The World of Christina Oxenberg – Welcome to the Woolgathering…

Awakening me too early was knocking at the front door, accompanied by squeaky voices calling, “Hello, hello?”
Pulling my somnambulant self together I discovered a brace of boys on my stoop. The children were dressed like accountants.
“Yes?” I inquired through the latched screen door. Pinned to breast pockets were nameplates printed with Elder Ebenezer and Elder Jeremiah. At most they were twelve years old.
All glossy-eyed Elder Jeremiah piped up with, “We want to pray to Jesus with you!”
“Go to hell!” I said, which I thought was pretty funny. Unfortunately the boys did not and, perplexed, they backed away whispering anxiously. When I boiled water for tea I chuckled, I should have netted them and slipped them into a cauldron.
Regret slowly crystalized as I envisaged inflamed relatives of one or both of these runts paying me a visit, upbraiding me. I should have been nice to the little blighters, I rued. Reservation for one in Hell, please.
Meanwhile a pal asked me to check out a band, friends of hers. “They’re a trio from Boston and they’re awesome!” my pal said. “I’ll tell them to expect you.”
Strolling to the venue I was overtaken by some exceptional drumming and I stopped to absorb the syncopations pulsing from an open-fronted bar. In the back a smoky room, on a platform stage was a band of a dozen men on percussion instruments. The sound was bracing and I wanted to dive into its lusciousness, except I had an obligation. And onward I went to the tourist-centric plastic venue with twenty foot blow-up mugs of beer dangling from the rafters. I settled at the bar, and prepared to love the lissome trio performing. My ebullience dissipated as I determined the trio were not awesome. And I couldn’t walk out of the club because there was just me and one double-wide denim clad family, with bulging sunburned skin. To be polite I stayed to the end, to say hello, as per my pal’s instructions. Eventually the caterwauling stopped and I went and gushed how genius they were, because truly I was so grateful they were done. I strained to make conversation but my efforts fell flat and we remained awkward. I offered my hilarious encounter with the Godly children at my doorstep. Blank stares, not so much as a titter. Later, when I Googled the trio I learned they call themselves a Christian band. Good Lord, I’m going to hell.
I bid adieu and spirited back whence I had heard the exceptional drumming. Miraculously they were still going strong, the vibrations of their song palpable and irresistible, I merged into the dancing crowd. A girl bumped my hip with hers. She wore an emerald green fringe-edged dress and bare feet. Leaning in close so that I had to inhale her musk, she said, “If I lead, can you follow?”
“I can try!” I said, and I accepted her hand.

(shout out to Gabi Abramac ~ because we did shoot in the appealing garden)

Sitting on my bed I was stupefied, after hanging up the phone. My little house had looked perfect for six months. Couldn’t the man have called a week ago, even a day ago, before I rearranged things?

There’s nothing like expecting a visit from humans to force one to take stock of one’s surroundings. What I discovered when I looked about was a lot of unopened boxes, trucked down to me (at monstrous cost) from a warehouse on Long Island. Junk I’ve dragged from house to house, in and out of basements and garages. It has been years and I have yet to open any of them. I scooted the cardboard towers into the cave and closed the door on them.

The filmmakers are a husband and wife team and they followed up via email. This provided me the opportunity to introduce delays and I took full advantage. I believed all my own excuses, and like a true pagan I mixed the mythology in with the truth; I was anxious.

How to prepare for such a thing? I shoved a lot of loose papers into draws. I swiftly reread The Old Man & the Sea, rehearsed discussing idols such as Capote and McGuane. And next, what to wear for immortalization? There’s a wonderful store here, a discount depot for which the local’s tag line is ‘cross-dress for less’, and cross-dress I did, attempting to cross seamlessly into ‘suitable garb’ and camouflage my feral inclinations. And should I toss the bed back into the cave, just for a day?

But no, a pal pointed out it was a lost cause to deceive the cineasts, since they had likely read my blog.

What should I serve? Should I get them drunk?

The husband and wife team were dressed in safari hunter garb, with thin fabrics and muted colors and lots of pockets. Their equipment was old fashioned and portable, small black and silver objects that affixed to things like tripods. They arranged some chairs just so in the garden. I had a moment of panic where I wondered what on earth I thought I was doing and I had to call a halt to the proceedings, and get my bearings.

And the man launched:
“Do you think there is something special about Key West that has drawn so many writers and creative types here?”
“Um…” complete blank.
“I mean,” and he continued, “Do you think it’s the weather?”
“Um…” still nothing.
“What I’m trying to get at,” he fearlessly plowed on, “Did you know it right away when you first got here?”
“Yes!” I said, and we carried on from there.
Until the cameras were switched off I didn’t dare breathe fully. It was only after the team was gone I realized I had forgotten to brush my hair. Hopefully no one will ever see this.

It was a Saturday night and Duval Street was busy. Half way along and something was causing a bottleneck; a throng was stopped and blocking the sidewalk. Even the street was choked with slowed pedicabs, with drivers craning, and they have seen it all. I had to see. I elbowed my way through to find at the center of the circle of the commotion was a single small girl dancing inside a hula hoop. But by dancing I mean mesmerically. The little hula dancer had some moves, seemingly creating a tunnel around herself, supple as ribbon as she trained the hoop from the end of one finger, and pulsating the fast moving hoop all the way down to near her ankles and with a bend to her knees she had it traveling north again. Hips moving in a continuous O.

Seated close by, and wholly ignored, was a skinny shirtless man on a type of horn that he held with both hands but its stem carried on longer than his whole body and resting on the dirty cement sidewalk it pitched up at the end in a cornucopia of haunting sounds.

Her hair was multicolored and twisted into wide dreadlocks, pulled back into a stiff ponytail. Her clothes were tropical gypsy replete with a sheer scarf sewn with a hundred golden coins, so that they shook and sparkled like electric plumage. She was so sexy she emptied the mind and filled the heart. As she danced her face remained serene like a confident child.

She played up to the passing motorbikes and they nearly toppled. She out-performed herself for the big trucks and the windows rolled down and admirers hung out. Grown men yearned to take her home, make her whole. She nearly caused traffic accidents. When she did these moves her guy on the horn followed her with his eyes meanwhile his mouth stayed stuck on his instrument. His music was sublime and the little hula girl had evidently danced to it a trillion times, they shared a tangible communication and even with her attention diverted he could reel her back, so that they were moving together, like a snake charmer and his happy pet.

Repeatedly I dropped money in their tip jar, an upturned top hat. I could not walk away; rather I did not want to.

Occasionally obscuring my view were posses of brides and their maids, and then groups of grooms with their stags, usually someone carrying a naked blow-up doll, and most everyone smoking the local hand-rolled Cuban seed cigars. Men and women and some well trained pets puffed the cigars. The sweet heavy smoke mixed in with the hot still air and car fumes. The unctuous smell took me back as scents have the power to do, to a time long ago, sparking memories of when children were encouraged to believe in dreams and fairy tales, like the adventures of the dancing gypsy girl.

Last November I signed a lease on a plain bungalow with an appealing garden. I pictured genteel gatherings of my new cultured acquaintances, sipping chilled drinks and snacking on delectables I would concoct; I could learn how. Gradually I had to admit I will not be hosting any natty parties with homemade anything. For one thing, my place is usually a mess. Naturally I tidy up once a month before the maid comes, because I’m embarrassed for her to see how I live. Giving up on the garden party hallucination I have allowed piles of things to grow unchecked.
When I first inspected this domicile it looked lovely. For all sorts of reasons (mostly revolving around my utter lack of patience) I was dashing around in a big hurry and I failed to notice the bedroom lacked a window, like a cave. I discovered this long after signing the lease, so I decided to learn to love the cave.
Nightly, reluctantly, I lay down in the cave, and steamed away like a sticky pudding.
I’m an insomniac/hypochondriac/claustrophobic with a vivid imagination, and my dread of being buried alive was now revisited on a nightly basis. I tried to learn to love the cave, but I could not.
Last night I cracked. Gasping at tiny breaths of hot fan-stirred air lying sweating in the cave, I could take no more. I sat up and flicked on the lights. I leapt out from bed and kicked the mattress until it sloughed from the box spring. Slowly I heaved it into the living room and leaned it against a wall. Next I hauled in the box spring and shoved it into a corner. Of course the mattress smacked me in the face as I positioned it in front of the box spring. A tap and it wobbled over and into place.
I reclined on my unmade bed, now in the living room, and became entranced with the lofty beamed ceiling and the walls of windows and the soft life-giving breezes that wafted across my skin. It was spiritual and I loved it. I slept with angels. I awoke to find my head under the desk and my feet in the kitchen. My little home was in shambles. I wished I had done this months ago.
The kettle was whistling when the phone started ringing.
“Hello?” I said groggily and poured the boiling water over a teabag and into my cup.
It was a gentleman, “I’m making a documentary of Key West authors,” he said. “I’d like to include you.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and carefully blew on the hot tea. “Go on.” I said.
“So far I’ve met with…” and the man listed the local luminaries. The man continued, “I’d like to film you at home.”
“Right,” I said, and I sipped my tea and looked around, assessing the chaos. “May I call you back?”

Dear Novak,
I have started a breeding colony of super talented hot Serbians and I need your DNA- just kidding!
Seriously, you are the number one tennis player in the world; and you are number one in my eyes.
In Miami you played a tough game against Marcos Bahgdatis. You both played magnificently and it was not an easy win. So personally I don’t think cheering your own victory is at all arrogant, as some critics purport. When you had Bahgdatis down and rolling around he reminded me of a barely alive iguana, when the tail is still swinging around but the spinal cord is undoubtedly crushed. For Bahgdatis, just like roadkill, death was collateral damage, not murder.
With the eyes of the world on you, after defeating the Cypriot, you signed the lens of a camera thrust in your face. Just like your hero Pete Sampras, you are mentally strong.
You are a winner and you are marvelous to watch. You are a natural ambassador for Serbs, a people who could use some light shone their way. After the war sponsors weren’t interested in a young Serb. Attitudes and times change, as inexorably as the globe rotates, and in large part due to Serbs like you.
I am born in New York City, and thus American but I too am a Serb, at least half. What does it mean to be a Serb? I question nature versus nurture in my quest to better understand. Perhaps these days to be a Serb is to be misunderstood, to be prejudged. Like most Americans I’m constantly on the hunt trying to figure myself out. New studies suggest nature has the greater influence over nurture, which means it’s in the genes, and you need to know where you come from to discover who you are.
According to William Wright’s superb book Born That Way (Knopf), sense of humor and competitiveness are inherent, and beyond mere family there exist shared cultural traits. Djokovic loves to do funny impressions, I too am a goofball. He loves to throw rackets, so do I, as did my sister Catherine all throughout our childhood. Privileged to be introduced to the beguiling game of tennis when we were teenagers, we rebelled; stubbornness is also, allegedly, a Serbian characteristic. Many a graphite racket was reshaped, like tree tops in the wind, by hurling it at the fence surrounding the court, where sometimes it stuck. After countless hours logged in front of a ball machine I discovered I was not much enthralled with working up a sweat and retreated indoors to watch televised matches and sip iced lemonade and write stories.
Well done Novak, I wish you all the best. After conquering tennis if you want to be a footballer, or a singer or an actor I will follow your journey with keen interest.
Your number one fan,
Kristina Oksenberg aka Christina Oxenberg
Ps: shout out to Princess Jelisaveta Karageorgevic, and Ana Ivanovic, and all good Serbs.

I bicycled against the wind, pedaling slowly to the end of a pier of flagstone.
I passed a small boy on roller blades, maybe ten years old, he was wispy as a stalk with a thatch of yellow hair shading a serious face. With a hand against a rock wall he shoved off, skating straight and steady. All was fine until one wheel snagged and he lurched and came apart. His legs whirled, boots jackknifing, desperately he had his arms spinning. I held my breath. It was going to hurt to land on that unforgiving flagstone. All of the little boy juddered and it looked like for sure he was going down when a whisker away from impact he softened into a noodle, righting himself back and up, balancing himself. I never saw him blink.
Sun dappled behind fast moving clouds while all along the beach people had stopped in knots to watch a determined beginner on a kite-board. Frequently there are kite-boarders flipping on the waves and bounding in the air, spraying water like diamond beads against azure skies, but I have never seen a novice, never witnessed the humbling struggle. He appeared young but his body was soft, with meringue-white skin and narrow arms suggesting a life spent thus far mostly indoors, today he was standing in the ocean up to his pasty waist. He was focused on a flap of fabric in the sky, and wrangling with the cords connecting him to the kite jerking in and out of currents. He stood wrestling with his rigging with his instructor nearby, dressed in half a wetsuit, relaxed against the heaving waves and calling out encouraging plays.
Seagulls and pelicans swooned around the kite-boarder and his bobbing instructor, occasionally hurtling fast like arrows, spearing the surface, plucking at the silver fish that move around in balloons of metallic shimmer, sometimes leaping as one out of the water, through the air, creating ridiculously pretty tiny blizzards.
Someone was grilling and the tantalizing smell of roasting meat traveled like a salesman in the breeze.
Suddenly the sky darkened with whipped up clouds and noisy winds scattering dry leaves, and I was surrounded by skateboarders and bicyclists and mopeds. Wind spun sand squalls. Groggy-eyed sunbathers made for their cars, laden and shuffling on slippery flip-flops. A man was running in a strange scuttling way, with his back hunched. Then I saw in his arms lay a sleeping child and he carried her with one hand holding her head.
And the rain came down, gigantic drops crash landed noisily. The raindrops were warm like bath water and they felt wonderful.

At 2am I was walking down one end of Duval Street, heading for my car, headed home. I walked accompanied by the usual night-symphony of revelers raving and ambulance sirens and rooster calls, when I heard a ruckus.
A group of three crocked spring-breakers were stopped and gesticulating and cursing loudly at a doorway. I posted up by a wall, and observed. The trio caterwauled until finally out of steam they staggered off. From the entranceway emanated peeling guffaws. Gingerly I approached to investigate, and in the doorway I found two men on the front stoop of a small hotel. One guy, salt & pepper beard and beetroot skin, was seated protectively in front of a box of beer, he was chortling, and pointing at his friend. His friend was reclining flat on his back with his legs out stiffly in front like he was levitating. He had his hands folded over his orange teeshirt and he was spluttering, maybe even choking a bit, wheezing and rocking with laughter. When he sat up I saw his red face was streaming with tears. It was a face stuck all over with joy. Pure and infectious, and I asked if I might sit with them.
Al and Nick are a couple of Maryland lads in town for Nick’s 40th birthday. They traveled with their spouses and their motorbikes. Their last night in paradise, with the wives tucked in bed upstairs at the hotel, the men rigged a game with a toy fishing pole, a yellow plastic thing they bought for three dollars at the corner drug store.
Nick sported a crew cut and flame tattoos on his forearms, “They match my bike,” he explained, “I was having a midlife crisis.” Nick let out his line and sent his buddy Al to place the lure on the sidewalk, a dollar stuck with quarters, as sinkers.
The passing drunks were pitiably hilarious as they lunged at the money. Nick skillfully wound the reel, hauling in the bill as the sot snatched, with face contorting from confusion as the dollar flittered from a grasp. After each catch Nick slumped exploding with giggles. Al too, eyes closed, cracking up. Their elation transformed them and I saw them as carefree kids, before the pile up of life. Both Nick and Al were slung with shiny green party-beads. Nick’s game was luminously innocent, yet temporarily triumphing in this prurient town.
Eyes bugged as the dollar flew away. The bewilderment they expressed was priceless. Impaired minds followed the skittering bill before registering us, and our hysterical faces, momentarily sobering them, like a slap. “Fuckers!” decried an intoxicated girl, her high heels dangling from one hand. Later she returned and said, “I called you ‘fuckers’. I’m sorry.”
We watched a montage of stumblebum fishing all set to the melodic cacophonic track of our cruel laughter. At daybreak they packed up their equipment and we split the memories.

In the name of journalism I went to the strip clubs.
I went accompanied by my pal Turtle, a local. At one end of Duval Street we swept aside a curtain and entered a low-ceilinged room with a bar running one length and several bodies deep with men dressed in plaid shorts and tank tops and flip-flops, and women wearing nothing at all except for magnificent high heels.
I followed Turtle to the groin of the building, to a cave of a room with dark walls and the center dominated by a platform jutting like a tongue. On this tongue, like so many piercings, were silvery poles and around these poles swung some lithe females. They were naked, except for regulation eight inch Lucite shoes. Turtle blew kisses to the dancers. They smiled and approached.
“They love me here,” Turtle declared. My guide knew a notable amount for his tender twenty-something years.
The dancers were young, their bodies gorgeous. Pubic hair was meticulous as bonsai gardens. Breasts were everywhere. The sport with breasts is for a patron to place his face between a pair. The girl will then press her breasts, pinning the face into a mammary sandwich. Turtle repeated this process many times. Once with tits so wide the dancer could scarcely make them meet. Another pair of knockers, attached to a damsel with a velvet choker and gold glitter sprinkled on her pale skin, Turtle claimed, “They have to be fake! It was like I was being punched!”
I declined a turn.
The next establishment was up a rickety flight and inside a clammy low-lit cavern. Here nude girls danced on a stage that snaked all throughout the room. In no club did I witness any stripping, unless you count the stepping out of a thong. Mostly male patrons were seated at eye-level to the stage, their heads tilted, focused on the dazzling flesh. One dancer squatted in front of a customer, firm breasts within milking distance. Despite the gunmetal glint in her eyes she was fearsomely feminine. Her customer was porcine and grinning fiendishly. His three buddies sat tight, in an excited huddle. She plucked off the guy’s glasses and brazenly polished them on her clamshell. Next, she wafted the glasses under the guy’s nose. The guy spat up his drink and whooped, his buddies roared. They all tucked paper money into her garter.
My chair was sticky.
A blonde vision swished into view, and Turtle groaned. He nodded at the divinity and she smiled and shimmied over. She crouched down so her pearl farm was in my grille, and said, “Where are you from?”
I blushed when, handing her money, our fingers touched.
She spun away and into Turtle’s sights. Gracefully she fell into a backbend, suggesting the entrance to a tunnel of love.
Turtle stared, entranced.
“My greatest fear,” he said, “is she is going to fart in my face.”
Gold glitter shimmered on his cheeks.

My landlady scheduled a visit. After four months we had never met in person. Chillingly, her child got muddled into our plan. I decided on opening with something terrorizing so as to keep the brat at bay. I had a presentiment of horrendous damage. But I had a list of things that needed attention.

First thing the kid did was crawl into my hammock, half slipping and grappling, like a drunken bug in a web. Thankfully her mother admonished her, “No, peanut!” and yanked her to terra firma.

I presented the list. My landlady is a stunning blonde with periwinkle eyes and there’s nothing she cannot fix. We went to some monolithic hardware store that she was intimately familiar with. The kid sat cross-legged in the wheelie cart. The other shoppers were predominantly men, quietly grazing in their zoned out way, until she swished by and they could not help themselves but crane.

Back at the ranch mama moved rocks and corral boulders and was up to her elbows in mosquito swamp effortlessly fixing fountain pumps and replacing rubber hoses and plastic parts. In high heels and a long dress she installed screen doors and fixed air conditioners and rewired a fan. I was in love.

Meanwhile the kid and I began to play. Despite her pink dress and ribbons she was a tomboy. Soon, mud was churned and clung in her hair and smudged on her face. I decided I liked her. Being half feral myself I was moved by the urge to share my toys. I scooped the tiny girl into my arms and placed her gently on the hammock. Before I lay the child down, I whispered, “If you need to move around you have to move very slowly. Ok?” She assured me she understood the drill.

I promptly forgot about her and got busy marveling at mom’s dexterity. I was petitioning her, asking if she could maybe stay and look after me, when suddenly we heard piercing shrieking.

We turned to see the hammock flipping, and the child flying at the ground with her mouth wide with terror. She was grabbing at the warping canvas, except it was flapping, and she could gain no purchase. The inevitable crash was made worse when her delicate face smashed directly against the wood supports. The only thing louder than the noise of impact was the screaming.

I had to cover my ears.

The mother cradled her child, muffling the pitiful howls, absorbing the pain. Patting fast-rolling tears on the traumatized baby-face.

Thank heavens no skin was punctured, no blood was shed. Really, it was nothing more than a protruding tomato-red welt on her forehead. A disfiguring bump that we all pretended was not nearly as bad as it looked. Surely it would go down?

The weeping dwindled to moans.
“Mom, can I have an ice cream as big as the world?”
“Yes, peanut.”

I suppose they won’t be visiting again anytime soon.

Ophelia was titillated about the gig, almost as much for the chance to get out of town. “I need me a good time,” she said to herself as she packed her favorite ruby red dress.

Meanwhile, Isaac and his father were sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. As was their habit, weather permitting, they blew fare-thee-well kisses to long-suffering Mom and the Outer Banks of North Carolina and sailed south.

Late Saturday afternoon Ophelia convened with her band mates at the luggage carousel in the Key West airport. First thing she said was she was off to get her hair and nails done. She sent the band ahead to set up at the saloon. Toto, her faithful drummer, loves Ophelia dearly, but he is the first to admit, “Ophelia can be quite the diva!”

Isaac and his father whiled the day snorkeling, spearing fish and trapping lobsters. On one dive, Isaac reached the reef and gradually focused his eyes to see an almighty dorsal fin. “First thing I did was freak out,” Isaac shook his head at the memory. “I pissed my pants and that made me freak out even more coz I heard somewhere sharks like the smell of piss! I was out of the water and in the boat before I figured it was probably a nurse shark.”

Between sets Toto stole some calm in an alley, lounging against a wall, his sneakers gluing to the beer-sticky street, he sucked his cigarette. “Ophelia calls me and she’s like, “We got a gig!”” Toto laughed, checking over his shoulder he added, “What a diva! We never even rehearsed! She’s like, “Just play!” We are making all sorts of mistakes!”

Isaac and his father anchored near the main marina and grilled their catch, and invited neighboring seafarers. An odd-job assortment joined, trading in alcohol for the wondrous feast. Afterward Isaac excused himself. “Dang!” he thought, stumbling toward town, “I gotta do the Duval crawl at least once.” As was his way, when he was soused, when he came upon a good-looking lady he would glide up and murmur, “You are so sexy!” Generally the female reacted by going rigid and bolting. “I’m straight coz that’s my test!” he explains, “If she can’t handle that, she can’t handle me.”

Inside the club the air was dense with sweat, liquor and smoke, and Ophelia was singing her heart out, beguiling the audience with her smile, lassoing them with her voice. The crowd was dancing and melting sweating.

Isaac paused in the entranceway. Instantly he was rapt by the passionate blues, and his blurred vision crystallized at the sight of sumptuous Ophelia and her ruby red dress. He waited until he caught her attention, then he mouthed, “You are so sexy!”

Ophelia never missed a beat while she sang and swayed and stared at the sassy young man. With eyelashes the breadth of butterfly wings, she winked at him.