Tales of Two Cities

A Little Bit of Paradise

I spent a few days in Pecos, New Mexico recently and it got me thinking about how we stumble upon little bits of paradise in our lives when we least expect it.

Paradise, in this life at least, is fleeting.  It is the feeling of safety in the arms of someone who loves you and whom you trust will never hurt you, the simplicity of rocking a baby to sleep, the joy of watching a young chipmunk in early spring with your grandchild, or just giggling about nothing important with a good friend.  It can be sailing down the St. Francis Drake channel with the winds behind you and the sun warm on your face, or lying on your back in the grass squinting at fluffy clouds in a blue sky, even watching a thunderstorm from a safe spot that shelters you from the rain. 

You can't plan it.  It just happens.

As many of you know, I was in Santa Fe for a photography workshop in February.  I was there to learn more about using big time artificial lighting (strobes, soft boxes, grids, filters, etc.) and to get some ideas of where I want to go with my photography.  The class had its challenges, some to do with learning to use the equipment and some to do with difficult personalities (not the instructor's),  but it was full of learning and left me with much to ponder.

The second week, I hung around the Santa Fe area. A photographer friend hired a local model with the idea of practicing with small flashes.  I was more in contemplative than photography mode, so I decided not to shoot the model but just to hang out and make myself available as an assistant, if and when needed.  The shoot location was a log cabin on a hill above the meandering Pecos River about 35 minutes outside of Santa Fe . 

The cabin is home to Mike, a man who, I would guess, is in his late fifties.  A large paddock nearby provides exercise room for his five horses.  Three sweet, friendly dogs are constantly underfoot, happy to have your attention if they take a liking to you. Raider, half wolf and half dog, is kept on a chain and aggressively greets all who come up the driveway.  His bark may be worse than his bite, but he is not an animal to tangle with. 

Mike is a quiet man who believes in conspiracy theories.  Though he has lived a hard life, he is a gentle soul who gave up drink ten years ago after it almost killed him.  A jack of all trades, he is a hunter, trail guide, carpenter. He talked to me a bit about his life, including telling me about his son who was permanently damaged by jaundice soon after birth and how he lived longer than most children with his affliction, dying still the size of an infant at age 9.  He told me that he supported and fed his young family by hunting and lamented that his grandchildren are growing up in the city with no exposure to the realities of farm life.  He told me about how he survived after having his jugular severed when he was stabbed in the neck.  Most of the time, though, we just stood side by side saying nothing.

Lance, Mike's friend and fellow carpenter,  hails from Casper, Wyoming.  He constantly has a beer in his hand and a story to tell.  He  is a connoisseur of Harley motorcycles and makes beautiful miniature models of the bikes. His own beloved Harley, parked under the trees, is waiting for the day when he can repair the  damaged done to it  when he helped save his brother whose motorcycle had caught fire.  Lance, too, has had a hard life.  His adventures have been crafted into stories that continue non-stop but that never bore. He has a permanent twinkle in his eye and, like Mike, is a gentle, courtly man. 

Mike, Lance and the three dogs were my companions for the two days I spent at the cabin.  Most of the time I was outside, listening to Lance's stories, chatting with the two of them, watching the horses with Mike silently by my side, talking quietly to the dogs who took a liking to me, or just standing alone listening to the river.

 I felt safe emotionally and physically.

For hours on end I was at peace.

I felt totally at home.

I can't really explain why, and I have no desire to explain it.  I was given the gift of a glimpse of paradise.  Simple as that.

You can see more pictures of Mike and Lance here.

Coming Home

It is hard to believe as I sit here by the kitchen window in "our" Paris apartment that it isn't home.  I feel as though I have never left.  The view of the quiet, one-way street that separates us from the apartment building across the way is as familiar to me as the view of busy Exeter Street from my kitchen window in Boston.

They say that home is where the heart is, but I don't believe it.  My heart is in Boston, in Princeton,  in Tallahassee, and in other cities and towns that shelter my loved ones.  For me, home is where I feel comfortable - where I feel at home.  My heart roams through a vaster universe.

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport (known to the French as Roissy) early on April Fools day after an uneventful flight in a slightly shabby (inside at least) Boeing 747 that the attendant assured us wouldn't be flying in another year, which was not a very reassuring comment when you think about it.

After picking up our baggage and walking out past customs, we found Monsieur Misery , the colorful fellow who picks us up and whisks us into Paris.  He set us up on the sidewalk outside the terminal while he went to get his van.  We had noticed armed soldiers and police here and there inside and outside the terminal building but didn't think much about it - they have been a common site at airports and railroad stations for decades.  Somewhat bleary eyed from lack of sleep, we ignored the siren blaring in the background and the ambulance and police cars parked around us.

Then one of the armed soldiers approached us and told us politely but quite firmly that we couldn't stay where we were.  As we struggled to get our luggage in hand so we could move to the area he indicated, M. Misery appeared with his van.  Smiling reassuringly and chattering in the direction of the solider, he tossed our bags and us into his van and we were on our way.

What is going on, we asked. Oh, he shrugged, pointing at a taxi pulled off the access road near where we had been standing, an unidentified bag was found in the taxi and the bomb squad is on its way. 

Probably someone's idea of an April Fools joke.

Late Bloomers

I was a late bloomer.  So, it appears, is "my" tree at Versailles.

As most of you know, for my 60th birthday Charles sponsored a tree in my name to help Versailles replace the thousands of trees that were destroyed by violent storms in late 1999.

"My" tree is now roughly 6 1/2 years old.  We don't know what kind it is, but it was evident today that it is one that puts out its leaves later than many others in the park.  I was a bit chagrined to find it looking so barren after seeing so many green, leafy trees on our hike to its home in the Jardin Anglais,  but I checked the photo from April 9 of last year and found that at that time it was still covered with dead leaves from the prior autumn.

Access to the tree is blocked, but we did get close enough to verify that it is about to put out its leaves and I have no doubt that very  shortly the tree will be a lovely spring green color.   This is how it looked last October.  We late bloomers do things in our own good time, but eventually we get the job done.  With style.

Odd and End

THE END.  Captain America, age 66 and one of the Marvel comic book heros I grew up with, was recently killed by an evil sniper. I have to confess that Captain America wasn't my favorite super hero. I adored Captain Marvel, the Marvel family and the power of Shazam. And, of course, my all time favorite is still Wonder Woman.  But there is something really sad about the termination of a creation that has attained such a venerable age - the same age as I am as a matter of fact.  That is so wrong!   We 66 year olds have lots left to do and lots left to contribute.  Even if we are still trying to learn how to send text messages and we don't have different telephone rings on our cell phones to match our moods. 

THE ODD.  One of the enduring puzzles of politics is why legislatures pass laws that any rational person knows will be unenforceable - at least against those at whom the laws are purportedly aimed.  Apparently, a new French law makes photographing and publishing "happy slapping" videos on the Internet a crime unless you are a professional journalist.  What is "happy slapping?"  According to Wikipedia (the web based "authority" that has suffered a serious credibility challenged in recent days - but that is a different story), happy slapping is: "a fad in which an unsuspecting victim is attacked while an accomplice records the assault (commonly with a camera phone or a smartphone).  The name can refer to any type of violent assault...." 

If, as reported,  the new law is so broadly written that anyone other than a professional journalist will be subject to a fine and prison if she takes pictures of violent acts and publishes them on the internet, then the law confounds me.  Does this mean I can't publish pictures I might take of the French riot police spraying tear gas to keep demonstrators under control, or pictures of US cops beating up a Rodney King, or photographs of a terrorist attack?  Do the people that pass these laws really think that such a law will stop happy slapping videos from appearing on YouTube and other Internet sites?  Is the French government really planning to provide the funding it will take to enforce the law?  Of course not.  That is why the law is so odd.

Memories of Christmas Past

Late last week I put a Christmas CD on, turned on the Christmas lights that were already on the tree and, singing along with "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," "O Holy Night" and "The First Noel," I finished decorating our 6-foot high table-top tree. 

Many of our ornaments are relatively new, purchased to replace broken ones.  These evoke little in the way of memories.  Then, I unwrapped an ornament I made in the mid-1960's when I was a stay-at-home mother of two children under three. Charles was traveling a lot for work and I had some time for projects after the children went to bed. Inspired by wonderful ideas in the women's magazines that year, I spent my evenings making flowers out of gold rick-rack and attaching them, along with ribbon and other decorations, to styrofoam balls. It was a lot of fun and very satisfying.  I remember the period before Christmas that year as one of my happiest ever associated with the holiday. 

The memory is, however, bittersweet.  That Christmas was the eve of a very difficult period in my life, and for rather complex reasons, the ornaments I made in the weeks before the holiday became associated with the bad times.  Today only one of those ornaments survives:  the one on which I worked the hardest and  loved the most.  As I placed it on the tree this year, the memories came - the bittersweet and the sad, and I felt a twinge of grief for that very young twenty-something who still had so much growing up to do.  At the same time,  I recognized that without that and other stumbles along the way, I would not have made the  choices that have made me the person I am.  Forty year's on, that worn ornament reminds me of how lucky I have been to be able to experience the joys of piloting a light plane, to practice a profession I loved, and to pursue my current love, photography. 

As I added more and more ornaments, trying to balance the decorations for pleasing effect, my thoughts drifted to the years when our children were young and the part my mother played in our Christmas mornings.  My parents lived 3,000 miles away and years went by without our seeing them. Nevertheless, my mom found ways of staying a part of our lives.  Every year, she sent boxes of presents for the four of us -  gifts small and large, some thoughtful, some useful, and some just plain silly.  Each was wrapped exquisitely.  But best (or worst) of all were the poems she wrote to go with many of the gifts with rhyming hints of what we would find inside or suggestions on how it was to be used.  We would read them aloud, often to theatrical moans, despite the fact that many of her efforts were quite clever.  Good or gawd-awful, they were full of my mom's special humor.  They brought her close to us despite the miles between us.  My mother died shortly after Christmas 7 years ago and I miss her.  Especially at Christmas time.  I shed some tears for her as I decorated our tree.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Christmas Eve at our daughter's house with Emily, her parents, her other grandparents and her older brother and sister.  Then Christmas morning Emily and her parents will come here and once again there will be a little child in the house opening presents from under the tree.  I'm not the same kind of grandmother that my mother was.  I have no talent for wrapping presents.  I don't write clever, moan-worthy poems to go with gifts.  But that's OK.  I live near my granddaughter and have no need to find other ways to be present in her life. For that I am very, very grateful.
 

Back from the Abyss

I remember talking to my father on the telephone just after he learned at 59 that he had terminal pancreatic cancer.  At the time, life was good for me. I was living in Boston and in my last semester of law school, extremely busy with classes and my duties as an editor of the Law Review.   I had recently learned that I had been selected to clerk for a federal appeals court judge after graduation. Charles and my children continued to be a support team that any wife and mother would envy. My parents were hardly on my radar.  They lived on the other side of the country and I saw them rarely.

I don't remember much of what I thought or felt at the time but I do remember my father's calm.  He had been told he had perhaps six months to live.  (He lived a matter of weeks after the phone call.)  In response to my questions, he told me that he wasn't afraid or consumed with the necessity of doing battle against the disease.  "We all die.  I've had a good life," he said.  His words comforted me.

It was the last time I spoke with him.  He died the morning I got on the plane to go see him. 

I thought of his passive calm a lot over the past few weeks while I waited to find out if I had lung  cancer.  A CT scan to check out a deformed rib unexpectedly disclosed a small "something" in a hard to reach place in my right lung.  A PET scan followed.  Then came the waiting.  I was lucky.   It is scar tissue, not cancer. 

For almost a week, though, I lived with two futures in my head:  A brief one lasting perhaps less than a year and one stretching well into the future to some undefined date. I thought about what I would do with my limited time and found that being with people I love was all that mattered.  Would I continue with my photography?  I thought that I probably would but not with the same passion.  Thinking of my first show scheduled for next October I realized that perhaps I wouldn't be there at all and it didn't seem to matter.  The saddest thought was that Emily would not remember me.

I suspect, but do not know, that thinking about the possibility of something is one thing and facing the reality is quite another.  It is truly impossible to know how I would have felt and what decisions I would have made had the diagnosis been cancer. At this point, I can barely remember how I felt before I got the results.

At the moment, although I recognize that life is a terminal condition, I would like to put off the inevitable as long as possible. When it comes, however,  as it will, the brief, sharp reminder of my mortality suggests that I will feel much as my father did.  I have had a good life.

The Meanings of Love

Last week, Emily's mother was cuddling with her.  "Mommy and daddy love you,"  said Mommy. "Yes," replied Em.  "Grandmommy and Grandpa love you."  "No," exclaimed the Adorable One.  "Grandmommy and Grandpa don't love you?" "No."  "Why do you think that they don't love you?" "They go home," came the reply.

As adults, we understand that there are many kinds of love.  We love people, animals, objects, geographical and mythical places, experiences and ideas.  Our love can be gentle, firm, passionate, clingy, demanding, excessive.  It can be generous, selfish and most commonly a combination of both.  Whatever form it takes, love is rarely lacking in complexity.

For Emily, though, it is still simple.  Love is when someone is there for you at the end of the day and does not leave you to go home. 

Constructive Denial Redux

Well, I guess I can't pretend any longer.  My college classmate, Nora Ephron, has broadcast the ugly truth in her latest book - not just IN the book, but IN THE TITLE of the book.  Thanks, Nora.  Didn't anyone ever tell you that discretion is the better part of ...  Oh, forget it.

It is of little comfort that the first place I will look when I see Nora at our 45th college reunion next June is at her neck.  Not her sleek, petite figure clothed in soft, black leather.  Not at her face, compelling in its intelligent exuberance.  At her neck.  Unless, of course, she has it covered with a turtleneck sweater (surely not in June) or a scarf (well, maybe in June).  Until then, I can no longer avoid looking in the mirror at my own 65 year old neck every frigging day.  Uggg.

I know I should think of my aging body in terms of W.C. Fields' proposed epitaph:  "All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia," but there is something truly depressing about trying to be glad about a reality that no one can contemplate without experiencing a queasy stomach just because the alternative is worse - i.e., the ultimate, inevitable "I'm not going there" truth. 

Besides, I think that I could live in Philadelphia quite happily with a neck, chin and face lift (not to mention a lift of some other body parts), but it ain't gonna happen.  Maybe, though, I will indulge in a slightly cheaper and more chic alternative and buy some new scarves when we are in Paris next month.

Meanwhile there is nothing to do but to get rid of all the mirrors in the house.  Along with Nora's book, entertaining as it is.   Worth it, don't you think?    After all, holding on to delusions always comes at a cost.

He Got That Right

"Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination."

Christopher Isherwood who was born on this day in 1904.

Constructive Denial

One moment I was chasing Emily around her kitchen, thump-thump-thumping my feet so it would sound like I was going to catch her at any second. Then my foot caught on one of the legs of the highchair and suddenly everything shifted to super slow motion.  I had lots of time to think.  "This can't be happening"  I mused as I tried to sort out what was going on.  "Hmmmm," I thought without much alarm, "I do hope I don't fall onto the trash can."  "You know, Virginia," I cautioned myself, "it would be a really good idea not to hit your head." 

My right hand grabbed for the edge of a sturdy table for support as I tried to free my foot from the highchair. Thawck when my left knee as it hit the floor - hard.  Thud went my left forearm as I twisted myself to avoid the recyclables.  Whoosh went the breath out of my lungs as I completed my graceless landing, executing a last second rotation to avoid colliding with other objects in the area.  My son told me later that it was really quite a spectacular fall.

"It will be awfully inconvenient if I have hurt myself seriously," I thought in the silence that followed. "Oh, please, please, please, don't let me have broken any bones," I prayed, as I gingerly turned myself over and sat on the floor carefully moving different parts of my body to confirm functionality and to see what hurt.

Emily promptly climbed into my lap and sat quietly while I assessed the damage.  Then the embarrassment hit.  Four sets of eyes were gazing down at me, all looking very concerned.  "Are you alright?"  Their voices spoke as a chorus.  "I don't know yet," I replied. They continued to stare at me, silent and concerned.  "Stop starring at me," I said ungraciously.  I wanted time to recover without spectators.  If a trip to the emergency room was in the offing, we would all find out soon enough.

My request was met by silence as everyone continued to watch me carefully - except Emily.  She just stayed quietly in my lap and waited for me to sort things out.  Fortunately, it quickly became clear that I was bruised but not broken.  Some ice on my ankle stopped the swelling and in no time I was more or less back to normal, grateful, despite my embarrassment and grumpy words, for the caring attention of my family.

"Well, that was pretty stupid," I thought.  "But," I reassured myself, "accidents happen to everybody, don't they?"  Of course, that's true.  The reality, however, is that as we get older bones break more easily and take longer to heal.  Moreover, clumsiness could be a harbinger of larger problems.

Usually I ignore the fact that the young woman I am lives in an aging body that lets me down more and more frequently.  My fall may not have broken anything physical, but it robbed me, briefly at least, of my ability to live in constructive denial. 

The issue is clear:  How do we balance the legitimate need to live life on our own terms with the growing weaknesses of our bodies and minds?  I really don't know the answer.  I do know that I don't want to have others make those decisions for me.  And that means that I have to be clear-eyed and responsible for my own behavior. 

I hope that my fall was just a fall and that I will have many more years of actively playing with Emily. I do not plan to stop chasing after her.  Just to be on the safe side, though, I have decided not to do it when the two of us are alone. 

Decision made, I shall revert to constructive denial.  For now, anyway.