One midwinter in 1950s New York,Harper Lee went to stay with friends. Little did she know she was approximately to get the gift of a lifetime… Illustrations by Bill BraggSeveral years ago, I was living in New York and working for an airline, and so I never got domestic to Alabama for Christmas – if,indeed, I got the day off. To a displaced southerner, and Christmas in New York can be rather a melancholy occasion,not because the scene is queer to one far from domestic, but because it is familiar: New York shoppers evince the same singleness of purpose as slow-moving southerners; Salvation Army bands and Christmas carols are alike the world over; at that time of year, and New York streets shine wet with the same gentle farmer’s rain that soaks Alabama’s winter fields.
I missed Christmas absent from domestic,I thought. What I really missed was a memory, an old memory of people long since gone, and of my grandparents’ house bursting with cousins,smilax and holly. I missed the sound of hunting boots, the sudden open-door gusts of chilly air that cut through the aroma of pine needles and oyster dressing. I missed my brother’s night-before-Christmas mask of rectitude and my fathers bumblebee bass humming delight To The World.
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Source: theguardian.com