Two Christmases, Two Gifts
by Christina Rukavina
photography by Abby Sands Miller
There are Christmas gifts, and there are, well, Christmas gifts. The best? No question. In third grade. Earlier that year, my mother had missed my First Communion so that she could give birth to her eighth child. I hadn’t been quite ready to forgive her for that, because her one previous attempt at presenting me with a sister had produced a loudmouthed pest. But this time she came through with a little doll we nicknamed “Rosebud,” all curls and dimples. This latest family addition resulted in our move to a new subdivision, where there didn’t seem to be any girls my age. One day, however, in a crowd of kids, I spotted her—a near mirror image of myself who is my best friend to this day. Life was pretty darn good. Best of all, Susie and I were chosen to be angels at Midnight Mass. We got to wear angel costumes complete with halos, perform in front of the entire church and stay up all night! And, I even got to open one Christmas present early—black patent leather shoes that had a detachable strap, so that they could look like “big girl” flats. Best Christmas gifts ever. Hard to top. Except for the one I received this year.
It all started with a post-Katrina letter that made its way from my former uptown New Orleans landlord to my Wisconsin evacuation point. It read something to the effect of, “Please come back. Everything is fine with your unit, and, unlike other landlords, we’re only going to raise your rent by $100 a month to cover Katrina expenses.”
Even before receiving this missive saying that all was relatively well on Nashville Avenue, I’d been torn between returning or staying put in my new environs, where the red carpet had been laid out for me as something of a prodigal daughter who’d returned from 15 years in New Orleans. I’d spent the initial weeks in an historic bed and breakfast. The trauma of being suddenly uprooted had been ameliorated by having a whirlpool tub in my room, a hostess—an acerbically-witted dead ringer for Bebe Neuwirth—who insisted on preparing whole-wheat blueberry pancakes for me each morning, and a resident ghost, “Aunt Prissy,” who made sure that my fireplace was lit on chilly northern evenings.
Those first days after the storm were at once numbing and comforting. On one hand, I couldn’t wrap my mind around all that had just happened. I didn’t know what had become of friends, neighbors and co-workers. On the other, I was kept company for hours by the inn’s motley crew of four rescued dogs who gathered steadfastly at my feet as I stayed glued to the computer in the back corner of the cozy kitchen, searching for updates and answers. The inn also housed a resident theater in its basement, from which actors would periodically emerge through the kitchen door, raising collective eyebrows at the character who had seemed to become one with the computer screen. My canine friends, though, they understood. Kindred spirits we were, all having experienced temporary homelessness.
Shortly after that, I’d become ensconced in a petite (320 square feet) but charming condo unit of an art deco lakefront hotel. I had maid service, complimentary wireless and cable, a front desk to take my messages and mail, and a 5-star Italian restaurant on the ground floor. That was just an exotic touch, really, since fiscal practicality meant tuna casseroles prepared in my tiny kitchenette.
I was just able to eke out a living at my wonderful new job with the Milwaukee Ballet. When I wasn’t teaching creative movement to energetic 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds, I was manning the front desk, collecting tuition and dispensing information, but mostly peeking in the large studio to take in exciting company rehearsals of “Dracula.” During my free time, I could go on brisk walks along the Lake Michigan shoreline, enjoying the smells and sights of autumn as it quickly wended its way towards winter.
This newly charmed life brought with it a front-page feature story about me in the local paper (evacuees were a rarity so far north). It was all about the woman who had received, on August 26th, a clean bill of health after cancer, only to find herself trekking out of harm’s way two days later, in a car of questionable reliance, with her two favorite male buddies, a philosophy professor and a comic impersonator. The latter had a slobbering Doberman, who suffered from a putrefying gastrointestinal disorder. Following the article, I was relegated with phone calls, letters, gifts and even several romantic proposals, all from largely well meaning strangers.
It was as though I was delightfully suspended in “Neverland” for a short period of time, but I knew in my heart of hearts it could not be sustained indefinitely. For one thing, I, like many evacuees, had bills coming due as of January 1, 2006, which my current modest salary would never allow me to cover, and which my being of proud peasant stock would never allow me to ignore, especially when my former law firm job still beckoned. There was also the issue of what to do about my earthly possessions. Moving companies were still scarce, resulting in few options other than my coming back to Louisiana to load up all that my recently purchased Camry could hold, while forsaking the rest.
And finally, there was the matter that has been nearest and dearest to all of us—closure. Even though Louisiana is not where I’m from, I had an emotional investment in the people here, in the food, the music, the history, the culture and the inimitable cadence of life. I had to come back, at least for a time, to see if I could be part of the rebuilding effort, and if not, to say a proper goodbye befitting a well-bred Louisiana lady.
And so, I gave hugs and kisses and Mardi Gras beads to all my little charges at the Milwaukee Ballet, my eyes a little misty as I heard them chirping songs in the dressing room, songs I had written years ago for teaching my baby ballerinas in New Orleans. The circle of life can be an amazingly mysterious thing…
Before heading back, I also stopped in at a school where I taught for the Milwaukee Ballet’s outreach dance program, primarily for Hispanic children, to say farewell to my students. To their surprise, they were called out of class by their principal, but when they saw it was because I wanted to see them one last time to give them a small holiday gift, they lit up brighter than any tree. Together, we did a bit of an impromptu performance in their native tongue for the school administrators, a moment I knew I would cherish forever.
The long drive back to Louisiana after that Christmas gave me time to ruminate over all that had transpired in the past several months, wondering if it had all been some kind of dream. I was sure that many of us felt we had been swept up, if not literally, then figuratively, by the storm, and carried in new directions, best dealt with by allowing ourselves to go with this powerful flow and see where it took us.
It initially took me back to my apartment building. Although intact, it was sold shortly after my return for a phenomenal price to some “flippers” who tacked a notice on our respective doors advising we had five days in which to decide if we intended to purchase our 437-square-foot units for an amount that none of us tenants could fathom.
Since my law firm job had relocated my position to its satellite Mandeville office, and it was clear that I could obtain more for my real estate dollar here (although homes in my price range were becoming scarcer each week), I had to think quickly about purchasing on the northshore. On one hand, I’d always been a city girl who liked the energy and cacophony of urban life. On the other hand, I had fantasized about a little piece of heavenly green. And, I began to be haunted by the lyrics from that old Buffy St. Marie song, “Oh, yes, I’m gonna’ be a country girl again, with an old brown dog and a big front porch and rabbits in the pen ….”
Would this be the right thing to do? Oh, how I wished for a crystal ball! Meanwhile, as I waited each day to hear that someone was about to take over my apartment, and I continued to make the daily commute across the Causeway, I was filled with intense feelings of loneliness, doubt, confusion. I missed all my little ballet students terribly. New Orleans was still void of children, since the schools had yet to reopen, so there were not yet any little dancers to fill the void in my heart.
At the end of each working day, as I traversed those 24 miles, the darkness punctuated solely by the headlights in the opposite lane, I prayed aloud and in earnest. Those prayers turned into songs that I couldn’t wait to get home to put to the keyboard. And then I took those songs that spoke to the loneliness, doubt and confusion of the child in all of us, to the summer session of a graduate program in children’s literature in Virginia.
It was there that those bleak moments on Louisiana’s longest bridge in the world began to show their purpose. As a recipient of writing honors, I was given the opportunity to perform them for an audience that wept, clapped and validated my reason for returning here, as I urged people, through my lyrics, to embrace each day and each other:
Anywhere you live today,
a storm could come and wash away
The earth could rock and cave beneath a major tidal wave
No one knows for certain when we’ll see the final curtain
But instead of feeling grim, you gotta’ just begin
Just begin, just begin, you gotta’
Just begin, yeah, you know you oughtta’
If you want your days to matter
Don’t succumb to idle chatter
Now’s your turn, you’re up as batter —
Just begin!
My eventual move to Mandeville and my dubiously humorous travails as a first-time homeowner is a story for another day. After I settled in, I met Mandeville resident Carole Lund. A professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, she put me in touch with Donna Gay Anderson, who heads up Southeastern’s Fanfare program. After having pounded the pavement for so long to find an entrée into performing songs so close to my heart for children, it was just a matter of crossing a couple of degrees of separation. With Donna Gay and her staff’s wonderful support, promotional efforts, and astute suggestions, I am once again immersed in educating through movement and song. This time, beyond my wildest dreams, with legions of schoolchildren.
The void in my heart began to fill. The best early Christmas present I ever received.
Editor’s Note: Christina performed her one-woman presentation, “Christabelle in ‘Poor Little Pluto’” for hundreds of children at six area schools in October. According to Fanfare staff, it was one of the highlights of Fanfare’s Educational Outreach 2007.
