilder something to believe in, I am leaving with more than that. I’m carrying the knowledge that Santa’s spirit and magic are alive and well in this world. Dare I say, I believe.