The Gilded Age

I love the way New York City becomes the Escapism Capital of the World at this time of year.

It really is a tremendous relief to world-weary folks like me, who tire of Middle East mayhem and learning that David Petraeus's "moral compass" seemed to be always pointing South. Many of us blew through Sandy with our survival instincts of urban camping, too. And even more challenging than surviving a hurricane and Nor'easter in one week, we got through the media blowout with Obama vs. Romney.

Unabashedly, I welcome Escapism now as we head to the holidays, which everyone says are too soon upon us. Of course, I wonder myself how we got to another round of commercialism so fast. But I revel in the retreat to cocooning and planning recipes, in pre-Thanksgiving buying of Christmas cards that I will never send, and wondering how anyone can host a Thanksgiving dinner for 20 people when they work 60 hours a week and have a 5'x 5' kitchen.

So, I sallied forth on Saturday to Fifth Avenue to observe tourists laden with shopping bags. I swept into Henri Bendel, credit cardless and curious. Magically, I was transformed from fatigue to fantasy. More like a brownstone than an office building, Henri Bendel is stunning architecturally in any season, and now it was airbrushed with gold decoration creatively dangling from a central elevation, not diminishing the beauty of the domed skylight or the Lalique windows dating back to pre-World War I.

Somehow I straddled the two worlds of exquisite materialism and timeless elegance of the structure itself. I imagined how many shoppers did not even notice the etched Lalique poppies and vines that reach skyward from the second floor windows facing Fifth Avenue. They are enhanced by the sunlight that creates an explosive Art Nouveau design, which reveals the glass maker's affection for the natural world. It is a such a startling contrast between the artifice of holiday escapism, and the subtle beauty of the more enduring structure that brought a sense of peacefulness.

I left Bendel bagless, yet richer by far in more ways than one.