A massive organization project is underway in our home. The first task involved the ephemera of my Dear One’s childhood, his schooling, and his writing. This project set in motion a game of musical drawers as our separate lives were relocated to designated areas. Among the folders and boxes belonging to me were heaps of loose photographs, images which I have started to sort by decade and experiences.

Do the pictures revive the memories or create them?  I am not sure.

The first house I must have known would have been the little brick house on Harmony Drive in Vienna, Virginia. We lived there until I was about four, until my brother J. was perhaps a year old.

There was a screened in room at the back of that house. On the table where I sat there was a toaster and as the coils turned red, waves of heat created the illusion of ripples in the screen. There was a sandbox in the yard beyond, and I often tasted the sand, convinced it would one day taste good.  It never did.

playing in the sand

I remember a time lying in bed in the living room. The room was dark and I have no sense of color, no recollection of the bright pattern evident on the curtains in discolored old Kodacolor prints. My sister P. was there. Was this when we had German measles? When our parents were sailing the Aegean on the yacht Thendara courtesy of my mother’s parents?

Maggie, the toy Manchester terrier

I cannot tell whether I remember our Irish setter, Shamrock, who met an untimely end due to a propensity to chase trucks. I should remember the toy Manchester terrier, Maggie, who was his successor, but memories of her date to 1959 and on.

Around 1956 we moved from Virginia to Cambridge, Massachusetts, via the maternal homestead at 161 Main Street in Hingham, Massachusetts but this stay is blurred with one the following year prior to our relocation to Cleveland, Ohio. Our new home, an apartment on Everett Street, a few steps from the northeast corner of the intersection with Massachusetts Avenue, is still there and looks much the same, at least on Google Maps.

The images in my mind feel like memories: the inglenook at the entry and the fireplace there; the diningroom table placed to the left of the door to the kitchen. I remember that we draped a cotton-flannel sheet draped over a floorlamp to form a tent and that the fabric scorched and nearly burned. I remember—or think I do—a window seat and a patch of warm sun in my parents’ bedroom, a newspaper lying on the floor, and my efforts to read the headlines. Then there was the green gingham dress and bonnet my mother sewed for my sister for a Maypole dance. The dress had black velvet ribbons over the shoulders and above the sleeves.

stradling the cannon in the Cambridge Common

In Cambridge we went once, perhaps more often, to the Harvard Museum of Natural History to see the famed glass flowers of Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895) and his son, Rudolph (1857-1939). I remember being about on eye-level in spaces that seemed to be all marble floors and dark woodwork, and being warned not to touch the cases lest vibrations damage those delicate works of art.

The memories become clearer, more numerous, more detailed and crystalline by the fall of 1957, but those are not memories that call to me right now.

Among the old photographs is one that shows P. and me on benches either side of a picnic table in the screened room at the back of the Vienna house. We are in nightgowns and cereal bowls are laid before us. I do not, however, see a toaster, nothing that could produce the heated breeze that distorts the screen in my memory.

toast for breakfast

We did have a toaster, though. I see it on the formica-topped, chrome-edged kitchen table in a photograph a mouse has nibbled.

reading the funny papers

Was I reading those headlines in Cambridge? Perhaps. In this picture taken in Vienna I certainly seem intent in my examination of the funny papers.

time for a nap

I remember this bed and bedroom in the house on Miles Road in Hingham that belonged the Granny and Gramps. In fact, the bed later belonged to me. I think it is naptime; I look more than half asleep. Maybe that is why I do not remember my mother turning down the bed and untying my sneakers with such care. She looks so girlish in the picture that I wasn’t even sure it was she but the haircut is the same one she wears in a picture taken in the kitchen in Vienna and so is her blouse.

I wish I could remember for sure.

John Emms, toy Manchester terrier, Ch Benham Busybody (1900)

While it’s something of a chicken-and-egg proposition, memories of Maggie make me more aware of Groundhog Day and the hope of an early spring.

Punxatawney Phil is dragged annually into the glare of television lights so that his weather prognostications—or the assumptions about what those prognostications might be—can be announced to all and sundry watching a national morning-news program. I always feel sorry for that furry fellow as he’s held aloft, sleepy and obviously taken aback by all the fuss.

woodchuck and wildflowers

I like groundhogs, or woodchucks as we tend to call them around here. One—or maybe it’s a few—have dens nearby. Not long after we moved into this house, I stepped out on the patio in time to see a sumoesque specimen, sleek umber fur gleaming in the afternoon sun, undulate down the garden slope, fat from a summer spent chowing down on the plenty of gardens and woodland. Our late and much-loved Corgi, Morgan, enjoyed chasing them around the golf course on the Aberdeen Proving Ground—back before 9/11 when the Proving Ground’s golf course, woods and shoreline were playgrounds for local folk.

Groundhog Day is the hump-day of winter, that moment when the vernal equinox is only a week shy of being closer rather than farther from the winter solstice. While I much prefer winter to summer, and would gladly exchange those months of sultry heat and humidity for persistent snow and freezing temperatures, I yearn for the damp mildness that I know is on the way. I love what the Irish call a “soft morning” when my skin loses the dry itchiness of winter and all the world is a sponge, saturated with rain. I am mesmerized by the light that suddenly takes on a tint of palest green as it shines through branches dotted with not-quite-visible buds.

I feel the intense aliveness of springtime, the activity in the woods as birds migrate through and frogs vocalize their love, and sense the acceleration of time and the imminence of summer’s torpid grip.

Groundhog Day is a happy day for me.

Lucy's hands

It must be for Lucy Holstedt, too. Lucy was a classmate at Emma Willard School and has been for a good many years a faculty member at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Music—organized and spontaneous, classical, popular and uncategorizable—infused those years. Lucy was one of the most gifted students in the school—and even then a serious musician who never took herself so seriously that pure and sometime silly pleasure wasn’t important.

Lucy let us know this year that “it’s a lovely day to be a little groundhog.” (Here’s a link even if it doesn’t look like one, so mouse over and click: “It’s a Lovely Day to be a Little Groundhog” by Lucy Holstedt.) Ain’t it wonderful?

It's a birthday...

The morning of January 28 dawned bright and mild. At 11:00, doors would open to the party we had planned for ourselves to celebrate my 60^th, my Dear One’s 78^th, the 2^nd anniversary of our marriage and my Tattooed Boy’s 30^th, and all of which fall with a month’s span, give or take a couple of days.

Breakfast rituals, however, are set, regardless of upcoming events. I sipped coffee, read the newspapers, and kept half an ear on the background noise of the Today Show. An intro to a lifestyle piece caught my attention: someone was intoning, “At sixty you’re just getting started…”

Really?

I understand that the Today Show is fixated on their 60^th year of broadcasting and keep looking for ways to remind viewers of their venerable status, but did they have to choose this particular day for this particular feature?

A host of fabulous sixty-somethings was quickly offered up: designer Vera Wang, singer Tina Turner, and a list of actors including Jane Fonda, Kirstie Alley, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, and Dame Helen Mirren. What I learned was that beauty, an energetic sex life, and a trim athletic figure are all within my reach because, hey, sixty, while it may not be the new twenty, is only a number.

pick a number...

Oh, for goodness sakes! Of course it’s only a number—a darned big one.

I turned sixty on January 5, 2012, and every bit of those decades’ wear-and-tear hovers somewhere between the remote edges of my consciousness and the forefront of my awareness as I write this. I have two pairs of glasses, one for general use and one for my desk-and-computer activities, but threading a needle and doing the crossword puzzle require that I cast off the specs and bring the whatever-it-is up to the general vicinity of my nose so I can see what I am doing. My bursitic hips throb at night and I spend nearly five dollars for the capsule of Celebrex© I take daily to keep my arthritis quiet. I have costly prescription orthotics for the practical shoes I wear to soothe my aching feet. High fashion at this address is a matter of practicality rather than pizzazz.

And the role models provided? Puh-leeze.

Vera Wang? The woman was blessed with a wraithlike build shared by probably one-tenth of one percent of all humans carrying a double-X chromosome. I could no more achieve her body now than I could at ten or twenty or thirty and I’d like to b*****-slap the writer who thought throwing her in my face was something other than offensive. All of those celebrities possess incomes that allow them personal trainers who can put them through their paces in the privacy of their homes and cooks that provide meals that are nutritious, calorie-restricted and portion controlled. The zaftig Kirstie Alley at least gets to make money off of getting fat then losing weight. Meryl Streep and Dame Helen are Goddesses, but they have economic advantages that allow them elegant wardrobes tailored to perfection. I’m not saying I’d look as good as they do in their clothes—I’m just saying I’d look better than I do if I could wear beautiful clothes in gorgeous fabrics that actually fit.

So no, I don’t think that at sixty I’m “just getting started,” and if my mind was fired up by that fantasy, my body would quickly douse it with the icewater of reality.

As Scarecrow said, "Of course, some people do go both ways."

Besides, I don’t want to get started; I want to sit back and think about all that has gone before.

I want to remember as much as I can of the trivial details and mundane facts of my life. I want to appreciate my accomplishments, calmly recognize my failures and quietly atone for my sins. Most of all I want to wallow in the affection of friends old and new.

I was relieved when no one arrived promptly at 11:00. I really wasn’t ready. By noon, however, a steady stream of guests arrived at the door. Lynn jetted in from Cleveland and Cousin David drove from Cape Cod, detouring to Washington DC to collect his daughter Helen. My Dear One’s children and grandchildren traveled from Pennsylvania. Friends arrived from next door, across town, across the county and across the state. It was a mob of the most interesting wonderful people talking and laughing and eating, and bringing me flowers.

so many flowers

So many flowers. Marcia-Gayle said she wanted to bring posies that felt like spring. All those lilies and poppies and tulips and carnations and mums and tiny golden daffodils were full of the springtime that happens even as one turns sixty.

At sixty, no one is just getting started. At sixty, however, I am just starting to understand this new season of my life.

Does this mean that those who pan for gold have an advantage over they who have hearts of gold? That success comes to those who place constitutional values over religious doctrine?

Maybe. But probably not. What it likely means is that the ‘Niners and Pats outplayed the Saints and Broncos when it came to controlling the pigskin and moving it efficiently down the field.

I wouldn’t bother to give this much thought—I care hardly at all about sports in general and football in particular—except that Mr. Tebow and his Rodin’s-Thinker posture of gratitude and the fad it has sparked have forced themselves into my consciousness the way that a whining child demands attention. Even a running toilet stops if you jiggle the handle, but nothing seems to halt the metamorphosis of Tebow into trope.

Perhaps I’m just sick and tired of the public practice of religion as a demonstration of moral virtue. It is not spirituality or faith in god or goddess to which I refer; it is the dogmas designed by (mostly) men, and the rules enforced by individuals whose own adherence is flawed, that gets my scapegoat.

Which brings me to the subject of the men who would be Republican presidents of the United States of America.

Collectively they provide only the faintest echo of what “Republican” meant even to the bleeding-heart-and-kneejerk-liberal, Kennedy-loving, Leftist Democrats who brought me into this world and imbued me with their politics. Even to my mother and father, most Republicans were political centrists operating further to the right than they felt they could countenance (and my mother’s mother was a registered Republican, anyway).

What conjoins this collection of antagonists into something like a pack are their Tebowesque religiosity and their blurring of the boundaries between democratic engagement in the political process and mob zealotry.

The folks they would persuade into their political sects are Americans who want god—specifically the Christian God—“returned” to government. “God,” however, was never a Founding Father, or even a Founding Consultant.

the Founders' vision of the Nation

Article VI, paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution states, “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” This means that no religious affiliation or beliefs, or the eschewing of religion, is relevant to governmental office. In reference to religion, the first amendment to the Constitution stipulates that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This certainly suggests that while all American may freely express their religious affiliations and practice their religious duties, the government cannot advance some particular creed over another.

Okay, this is a sticky area.

I certainly interpret these statements the way I interpret the inalienability of the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” asserted in the Declaration of Independence. (Just this morning I watched a clip of Gingrich reciting those words and his emphasis was on “endowed by their creator” rather than “inalienable rights” and what follows. I also notice that he changes “inalienable” to “unalienable.”)  Just as my living, my freedom and my pursuit of happiness cannot infringe on those rights as held by others—I am not free to steal, kill, or abuse, no matter how happy that makes me—religious beliefs and practices held by some cannot be imposed directly or indirectly on others and never through the agency of the government.

From this I conclude that a government shaped and guided by a single religion can never be a democracy and can never lay claim to the moral territory staked out in the U.S. Constitution.

Many governments have claimed their authority from religion. Kings ruled by Divine Right; individuals were disenfranchised, imprisoned, exiled, and executed for adherence to something other than the official religion; and punishments were exacted—and still are—based on edicts in holy texts. A government based on religious precepts is a theocracy. The most significant theocracies in today’s world are the Muslim nations that observe Sharia, or Islamic law. Sharia developed in the 10^th century and includes schools of thought that range from the comparatively liberal approach of Hadith to the extreme orthodoxy of the Taliban.

But the question is: In America, do we want our lives, our business practices, our sexuality and marriages, our creative endeavors, our educational opportunities, our economic potential and more to be governed by a mindset that gelled almost two thousand years ago?

I don’t.

I want the discourse that deals with our lives, our business practices, our sexuality and marriages, our creative endeavors, our educational opportunities, and our economic potential to be shaped by facts and rational analysis, not by emotion and beliefs in supernatural forces. I want the debates our political candidates engage in to focus on documented problems, not fantasized perils. I want the private issues of faith and religion to remain private and I want the electorate and the candidates alike to focus on the public weal. To paraphrase the words of President John F. Kennedy, I would like people to think more about what they might do for this country and less about what the country should be doing for them.

And I certainly don’t want as president a man who is following with blinkered passion the precepts of a faith not embraced by all Americans. Give me, at least, a president and maybe even a congress willing and able to collect and analyze facts and engage in rational and civil discourse to find those compromises that genuinely serve the public weal.

Dustjacket of the novel "War Horse"

Apparently a few British critics have made the connection between Anna Sewell’s classic, Black Beauty (1877), and Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, the basis for Stephen Spielberg’s most recent film, but no American reviewer I have encountered has thought to compare them. Perhaps in this country the relationship is not so obvious but Black Beauty belongs to the canon of English children’s books and Michael Morpurgo, O.B.E., held the title of “Children’s Laureate” from 2003 to 2005.

British kiddie-lit has a long and noble history of rural settings and beasts in leading roles: The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) and about two dozen other books by Beatrix Potter; The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame; A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh (1926); and James Herriot’s stories of the life of a Yorkshire veterinarian that began with All Creatures Great and Small (1972) and included a number of wonderful children’s books. C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia written between 1949 and 1954 fits comfortably among these others as well.

But back to War Horse. When I heard about the book—which I did through articles about the play—I quickly bought a copy and read it. The attraction? It’s a horse story and it’s a work of fiction set in World War One. Readers of this blog already know my fascination with the Great War; friends and family know that I am no less horse-crazy than I was when I was ten years old. We then attended in a performance of the play at Lincoln Center last fall and a few days ago saw the film. All three are splendid, each in its own way.

Black Beauty, Ginger and Merrylegs at their greatest pleasure, a riding party.

Joey, the “bright red bay with a black mane and tail… a white cross on his forehead and four white socks that are all even to the last inch” narrates events in much the same voice as Black Beauty. Morpurgo only gives voice to Joey, however, in contrast to Sewell who fills her book with conversations between Black Beauty and his friends, the mare Ginger and the former war-horse, Captain, among others. In fact, Sewell assigns the first speech, if not the first narration of memory, to Black Beauty’s mother, Duchess, who articulates the moral vision that will guide Black Beauty and by extension the child-reader:

“I wish you to pay attention to what I am going to say to you. The colts who live here are very good colts, but they are cart horse colts, and, of course, they have not learned manners. You have been well bred and well born…your grandmother had the sweetest temper of any horse I ever knew, and I think you have never seen me kick or bite. I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”

It takes only a slight revision to make this the instruction I received from my New England family: “Stand up straight and look people in the eye. Don’t shuffle. Be honest in all you do. Practice kindness and courtesy to all people at all times.” Morpurgo does not have his horses sermonize and instead slips his values into the words and actions of people—English, French and German—who become part of Joey’s life.

Black Beauty’s story spans only a few more years than does Joey’s. Both experience training by loving and patient hands. Both enjoy a relatively exuberant youth although Beauty, at Squire Gordon’s, lives in a more rarified stratum of society. Both eventually encounter a harsh reality filled with struggle, physical pain, and emotional loss. Joey’s boon companion Topthorn collapses after months hauling heavy artillery over nearly impassable terrain; Beauty encounters Ginger in the ranks of hackney-cab horses, a fate that has befallen them both, and later sees her lifeless body hauled away from a dank London street.

There is a happy ending for both. Black Beauty is rescued at a sale by a farmer with an eye for quality, nursed back to health and—miracle of miracles—is acquired by a trio of ladies whose groom is Joe Green, the former stable boy who had been trained up alongside Beauty. Joey tears through No Man’s Land on the Somme, inevitably becoming entangled in barbed wire. He is freed through the efforts of German and English soldiers working together. When the Tommy wins the coin toss, Joey is brought back to safety on the English side of the Front. Another miracle of miracles, the soldier assigned to care for him is none other than Albert, the farm boy who trained him and who ultimately brings him home to Devon.

My Dear One pointed out to me that David Thewlis (Harry Potter’s Remus Lupin and the malevolent Devon landlord with absolute power over the Narracott family, forcing the sale of Joey to the army) played Jerry Barker in the 1994 film version of Black Beauty. In the book, Barker was the kindly hackney-cab driver who has to sell Beauty, beginning the steep slide into misery from which Beauty is saved at the end of the book. I don’t remember Thewlis’ characterization although I am pretty sure I saw the movie. When I reviewed the cast I realized that I would never have missed a movie featuring the likes of Alun Armstrong, Sean Bean, Jim Carter, and Peter Davison— keeping it all alphabetical—to say nothing of Thewlis. I was impressed that my Dear One remembered the actor and role and stunned that I had no recollection of any of it.

How could that be possible?

It is possible for the same reason I can recite The Jabberwocky and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, poems I memorized in my childhood, and still know the telephone number at our home in Cleveland Heights from 1957 to 1964 (FA1-2992), but can’t remember pretty much anything from yesterday or the cell phone number I have had for several years now.

There is a more important reason, too. I read War Horse once, soon after seeing the play and the film. I have read Black Beauty scores of times. I still own the copy I was given about fifty years ago, the edition printed by “The Around the World Treasures”. That is the only publication information to be found. Amazon.com suggests that I have the edition put out by the English firm F. Watts in 1959. That seems about right.

I remember every scene in the book, know each character however minor, and recall every moment of the story arc that begins with such hope and threatens to end in tragedy. I remember the color plates at the beginning and the sketchy, ink-and-brush vignettes sprinkled through the book. All of this is locked so securely into my mind that no other visions or interpretations can gain entry. This is way beyond my dislike of a variety of film treatments of well-loved books starting with Gone With the Wind.

This post, however, is not meant to be a paean to the values of the written word.

War Horse—and the various formats into which it has been translated—is an exploration of human choices, the heroics of honor, and the terrible consequences both of choosing selfishness, cruelty and evil, and being unable  to see beyond the flaws inherent in all social, political and moral definitions of right and good. It has its limitations as a work of art—as indeed does Black Beauty, a book I personally enjoyed more. Judgments as to what is “art,” though, have their limitations, too.

My Dear One devised the perfect plan: leave the car in Wilmington and take the train into the Big Apple for a day and a half of pure pleasure.

His execution was even better. We arrived early enough at the Amtrak station to be able to upgrade tickets for the earlier Acela train. For the record, the Acela, between Wilmington and NYC is not worth the cost, but at least now we can say we rode it. We had enough time at the Hampton Inn on 8^th and 51^st to sip a little vodka over ice with a twist of lime (never travel without a flask) and confirm the precise locations of dinner and theater.

Basilica Restaurant

On our way to Basilica (very pleasant, food good not great, but the three-course, before-show menu at $29.95 includes a free bottle of wine) we passed a drycleaner-cum-tailor where a slender, brown-haired, thirty-something (I guess) woman was trying on a silky ivory garment, adjusting the fit. It was a strapless top over palazzo pants, softly draped and elegant, and when our eyes met I gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled in evident happiness, pressed her palms together and bowed in thanks.

There was enough time between dinner and The Follies, which was just the perfect show for a woman entering the seventh decade, to soak up the ambience of Times Square after dark. We surveyed the Great White Way from the Glowing Red Steps that constitute the superstructure of the TKTS booth. The January air, cool but not cold, was nippy enough to make me think the Naked Cowboy was insane to be prancing around in naught but boots, hat and briefs. He strummed the strings on his guitar once or twice but mostly reached out for pretty girl tourists and posed for pictures with them. How exactly does this guy earn a living? Is the Naked Cowboy more of a Midnight Cowboy?

Bernadette Peters headlined Follies and she is marvelous—and diminutive.  I knew, of course, that she is petite, but I had not really realized how short. She’d come up to my elbow, I think. Imagining us side by side was just the opposite of a night in the late 1970s when I mingled with the New England Patriots. The gallery at which I worked was hosting an opening for their tight-end, Don Hasselbeck. Yes, he’s better known these days as QBs Matt and Tim’s dad and, yes, he majored in fine arts at the University of Colorado-Boulder. On that evening, I—a big girl at 5 foot 10 ½ inches and weight to match—felt positively tiny.

The leads—Sally Durant Plummer (Peters) and Phyllis Rogers Stone (Jan Maxwell)—were good but Jane Houdyshell playing Hattie Walker and Terri White as Stella Deems knocked my socks off. Houdyshell, large in body and generous in comedic gifts, personifies the fat woman with an AARP membership who looks back on slenderer days as a song-and-dance girl with unadulterated delight and no sense of loss. White has a monster set of pipes and charisma to spare, and plays the beautiful girl grown into a mighty woman.

view from the subway stairs

Fellow Travelers at the Hampton Inn were charming, too. Maybe I was radiating birthday happiness, who knows.  I especially liked the fellow waiting on the 6^th floor with me for an elevator. I noted his Steelers scarf and allowed that while I was supposed to support the Baltimore Ravens, I had a soft spot for the Patriots.  He gave me the sweetest smile and said, “You’re just all kinds of wrong, aren’t you?”

Mother Nature smiled the next day, or two or three. January 6 started with close encounters of the wild kind. As we went to buy a MetroCard, a brown rat—Rattus norvegicus—scooted from underneath the glass-enclosed agent’s booth across the floor and disappeared under the bank of kiosks. It was an ordinary denizen of the city, looking a bit stressed, somewhat disheveled.  Despite claims that New York City rats are the size of small dogs, this one was about the size of a lab rat and about as intimidating. I wished it well and we pushed through the gate and found a train headed uptown.

light of day in Central Park

The Upper West Side. Central Park. A beautiful and unseasonably balmy January day. If I thought that all days would be like this and if I had four or five million to sink into a comfy pied-à-terre, I’d buy season tickets to the opera and consider moving. As we emerged from the 86th Street station, the expanse of lawns and thickets of trees beckoned. The walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is so lovely, pathways curving between Pinetum and Great Lawn, the geometries of downtown skyscrapers rising dull blue against the pale blue sky, songbirds flitting through the shrubbery.

distant downtown

The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini was our intended destination but we strolled through various galleries and examined Art in Renaissance Venice, 1400–1515: Paintings and Drawings from the Museum’s Collections first. We concluded the visit in the 20^th century collections, spaces that seemed in disarray. We couldn’t find old favorites. Works seemed clustered by donor and with little discernable logic to the installation. Sometimes I sensed thematic sets, occasionally saw chronological orderings, and also encountered hangings that were reminiscent of the formal kinships that governed Albert Barnes’ installations at his Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. The effect was a cross between a merry-go-round and Groundhog’s Day, the same artists grouped together no matter where we went. But never mind. The Anish Kapoor on the second floor was very cool.

girl studying Anish Kapoor ("Untitled," 2007)

In time for coffee and cake, we strolled northward to the Neue Galerie. Finding the Café Sabarsky on the main level crowded, we headed downstairs to the Fledermaus. The coffee was strong, the poppyseed cake was flavorful if dry and the hazelnut torte in its coat of ganache almost too sweet. A moment of rest and the twin infusions of sugar and caffeine, however, were rejuvenating. The exhibition was The Ronald S. Lauder Collection: Selections from the 3^rd Century BC to the 20^th Century / Germany, Austria, and France. The title delivered much less than it seems to promise, but a few early Renaissance portraits, some Seurat drawings, and a lot of horse armor made it worthwhile.

at the Fledermaus

As the shadows lengthened and the air chilled, we trudged back across the Park and waited for our ride home. It had been a perfect day, a perfect finale to a perfect birthday…and I was very, happily, tired.

At the Met, "...the Genius of ambitious rectitude sleeps the agitated sleep of misfortune and glory...his head extending beyond the periphery of the world..." (or so says sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1845)

The Goats of Robin Hood Road

The goats of Robin Hood Road were relaxing on the far side of the field when we pulled up, but curiosity pulled them over to the fence as I called out good wishes and waved apples and ears of corn. They’re an amiable lot, and friendly—well, greedy. Big Billy seems to exert leadership but there is no obvious hierarchy, perhaps because they’re moving from long in the tooth to toothless.

Flint Furnace, Stafford Road, Susquehanna State Park

We drove into Susquehanna State Park along Deer Creek, which is flowing briskly and wide these days, last year’s hurricanes Irene and Lee having swept away brush and deeply undercut the banks on both sides. We parked across from the restored flint furnace where the town of Stafford existed until the last resident left in 1904. The old cast-iron bridge was replaced long ago by a sturdier and more modern bed on concrete on steel—although not so long ago that the original has been erased from living memory.

It is a favorite spot. A wide trail curves through the woods, occasionally arcing close to the river, at other times cutting nave-like through the forest. Once we surprised a stag—or perhaps he surprised us. We spend a fair amount of time in the Park yet we do not see deer. Squirrels, certainly, and the occasional chipmunk, and lots of birds, but no deer and certainly not in herds like those we watch from the comfort of the our deck. This young monarch of the glen bore a substantial crown and regarded us with some disdain as he vaulted up the hill and out of sight.

There were others there that afternoon. A couple walked tiny dogs, he a chihuahua, she a miniature dachshund.  Athletes jogged past and a fellow on a mountain bike wheeled through the brush into the road. We shook our heads. Sure it’s legal, sure it’s a good thing to be out on a bicycle enjoying some exercise, but mountain-bikers wreak such havoc on delicate ground, ripping through moss and wildflowers, gouging ruts into the dirt.

water falls

The brook that runs alongside Stafford Road had grown during the wet autumn and a series of small cataracts marked its merge with Deer Creek. I creep down the slope, clinging to the squared-off rocks that act as a retaining wall below the furnace, so I can get closer. The water is so clear, heavy as lead crystal, as it sheets over granite rocks. It is a scene of subtle colors, the pale brown of dead leaves, gray stone, dry green grasses, white and pink gleams of quartz, and moments of blue sky.

We are not far from the creek when I hear an odd sound, not the chatter of stream and rocks but an insistent tapping. Rain? I hold out my hand and a feel nothing, but then I see ripples on the water’s surface and suddenly a drop or two on my cheek. Mother Nature says it’s time to go home and start supper.

New Year's Rainbow

I am thinking about a glass of wine, organizing a plan for cocktails and wondering if I need to toss apples and corn out for the deer that seem to think Happy Hour starts around 4:30, when the room filled with reflections from the setting sun. Rain and sun? Their sum is rainbow and as I looked into the east I saw it grasping the bare treetops and reaching down, just beyond the edge of the neighborhood.

Welcome the New Year.

an elf that once jigged on my mother's tree

What will happen to all those Christmas ornaments when I am gone?

The tree is finally decorated. We bought it five or six days ago and it has been sitting in a bucket of water awaiting installation in the living room. Then yesterday we set it into the stand, draped it with twinkling white lights and gold garland and gave the branches a day to relax before starting in with the decorations.

Nutcrackers belonging to my Tattooed Boy

The system my Dear One and I follow is more relaxed than the one I remember from childhood. When we lived in Cleveland Heights, we all piled into the car and drove what seemed an intolerable distance to the Christmas tree lot, a place in the countryside where we could also buy wee gifties for our teachers. It was always night, I guess because the clocks had fallen back, Dad worked all day, and decorating the tree had to be done on the weekend.

I don’t actually remember that the event ever took place on a weekend, only that my father erected the tree, secured it in place, tested the old-style, screw-in lightbulbs, finding and replacing the ones that darkened the string. My mother supervised the trimming itself. There were precious family heirlooms that only she could handle and which were usually placed near the top. There were colorful glass balls, so fragile that a few inevitably smashed. When all that had been done we opened packages of tinsel. Ma insisted that each strand be hung carefully so that they formed a shimmering sheet of silver. No throwing. Ever. We did our best, but this kind of meticulous effort belongs to adults who actually care, and I have a sense that tinsel-draping was not something we kids did much of.

goose egg with Chinese landscape

At some point we children received our first ornaments, I am not sure from whom. One was a glass mushroom with a tiny bunny inside. The second was a golden snowflake, a perimeter studded with tiny crystalline forms. I treasured those ornaments and hung them carefully each year.  Then one year the mushroom broke. I saved the bunny, though, and still have it; she now suspends from a noose of black thread. My snowflake survived until the 1970s when it fell victim to the efficiency of my brother-in-law who helpfully denuded the tree one year and disposed of the piney carcass, failing to notice the delicate circlet that was hardly visible in the light of day. I was devastated.

Twas the Night before Christmas

One year Ma gave us each an ornament purchased on a trip out West. Mine was a little angel. Subsequent Christmases also included the gift of an ornament. Somewhere down the line we all followed suit. When my Tattooed Boy was born, pink of skin and free from markings, his collection got underway: a block, a miniature book with The Night Before Christmas, several whales that allude to his given name. His grandmother sent painted eggs, bamboo butterflies and beaded and embroidered trifles during the Christmases she and her husband Charlie lived in Beijing. The “Santa Head” that was a gift from Jim and Emily was shredded by our corgi or our cat or possible the two in collusion, and the Santa Head that I found to replace it reminds us of that story.

Santa Head

Penguin, the First Bird

When my Dear One entered our lives I bought him a penguin on skis to hang on the Norfolk Island pine that served as his Christmas tree.  Why a penguin? His preferred coffee cup was decorated with a penguin. After that, however, and every year since then, I have chosen a bird, or at least an ornament on some avian theme. For almost as long he has given me—and often the Tattooed Boy—an ornament too, and being his remarkable self has personalized each one and marked it with the date. This year it was a little donkey that commemorates the donkey on

Earlton Road I fed apples and photographed (and which, one day, was simply gone), the shaggy gray fellow who abides just down the road from Boordy Vineyards and the innumerable burros over which I have cooed and fussed.

the donkey of 2011

My Dear One’s nest in their own box. My Tattooed Boy has an even larger carton filled with his collection; he even has a sheet of paper that identifies each and lists the year they were given as well as the name of the donor. My ornaments are mixed into the rest. I am not sure how many there are, well more than one hundred I regard as mine plus another forty that belong to the Tattooed Boy and then my Dear One’s twenty-seven birds.

a furry little mous

I can look at each one and remember the moment it entered our home.  There are the handmade foil ornaments produced by us children and tucked into the Christmas cards my parents sent out that year. A small wooden elf made in Germany came from Ma and was part of the treasured decorations that graced the top of our tree those many years ago. There is the glazed ceramic snowman Martha made to commemorate the new friendship that arrived with our firstborns. My aunt Doffy and I share a memory of a real mouse and knitted mice, mice sleeping in walnut shells, little furry mice, wooden mice and more remind me of that. My Tattooed Boy gilded a crabshell and filled it with a cottony landscape when we had just moved to Maryland and a lifetime later created a different ornament at a winter festival when he was in college. There are so many and each is my favorite.

two turtle doves

One day, however, I will no longer hang them on the Christmas tree. One day I will be gone and they will lose their place in memory. Perhaps my Tattooed Boy will keep one or two. Perhaps I will have grandchildren who will select ones for their own collections.  Will my beloved ornaments be sold on eBay or in a garage sale? Some may be beautiful enough and sufficiently unusual to attract the eye of a stranger. Most or even all may languish, boxed and forgotten, until someone simply tosses them.

I do not reflect on that moment. My Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come has not yet offered me a glimpse of the future beyond my lifespan.

a few things avian

We were on our way home from the Christmas Concert at Grace United Methodist Church in Baltimore. My Dear One had noticed an advertisement in The Sun, “Songs of Mary,” and what is more festive than seasonal music in a church sanctuary?

Music—and the chance to perform it—have always been at the heart of my Christmas memories. I went caroling in Cleveland Heights with my Girl Scout troop as a girl. I listened in awe to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recordings my father played on the hi-fi. I had endless tolerance for Alvin and the Chipmunks trilling, “Christmas, Christmas time is here, Time for toys and time for cheer…”    I thrilled to the basso rumble of Thurl Ravenscroft (aka “Tony the Tiger”) grumbling “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel…” (and later loved the irony that the tune’s composer, Albert Hague, played music teacher Benjamin Shorofsky on the television series “Fame.”) Every year I was glued to the television set to see Giancarlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and waited for Kaspar to explain “this is my box…” and the shepherds socialize: “Emily… Emily, Michael, Bartholomew – how are your children and how are your sheep? Dorothy… Dorothy, Peter, Evangeline – give me your hand come along with me…”

I remember vividly the first time I saw “The Nutcracker Suite” live. It was in Boston and close to the first time we attended a performance of Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity” at the Elma Lewis School of the Fine Arts that left my feet aching and my hands raw from stomping and clapping. The year that I worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, part of the Quadrangle in Springfield, Massachusetts, (and now the Michele and Donald d’Amour Museum of Fine Arts) I went to hear Handel’s Messiah. As the audience stood for the “Hallelujah Chorus” I was brought upright by a collective force rather than my own will.

Christmas is about all kinds of things for all kinds of people but I suspect it is about music for most of them—music and the granting of one’s heart’s desire.

At Emma Willard , the great motivation to make it through to senior year was to be part of Revels, an enactment of a medieval manor Christmas.  The structure varied slightly year to year—depending on the size of the class and the range of musical and dramatic skills—but key elements included the Lord and Lady of the Manor, their guests, their servants, performing troupes of mummers and singers, and so on. I had my heart set on being a Lord and was thrilled to be assigned as the dashing escort to Wendy’s demure lady. Despite endless rehearsals, the parts were kept secret and underclassmen oohed and squealed as they recognized the players. Revels music became for me the quintessential soundtrack of Christmas: “On this Day,” “The Holly and the Ivy,” “Masters of this Hall/Sing we Noël.”

The other great moment of that season at Emma was Vespers. The service was a celebration more of spirit than religion; everyone belted out favorite hymns, the choir’s sopranos soared on the descant to “Angels we have heard on high”, and our featured piece was always something challenging and wonderful— once it was Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. Then came the lighting of the candles: the congregation with flickering tapers filed out of Chapel and edged the geometric greensward, the Triangle, outside. The choir, given their notes, scrambled out of the loft, down the stairs, and onto the steps of the archway to sing “Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming.” I can still hear the alto part in my head even if I can no longer render it tunefully.

It has been years since I wedged some kind of Christmas performance into Advent; teaching, final exams, and the calculation of grades normally fill the first fortnight of December. This year, however, is the Year of Present Living so I dressed in scarlet jacket, reasonably-green scarf and Christmas-tree earrings and brooch and my Dear One donned a bright red tie, and off we went. Wreaths adorned the windows of the Georgian-style interior and choir and orchestra filled the chancel. Songs of Mary was a moving exploration of the idea of family, the birth of a child, and the angst that hides within that joy. Ancient carols bracketed the Magnificat by English composer John Rutter (b. 1945). The Handbells of Grace pealed out during the offering and sent out a “Christmas card” to all assembled after the benediction: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”

It was just so…right.

We navigated the traffic on Charles Street, pushed our way into the flow in the Inner Loop, and finally headed north toward home, guided at the end by the happy and benevolent face of the moon. A short detour took us up Paradise Road to the crest of the hill where we stood gilded in the moonglow in the crisp night air. Paradise Road, indeed.

I write a Christmas letter every year and finish each one with a quotation, a poem or passage that seems to express something of the season as well as something about the year gone by. In 1988 I offered the closing of Louise Moeri’s The Star Mother’s Youngest Child. The story, and especially its end, has been on my mind.

The Old Woman sat on by the fire, rocking and grumping. She was aching tired but happy, in the strangest way. “Uproar,” she said, nudging the old dog at her feet, “what a day it’s been, what a day it’s been. What a Christmas —“

Then she noticed the other gift, lying under the fir tree. Strange she had forgotten to open her package. Now what had that Ugly Child found to leave her? She squatted down and drew it out, surprised at its great weight. But it didn’t rattle. Carefully she opened the string, and lifted back the paper. And as she did so, out came the sound of bells, and the sound of laughter, the light of a candle, the light of stars…

“I’ll keep it forever,” the Old Woman said.

Up in the sky, Star Mother had been watching for her Youngest Child to come home…

At last she saw him, trudging up the long slope of the great black night sky. She put on a shawl of moonlight and rushed out to meet him. “Well — how did it go?”…

Youngest Child sighed, and leaned his spiky, yellow head against Star Mother’s breast. “Oh, it was a lovely day,” he told her sleepily. “And I’m…so…tired…”

“Wait,” cried Star Mother, “Tell me about it…”

“It was — oh, Mother — “ Youngest Child yawned and looked around at all his brothers and sisters with whom he would now take his place forever in the sky — “it was enough,” he said.

Yes. It is enough.

• Northeastern France is a really muddy place.
  

  in 140 meters, enter roundabout

• Having GPS makes a world of difference. Whoever rides shotgun gets to look out the window and enjoy the ride instead of staring at a map and turns are announced to the driver decently in advance of the move. Of course, it is important to do what GPS says to do. Our Serena, She Who Must Be Obeyed, generally knows our wants and needs better than we do.
• Serena can be a tad quirky; in her commitment to the shortest route she seems often to find the most eccentric route. Fail to follow her directions and she will always “recalculate”–but the alternative way may much longer. Roundabouts in France seem designed for returning one to the point where the wrong turn occurred.
• Once in a very great while, Serena will be wrong.
• You can’t plug both the iPod and the GPS into the rental car. Plug in the GPS and tune in to Nostalgi. If you are lucky you’ll catch Joe Dassin singing Salut les Amoureux, which is his lyrics and Steve Goodman’s tune, City of New Orleans.
• You can’t buy music from iTunes-France with an American account and the selection for Joe Dassin is much better on iTunes-France.
• Make the Office de Tourisme wherever you are the first stop and don’t plan on it being open between noon and two-thirty. If you aren’t sure where it is, pull over when you are a few kilometers from your destination and ask your GPS for the Office de Tourisme; otherwise just head to Centre Ville  and keep an eye out for signs.
• Don’t settle on a parking spot before you get to where you are going; drive by your actual destination first. Chances are–particularly if it is something other than the height of tourist season–there will be ample parking wherever you are going.
• Keep a decent variety of change on hand because most parking involves feeding coins to a machine and the payant will not accept a two-euro coin when it really wants one euro, forty.
• You will have Internet access problems. Keep calm. There is bound to be a bibliothèque/médiathèque (a.k.a. public library) or a cybercafé somewhere that’ll do in a pinch.
• Pate de Fruit is the best candy ever. Keep a selection in the car, by the couch, and in the bag used for dragging around superfluous stuff.
  

  the empties... and the Cote de Rhone we liked

• Don’t be a snob: buy your vin ordinaire, your plonk, your Chateau Thames Embankment, at the grocery store. Pick a price point under 5 euros and buy 2 or 3 different labels. As soon as you find the kind you like, stock up.
• Sniff around—I mean literally, follow the scent of baking bread—until you find a boulangerie-patisserie that bakes what it sells, and buy your baguette daily. The walk (or drive) in the cool of the morning as the birds run through their repertoire, is a pleasure of its own. A folding serrated breadknife with corkscrew is an incredibly useful travel accessory.
• The only kitchen staples necessary for a week in a gîte are: a tiny bottle of extra-virgin olive oil; a tiny bottle of good vinegar; a tiny pot of mustard; small shakers or grinders of salt and pepper. Those plus a pound of lovely local butter can transform whatever you have into gourmet eats, particularly if you splash in some of the plonk you are swilling while cooking.
• Plastic bags from shops and grocery stores are great for wrapping leftovers.
• Scheduling a fall trip to conclude before November 1 means never having to learn that some place is closed for the season. By the same logic, a spring vacation should commence after April 1.
• If you feed horses carrots and lumps of sugar every day they will look forward to seeing you.
  

  Taj Mahal

Best of the Best, Fall in France, 2011

During this 21-day excursion we stayed in three gîtes plus one night in a B&B. We ate a meal out, which is to say in a restaurant, about once every other day or every third day. We spent a lot of time at World War One battlefields and monuments but dropped into some museums and churches and did a little shopping.

Comfiest gîte: Les Tilleuls, Hauteville, Pas-de-Calais

the courtyard of Les Tilleuls

Best bed: Milleroses, Crecy-la-Chapelle, near Meaux

gîte Milleroses

Most enthusiastic host and most important experience with WWI history that I could not have anticipated: gîte l’Alambic, Montsec, near Saint-Mihiel

American Monument at Montsec - visible at night through our bedroom skylight

Best croissant: Le Fournil Avenois, 62 Grand Rue, Avesnes-le-Comte (near gîte Les Tilleuls)

Best éclair : Boulangerie du Marché 6, rue du Marché, Crécy-la-Chapelle (near gîte Milleroses)

Best baguette: Hautbois Mikaël (a.k.a. Mike and Julie’s), 28 rue du Général LeClerc, Crécy-la-Chapelle (near gîte Milleroses)

Most entertaining way to buy a baguette: the bread and pastry truck that arrived at 8:40 a.m. at the doorstep of gîte l’Alambic every morning except Monday

Best chain grocery: Carréfour

Place de Béthune, Lille

Best meal: Le Broc’, 17 Place de Béthune, Lille, France—every menu item involves cheese!

Most surprisingly yummy meal: Restaurant Efes, Chez Hasan Kebab, 41 rue Saint Remy, Meaux. We were cold, we were tired, and it was a Sunday and a lot of places were closed. A beer, grilled lamb, couscous salad and a pile of hot frites could not have been better.

Lucie

Most adorable server : Lucie at Chez Angelo pizza, 6 Rue du Général Leclerc, Crécy-la-Chapelle

Best radio station for car travel: Nostalgi. It fades in and out in hilly locales, and the programmer has a taste for Bee-Gees, it’s a great mix of French chansons and American golden-oldies.

Best city for an urban-fun kind of time: Lille—and Aline at the tax-refund desk in the Printemps department store is more helpful and way more friendly than any of the staff in the Office de Tourisme a few steps away.

Best—or at least most unexpectedly delightful—museum: Musée Bossuet, Palais épiscopal, 5 place Charles-de-Gaulle, Meaux

Best WWI memorial experience: Newfoundlanders, Beaumont-Hamel or the Yankee Division Memorial Church, Belleau

the Boston Window, Yankee Division Memorial Church

the Newfoundlanders' elk

Best—well, most meaningful—WWI cemetery experience: Saint-Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial, Thiaucourt, or Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, Belleau

Thiaucourt

Belleau