You wouldn't believe....

(Probably, I'm wrong about this, blogging is so yesterday, but since my website got hacked and I closed it down, I'm going to try blogging again. Maybe once a week, maybe once a month, but try I shall. Here goes!)


We'd just left seeing Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim, zigzagging down the street and across Park Ave., towards the subway at 86th and Lexington. I noticed some shiny black SUVS convening in front of a small red brick building, which turned out to be the Park Ave United Methodist Church. I peeked in and saw a gospel choir on stage, dressed in red, singing; at the same time, I heard Maya urgently whispering to turn around and look. 

Whipping around I saw a tall man surrounded by secret service agents, emerging from the scene of SUVs, in a sleek blue suit and flashy red tennis shoes. It was Bill Clinton, in all his 6ft. 2in. lean glory. He turned towards us— being the only people on the street for some inexplicable reason, like an episode from the Twilight Zone where we'd been dropped into place just to experience this emergence— and waved. I would say we 4 stood with our mouths gaped open as he said, "Hi there!" and smiled. 

Walking from the back of the SUV came a small woman, beige in appearance and unadorned. At first I thought it was Hillary, then I thought it can't be her, too plain, and then I thought, good God, it is Hillary, totally without color or animation. She looked diminished next to her dashing husband, who throughout her career has stolen her spotlight, and today certainly was stealing it again. She walked up to his side, without smiling, and together they climbed the stairs to the church, where, in a last minute spontaneous outburst, I shouted "I like your shoes, Bill," the sound dispersing in the cold winter air.

They disappeared inside the church, and we, wide eyed and stupified, disappeared down into the subway. 

Being Christmas the subway was packed. I found a seat next to a woman who was wearing a red beret, almost as bright as Bill's shoes. Immediately I turned to her and said, "You wouldn't believe who we just saw. Bill and Hillary, and Bill had shoes the exact color of your hat! He looked good, but Hillary looked pale as a ghost." The woman, who was on her way to family and church, came straight to the point, "The stress that woman was put under, it's a terrible shame. A shame. And they're still after her. I feel sorry for her."

This woman, whose name I never got, had more compassion than I ever had about Hillary, whose crimes where touted ad nauseam by even reasonable people. I don't think I ever thought of Hillary as a real person, but today, there she was, looking diminished, looking defeated, which seriously shook me. The irony, of course, is that she told us, point blank, what the truth was about Trump, the danger to our country, his unending lies, but did we listen? We only cared about her emails.

We stepped out of the subway in East Williamsburg, little Puerto Rico, and walked into a scene straight out of the Christmas Story, but a new version where Santa arrives on a three-wheeled motorcycle in the late afternoon (elf added). There he was hopping off his bike with a bag full of toys and knocking on a door, a mother standing guard, calling for her child, "It's Santa! Come quick."

Santa and his motorcycle were adorned in bright red, like the gospel choir, like Bill's shoes, like the woman's red beret. He climbed the stairs to deliver his gifts and stood talking to the mother who kept calling for her child. We walked on before the child appeared, but I could just imagine her delight upon seeing Santa, upon seeing that magic can happen and that it comes right up to your door.