Color, chaos, claustrophobia

Even if I'm not a painter, color moves me. I was thrilled on a recent trip on the Swiss autoroute to see three copper-colored cars among the monotonous white, black and gray. 

Bright colors, matching colors, soft pastels, all bring me a sense of peace among the chaos of today's world.

This painting in the Stubli of a St. Moritz hotel describes how I often feel. The color stands out against the world that surrounds me. It's not just the fear that my birth country is being destroyed from within, the difficulty despite alleged technological advances of things of the same technology's failures requiring days of trying to correct them of even to find a human to do it -- maybe. Covid does not frighten me the way those who have no desire to protect BOTH themselves and others scares me.

War is being threatened on the Ukraine border. I am not a genius but I knew that the Vietnamese would never attack Reading, Massachusetts. So many Vietnamese and Americans died for a lie. I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction, that once again people were being lied to. They were whipped up into a frenzy of patriotism for a lie. And once again the pressure of possible military violence is being circulated.

I shudder that as Blinken bemoans the loss of press freedom in Hong Kong, the U.S. is persecuting Julian Assange.

People worry about bad words in books as their children have alerts against possible shooters in school. It reminds me of my childhood hiding under my desk in drills against Russian bombs that were never to come.

Those are only a few of the black umbrellas around the colorful dress in the painting. There are so many more black umbrellas outside the frame that their images could fill a museum. 

I fight the claustrophobia of the evil and try and push back the grayer ones of the chaotic aspects of modern life.

My desire is to keep everything as simple as I can. To have the technology that makes my life easier work for me -- not against me. To be able to savor the calm. To have time to see what is before me. To not be attacked by too many possessions. To be able to concentrate on the moment, words, color, affection, sharing with those I care about. To have as few interruptions of what I'm doing. To celebrate Sherlock, my four-footed fuzzball, deciding he needs to play, pee or eat when I'm in the middle of writing.

Today, I will seek that feeling of peace, grabbing all the rainbows that seeps into my life. I will absorb the blue of the berries on my cereal, the almost red pink of my sweatpants, the gold stars decorating my laptop, the multi-color pattern of the duvet cover. When we go out, I will see the intensified colors of the cobblestones wet from the rain. I will look at the lake to see what color it is dressed in today. It has so many: brownish when the wind has churned up the water, aqua, light blue, marine blue.

I will use the balance that color gives me to put down the chaos to make sure each cell in my body knows that so much of my life is filled with beauty, of love, of pleasure. I may use that sense of peace to write or to revel in the pleasure of little actions, conversations of those around me. 

Giving, taking, sharing

 

I'm convinced in the world there are certain groups of people across all national, racial, cultural lines: Givers, takers, sharers.

GIVERS

Those who think of others. Although it can be monetary such as buying someone a meal, loaning money, taking the time to be kind, recognizing how to be helpful without being asked. A major example was when I was moving and was worried about how many bus trips it would take to get my things to the new place. I answered the phone and my new housemate asked when I would like her to show up with her car to do it in a single trip. I had never asked, she just knew and stepped in.

Givers may participate in greater charities but they are there for their friends in small things as well as large. They will make donations to groups, and sometimes to the woman begging in the street knowing it might be a sham, but what if would be beaten if she didn't bring enough money back.

Giving can vary. They say the poor are more generous than the rich. Not everyone can be like Diane Disney and the former Mrs. Bezos who distribute millions of dollars.

There is the woman, who on a limited budget takes donations of things like toothbrushes, mittens, hats, tampons, makes up bags then she and her daughter distribute them on Christmas day to homeless women.  

Or the friend who knows someone if having a bad time and just sits with them.

TAKERS

Here I am not talking about people who borrow money and don't repay it, although it fits. I'm talking about those who think only of themselves. I would say those who refuse to wear a mask without thinking how they are endangering others are among those. Or those who say why should they help those that have no health insurance are among the takers. It's the I have what I need, screw you philosophy. But it can be more personal. The person who never contacts a friend even though they enjoy each other's company, the one who says when they break a planned date, usually saying, "I know you'll understand, but..." 

SHARERS

Hopefully this is the largest group. Those people who give when it is right and can accept when needed. Givers sometimes find it difficult to take. Givers and takers together flip back and forth and it all evens out and even if it doesn't no one cares. Shared can make everyone stronger.

It may be why coop start ups have a lower failure rate than the capitalistic model where everything goes to the top. Or why the economy would be better if the top of large corporations shared the profit with the employees who created it.

 I'm thinking of the African children who wanted to share their winnings so every one would be happy rather than just one.

Giving can be overdone. The best illustration is Shel Silverstone's The Giving Tree, where the tree gave so much it had nothing left. I think of an airline, where when an oxygen mask drops, people are suppose to put it on themselves before putting it on others who need help. It means everyone has a better chance of survival. Sharing also means everyone does better with whatever resources exist.

Sking, Polo, Golf

 Despite living in Switzerland since 1990, I was never at an Alpine ski resort during the season until this week. Part of the reason, I don't ski, prices are higher and the crowds are bigger.

Then when my husband announced he was going to participate in a hickory snow golf tournament in St. Moritz, I was thrilled. The one last year was cancelled. Covid. This year's was not.

 

We drove from Geneva through breath-taking scenery, but I've often described Switzerland as a postcard.

Our hotel was everything you'd want in Swiss hotel with its folksy wooden furniture. Room numbers were combined with flower stencils, different for each room.

Rick dressed in the obligatory 1920s costume for traditional hickory club players and off he went.

What will I do today?

Watch an ice polo match. What else?

The match is  Having never seen polo on ice grass, I'm off in a few minutes to witness it for the first time. If it's too cold, in walking distance of the hotel.

The hidden treat

 

Sherlock gave the type of bark, we've learned means, "Something is under the couch." When we didn't respond to a second request he tried to dig it out, which would be impossible.

My husband Rick sighed, got up and started to move the couch. It's heavy and at one point almost upset the stand where my laptop rested. I caught it before it fell.

Sherlock watched the couch moving with the same intensity he would as if about to be served a steak dinner.

"Hand me a treat," Rick said. I assumed he meant a dog treat and not one of his own favorite snacks and did.

"There was part of a cookie, the kind that dog shouldn't have."

"Look what I found." Rick handed Sherlock the dog treat. I guess my dog isn't as smart as I thought. He trotted off with the dog treat, the cookie forgotten.

Plashing

 

I was in Italy with my former neighbors from Boston, Carol and Gary. They now lived in Maine, I lived in Switzerland. We were spending a reunion week in the town where Carlo Collodi, the man who created Pinocchio lived.

We had escaped the souvenir shop with long-nosed souvenirs, not just of the puppet, but many of George W. Bush (it was 2005) with a long nose and were in the gardens of the estate of a minor aristocrat.

 The gardens were lush and Gary commented on the plashing fountain.

"You used the word 'plashing'." I said.

"I've loved that word ever since I read Amy Lowell in..." he said.

"Patterns." I filled in. I knew Gary as my neighbor, a good cook, a minister, a dog owner, a man with a sense of humor, with depth of thought, but I never knew he read poetry.

Merriman-Webster defines the word as:

• to cause a splashing or spattering effect 
• to break the surface of (water)

Over the years whenever I used it in writing, which wasn't often, an editor would change it to splashing. I gave up trying to use it conversation.

This morning I saw plashing in print for the first time since that conversation with Gary a couple of decades ago. Mary Gordon wrote about "plashing fountains" in her novel Payback, which prompted this blog.

This morning, my husband and I were talking about words and I mentioned I was writing this blog about the word plashing.

Rick: Splashing?

Me: Plashing.

Rick: What does it mean? I never heard it. (He is extremely well read).

I told him and suggested he read this blog. "read my blog" is a joke between us.

Plashing is a word that may have its dictionary meaning, but for me it represents not just a loved story poem, a memory for a late friend, a lead-in to thinking about words and their meanings, thoughts about words falling out of use in a language, origins from different languages. 

As a writer words are important to me and by exchanging a word in my work for another, I can change the image. As much as I would love to use plashing, I imagine my reader would think it was a typo.

---

I walk down the garden-paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden-paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the
buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover.
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he
clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon--
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the
Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for? 

Note:  I have no idea why I can't get rid of the underlines. I assume that it is the work of the malicious creature that lives in my laptop and does strange things to my work every now and then. Or maybe he loves the word plashing too.

Maya Angelou meets Bobbie Burns

 

January 25 is the anniversary of Scottish poet Robert Burns birthday.

Despite being at Robbie Burns celebrations some years surrounded by people in kilts and Scottish accents or having our own private celebration when we could get haggis and read his poems aloud, I forgot the day.

Channel surfing from the warmth of my bed, I came upon a BBC station to see Maya Angelou on a pilgrimage through Robert Burns Country. There were comparisons of her life and his. They were at a pub filled with Scots, singing and reciting his poetry.

What joy.

4 Seasons

 

Really looking forward to Saint Moritz next weekend when my husband will play in the SnowBall Hickory Golf Tournament. It should be a real Swiss wintery scene. It made me think about my feeling to the seasons.

Spring: Flowers begin to blossom: mimosa, forsythia, tulips, daffodils violets, a pink feather tree, fruit trees. Warmer -- so shedding a puff coat feels okay. The days lengthen. Sadly, I lose the hour I won in September and each day brings me closer to the dreaded summer. Last chance to walk on the beach before it's hidden under towels and tourists.

Summer: Summer can be hell for me when the temperature and the humidity rise stealing my energy. The summer evenings sitting in a café can be lovely with the days that hang around till it's time to fall into bed. Friends from all over the world return to their second homes. There are street dances. 

Autumn: My favorite season. The days get shorter which makes the nights longer and cozier. We get out the mink and snuggle under it when we go to bed. The leaves change color, fall to earth to make nice crunching sounds. We change the clocks. I get to have one more hour on that day. I no longer worry about the heat. I change over my wardrobe and greet my sweaters, sweats, flannel PJs. The beach is once again deserted. If we want to catch the sunrise instead of getting up at 3 we can get up almost at a normal hour. 

Winter: Thank goodness. Cold again. We have the shortest day. Christmas decorations decorate my village turning it into a fairy land. My florist picks out a perfect tree. It has to be a table tree because Sherlock thinks of a floor tree as an indoor toilet. It has to be a live tree for the winter solstice which for me completes the year and is an offering for the next season to come.

A sunrise from the beach on a winter morning. It was the only time I've seen a square sun.

Toilet Paper Politics

 

I bet you thought this blog would be about whether the paper should unroll from the bottom or top?

It isn't. My husband likes it from the top. I don't care. It's about another aspect of the family toilet paper decisions.

I unrolled the new roll of toilet paper and thought WOW. Thick. YES, YES, YES! 

My husband does the shopping, so I seldom complain about any of his purchases. Since he makes sure we always have enough toilet paper, I never said anything about the thinness. He always humored my need to have back up. Once, he created a toilet paper wall for me after I worried we were running out filling 20% of the bathroom. Had it fallen, they might never have found whoever was buried under it -- a good memory

Turns out he doesn't like the thick but prefers the "soft" thin paper. 

Marrying late in life and having lived on two different continents for years before we married, we have developed different habits and likes. This does lead to questions such as why did you do (fill in the blank)? After nine years here, he begins to take European things as natural. I've been out of the U.S. for 30 years this September, I find some U.S. things exotic.

The thick/thin discussion reminded me what I don't want is newspaper for toilet paper. Yup, newspaper.

I was a new bride in the 1960s and had just joined by first husband where he was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany. He had found a room for us within an apartment of a German couple. The other roomers were a tech student, an actor, and a secretary for Disney. We shared a toilet. 

The landlady refused to let us use toilet paper from the PX, which my co-tenants would have preferred, to the torn up Stuttgarter Zeitung she insisted on. It didn't take long for the toilet to be clogged. I learned to try to hold my body functions as much as possible. We did find a flat as fast as possible.

In any case, it is an issue that adds to our relationship which is great through "thick and thin."

Gruyere cheese injustice

 

This is Gruyere, Switzerland.

 

 This is Gruyere cheeses made in Gruyere.

Gruyere cheese does not have to come from the Gruyere region of Europe to be sold under the Gruyere name, a federal judge in Virginia has ruled.

 

This is the Champagne area in France. Only a certain white sparkling wine from this region can be labelled Champagne. White sparkling wine from Champagne Switzerland or any other white sparkling wine made identically to the white sparkling wine from Champagne, France can NOT be called champagne.

Something is wrong.

 

voting rights smugness

 

I feel sorry for Americans and their voting rights mess.

I feel smug at how easy it is for me to vote in Switzerland. The day I took my oath as a new citizen, a voting package, and a glass of champagne were put in my hand. A pain surprise (salmon, ham sandwiches layered in a round bread loaf) was served. Since then in 2006 4x a year I receive a voting package. I have two choices on how to make my voice heard.

1. Mail it in with the signature card which is separate from my vote in a sealed envelope.
   
2. Take it to my local polling place which is open the Sunday morning on the final day of voting. Every village and town has one. Cities have many conveniently located. Pre-pandemic we were offered coffee and pastries. I do need an ID when I hand in my sealed envelope but then again every citizen has an ID. My red passport would work too.

The voting package format is always the same and in one of the national languages that I've chosen. 

 The voting package contains

•  The wording of the item we voting on
• Pros
• Cons
• The government's position. Sometimes they've placed a counter proposition and the voter can decide between them.
  
• A list of how all the parties (we have many) stand on the issue
• A signature card which includes my date of birth and a number for checking the authenticity.
• An envelope to seal after I put my ballot inside. 

Prior to each vote, posters for all issues appear in every village and all around the cities. They are usually set out in rows but not always. Language depends on the language of the canton.

I already have my package on the February votation. Two issues are easy: animal testing and tobacco advertising to the young. The third, which has to do with stamps and business, I need to study up on. Last night one of the ministers spoke on television about the government's position. There are seven ministers, sometimes called the Seven Dwarfs. Each runs a department much like a cabinet post. The president changes annually from the seven. 

After lunch today, I'll read up on the issue. French is my second language and although I can read the newspaper, a magazine and a book fairly easily, some of the wording sends me to a translator to make 100% sure I understand.

The system is not perfect. There can be corruption and stupidity like everywhere but it works more than it doesn't. In Switzerland the German cantons often overrule the French. Often the results are different than my vote. Too many Swiss don't vote but it still reflects the opinion of the majority who care.

That's why I'm smug and when I feel sorry for Americans who have to work harder to vote, a privilege and a duty, than I do.

The birth of child

Fifty-three years ago today, I was in great pain at Winchester Hospital. Nurses were coming in regularly to look at my private parts. My doctor made an occasional appearance. He had just arrived back from attending the Nixon inaugural. 

When deemed "ready" I was rolled into the delivery room where I brought forth the greatest gift of my life. All but three years of her life were a joy, one of which I messed up. She told me later, she was glad "that you grew out of that stage."

I am so proud of the person she turned out to be.

Weird dream

 

When you read this, do not send me for counseling please. 

All my life I've had vivid dreams. I used to write them down in a journal and stopped, but this one I wanted to save. Maybe I'll get another journal -- or not.

I'm looking at a magazine and there is a full page photo of two cabin crew. The man is black and is named Kaspar. The woman is non-white but I don't know her race. They move and talk as if in a video. Kaspar says it shouldn't matter that they are gay. As part of their uniforms, they have caps like the cub scouts have. The woman has a matching scarf.

They climb out of the magazine and the three of us are together in New York City on our way to a Broadway play where we have balcony seats. We enjoyed it so much we decide to go the next night to another play but there's something wrong with out tickets and the ushers do not want to seat us.

We decide to look for empty seats after the play starts. I open a door escaping the usher that is trying to stop us at a top balcony and a straight chair is at the end of a row of purple plush theater seats. I take it. The two cabin crew see and take the same kind of wooden chairs three rows down on the left. The play has started way below. 

I am wearing beige slacks and an almost white beige sweater.

I wake.

Don't harness a kid

 

A photo of Keith Richards, wearing a harness, was posted on Facebook today.

Some 76 years after my mother harnessed me, it brought back the total anger and humiliation of wearing one, hating every second, not wanting to be seen in my despair by any other human being. I remember once shutting my eyes as I walked blotting out the disgrace. Naturally, I fell down.

I've forgiven my mother for a lot of things: trying to annul my marriage, getting custody of my daughter (the social services found no reason and told me they wished all parents were like me) and asking our neighbors if they thought me and my female roommate were gay (we weren't).

Compared to children who are beaten, putting a harness on a child can't be described as child abuse. It could even be considered loving them, protecting them from dashing into traffic or getting misplaced at a mall. My mother also did many loving things: art projects, reading to me, playing games. When I was a teen she would drive me by a certain boy's house. I had a crush on him. 

I've forgiven my ex husband for things that he did that reduced the quality of my life BUT I also take responsibility for my part in any disagreement. And then there's the gratitude that a wonderful daughter and a divorce improved my life.

If I had the communication skills I have now, I might have fought the harness. At three, I could have started screaming when she went near the harness and flailed so violently that she would have had to sedate me to put it on me. I really wish I had.

I will never, never, never forgive her for harnessing me. Even seeing Keith in the harness created a knot in my stomach. Harnesses on kids are rare now, but when I see one, I want to go up and tell the parents, please don't. So far I've resisted.

3 Little Words

Nope, it is not I love you, although those are three lovely words.

 As a writer, words intrigue me. I have 5 favorites. Here they are in order.

3

Gobsmacked

 A British word literally meaning smacked/hit in the gob/mouth but used to express amazement. I was gobsmacked when I won.

2

Peckish

Another British English meaning hungry. I'm peckish having missed breakfast and lunch.

1

Plethora 

Abundance. There was a plethora of choices at the buffet.

I seldom would get a chance to use all three in the same sentence such as I was gobsmacked when I arrived at the restaurant very peckish to find a plethora of food in their buffet for only 5.99.

Memories

 

Words of comfort offered over my brother's death included someone advising me to take time to mull over the good memories. Since I often find it hard what to say when someone I know loses someone they care about, I've filed this phrase away for future use with deep appreciation at the thought given me. 

The problem with bringing out my good memories of playing ping pong on the porch or croquet and badminton in the yard, are dimmed by neutral or negative memories. I'm sure he would counter me, recounting the time I ate his last cupcake after I told about his knocking me down the stairs with a suitcase.

As adults things were better. We would talk at family meals although he thinking W was too liberal and me a leftie. Politics was an area we never agreed on. 

We handled my mother's dying and settlement of her estate not just with ease but total teamwork. 

We even shared some meals between ourselves although when I spoke French to a waiter, he wanted me to speak English. 

But there's a memory that I'm now in possession of alone -- the house we grew up in has been replaced with another. There's no one else left that will be able to talk about Saturday nights when we all sat at the round maple table to play games. No one else remembers the china closet that covered one dining room wall, or where we put the Christmas tree.  Forgotten is how Uncle Bill would fix the TV when a tube blew. How we did jigsaw puzzles during blizzards and school was cancelled and where the puzzles were kept in the linen closet over the stairs. 

It's not that these memories belong in history books or even in memoirs. We were just a family living on a piece of land that once housed indians. My mother used to find arrowheads when she was a child. As a teenager three of my friends and I thought we should find bones and dug up a mound. We didn't.

All of us live on a planet that has existed for zillion of years and humans have occupied the area for a far shorter time. Each life is a speck. Probably each human thought there time occupying the space was important, and they probably were to others living at the same time.

Being less philosophical about it all, I will always regret that my brother and I didn't have a better relationship. Over the past few years, I did make overtures to which he didn't respond. He could be funny, intelligent (eliminating his attitude toward W) and he was a great cook. I have no idea what he thought of me. 

Regrets are worthless. The past cannot be undone. 

From an indian arrow that has to be from the 1500s to the high tech equipment that exists in the house that replaced our house, we are all specks with little significance in the vast and complex universe. I think of Shakespeare who said, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." 

Still, while I'm here, I want my speck to have value to others as others have value to me if only for a nanosecond in the universe. I don't want any more regrets.

 

Grief and men

 

When women  in my parent's retirement community talked about men and grief, they used to say, "women mourn, men replace." Those who were widows and wanted to remarry, made sure they attended the late wife's funeral and were quick to inundate the new widower with casseroles and baked goodies.

For the women who were happy to be single after years of varying degrees of bad and good marriage, they  might have attended the funeral, but left the baking to those vying for a new missus title referring to the men in question as having "tea on their tie and pee on their fly."

Until I remet my soul mate in my 70th year I didn't think much about either. My opinion on marriage was basically, why bother.

However, I've begun to think more what a good marriage means and what happens when a man loses a much loved wife.

I thought back to my Aunt Maude and Uncle Archer. He epitomized the word fussbudget.  He adored Maudie, making sure she put on a sweater in case she might get cold or dusting off a seat before he let her sit. She died unexpectedly, the night they had returned from a visit to his sister.

His daughter-in-law had no patience with him not wanting him to let him spend as much tie with his wife at the funeral home. The meals she prepared for him were often left untouched. He joined Maudie just a few months later, never adjusting to be without her.

Since then several wives of men who are also friends have died. These are men who are not afraid to express their emotions and their deep, deep grief. One said, she took all that was the best about him with her. Another was described as continuing to breathe but not to live. One obituary described his wife as his best friend making his loss doubly painful.

They were involved in lifetime partnerships going through the ups and downs that life throws out. Late in life they were no longer the handsome and beautiful bride and groom they were on their wedding days. The romance in marriage became something deeper when they saw their spouse throw up, writhe in childbirth, learned they did something incredibly stupid or want something totally different. The emotion becomes something different, deeper, impossible to duplicate leaving emptiness. 

I wish I could help my male friends come out the other side of their pain, but learning to live with the loss so profound, is something each person has to go through on their own.

Very few of us get through life without suffering some loss, some grief. For me, it is a reminder to recognize each golden moment I have with those I like and love.

Leonard D'Orlando 1932-2022

 

Mr. D'Orlando was one of my five favorite teachers from kindergarten through Masters Degree. He taught Senior English at Reading Memorial High School.

We were neither the slum kids of Sydney Poitier's To Sir with Love nor the privileged boys in Dead Poet's Society. We were New England kids raised in the mid 1950s with varying degrees of enough.

Besides being one of my favorite teachers he had a profound effect on my life, his words and lessons wending their way into the next six decades of my life.

He didn't know he was teaching critical thinking. The term would not be used until the next century. But his insistence on us looking deeper into whatever we developed opinions about, stuck. Things could not be just "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." The why not or why only became a part of my mental DNA but went beyond literature into all aspects of my life. It also made me look deeper into detail that carried over to my writing. Thus I notice the flowers blooming in January outside my door, an interesting cloud, the movement of a man running his finger under his shirt collar in a movie or real life.

Reading or watching a movie, play or DVD, I see the character as well as the story. If I reject something, I know why. If I enjoy it, I know why. If I'm neutral I know why.

It was his opinion on the Oxford comma that has gone from his lips to my husband's ears. The squiggly mark or punctuation, a substitute for the word and was never mentioned by name. I would be retired before I gave it a title, but it was there in everything I wrote.

My first two tastes of censorship came from my senior year.

One was in anatomy class where diagrams of the sexual organs were cut from every text. The other was from the authorities denying him the right to teach Othello. Of course many of us were able to obtain copies of the unbutchered texts and we read Othello if not the manuscript, but at least the Cliff Notes.

 

Mr. D'Orlando drove a gold and white Dodge. He acted as chaperone for the after football game dances held at the old high school. He was class advisor for the yearbook where I was a co-editor. Later I realized he probably did it for extra income, but he always acted as if he enjoyed those extra hours as much as we did.

At the time, I was thinking of going into teaching or journalism and when there was a day where each teacher selected one student to teach for a day, he chose me.

Ten years older than we were when ten years was a lifetime, he spoke lovingly of his wife. 

His classes seemed to last a few minutes between the starting and closing bells. They were mostly fun. He even had a couple of the tough football players appreciating poetry without being teased.

When he went on to be Vice Principal then Principal, I felt sorry for all the students that wouldn't have him as a teacher. 

I don't mean to claim that I thought of him every day or every week or even every month, but every day his lessons made a difference in my life. I probably thought of him more in Geneva where there is a big construction company named D'Orlando. When I see the signs, I think of my teacher more than the work going on behind the signs.

I wonder if he or any teacher is aware of the power they have over the future lives of their students. It is a profession, undervalued in today's money hungry world. 

 

Enough is enough

 I'm tired of death.

Earlier this week, my husband told me he saw a neighbor walking her Afghan Hound. Her partner, he said died early this week. It isn't that we are close friends, but we chatted frequently.

Then in an email from a former colleague, he told me his wife died. He and I had shared many a political and literary discussion. The three of us had shared pizzas and fondues. 

Then within a half hour, I saw one of the most influential teachers I had as a senior in high school had died at 89. He was responsible for much of how I think. His repeated saying, there are no shades of black or white, just shades of gray had for decades make me think beyond the original statement. 

As I age, I expect this will happen more and more. I will never like it.

Djokovic

 

 

RHIP, a phrase I learned as an army wife. Rank has its privileges. It was true then and true now as proven by that disgustingly arrogant tennis player who thought he didn't have to follow the safety rules.

If he had a valid allergy to jabs, than he could have said so.

The courts are letting Djokovic to enter the country without a jab. If I were an Australian who had gone through lockdown or lockout I would be furious. Granted Djokovic has extraordinary talent with a ball and racquet but that doesn't give him the right to endanger others. There are photos taken of him unmasked standing next to kids unmasked. This was just a couple of days after he tested positive with the virus.

He has every right not to get the jab, but then he takes the consequences like every other human being. 

OH, wait a minute...he doesn't care about humanity...if he did he would have taken the jab and not endangered others.

Invitation difference

 

Covid has made a difference in invitations from our friends.

 

A British couple, who has asked us for coffee and cake, added, "We've been jabbed three times." They said they could build a fire, but we could either have the windows open or sit in their garden if we worried about the virus. At the moment the Tramantane is blowing making garden sitting much too chilly.

I've been jabbed three times, my husband twice and is waiting for his third jab. It depends on how they feel about him whether the day will come off.

Friends who knock at the door ask if we want them to keep their masks on. Depending on their jab status.

A boy of 18, a kid I kinda watch out for, arrived. "I tested negative yesterday," he said in French then hugged me. 

We had dinner with Swiss and French friends, January 6 as part of the three kings cake celebration. All of us have been jabbed. 

Three years ago, none of this would be a concern. We might be cautious if someone had a cold.

Now when we enter a restaurant, some stores, museums, hospitals, and other public places we hold the code on our phone to a reader. The word comes back quickly we are safe to have on their premises.  

I have no problem with this. I know I am safer. I know I am not endangering others as well.

I only wish everyone had the three jabs.

Binges

I'm not talking about alcohol nor eating binges.

French stations like TF1 and M6 among others often show three episodes of a series back to back. No waiting for the following week to find out what happened. I like that.

Years ago, my housemate and I would binge on different series watching three or four a night, often accompanied by snacks from simple cheese and crackers to more luxurious smoked salmon and foie gras. My husband and I are more apt to indulge in popcorn and ice cream when we settle in to watch one or two episodes, a mini binge.

On Saturdays a French station is currently showing Rizzoli and Iles. I can curl up on the couch and take a trip back to Boston. Even if most of the series wasn't filled in the city, there were enough familiar places it was a trip home, making it a happy binge. The same Boston trip can be done with the Spenser for Hire series. No need to wear masks or get more Covid tests as I would if I visited the city via plane.

When we had/have DVD sets we watch multi-episodes which are even better than French, English, Swiss station, because there are no adverts. 

And as for NETFLIX, we can go through an entire series or until we no longer care what happens to the characters. Sometimes series over write until the plots become unbelievable.

Right now, I'm binging on the TV show Suits. 

At first my husband teased me about it, but now he will sit through some of the episodes.

Part of me during binging isn't just watching. I notice certain things.

• The actor playing the character Louis has the most wonderful facial expressions as well as body movements. I sometimes forget to listen to the words as his face moves.
  
• All the women are tall, a majority more so than the men. They also wear high heels making them taller.
  
• The dresses of the women are nothing I've ever seen in a high power legal office, although I haven't visited many. I just can't imagine that much cleavage. And most of the dresses zip up the back. The characters who wear them live alone. Who zips up those dresses in the morning.
• Recurring characters keep popping as do an ongoing awareness of lines from movies--it's fun.
• The writing is really clever.
  

My goal is to watch all episodes before we move back to Geneva for the winter. That way I won't miss Louis, Harvey, Donna, Gretchen, Jessica. Then I will need to search for a new series and another binge.

Vaccination

 

 

An apology to Jonathan Swift

Swift proposed to solve the food problem. "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."

Now we have a world population problem where soon humans will outstrip the planet's resources. We are also in the middle of a Covid pandemic where as of today there have been some 5.4 million deaths. Many of them were elderly, and will not change reproduction rates since they are long beyond child-bearing capacity, but those of child-bearing age have also succumbed.

At the same time of nations are pushing vaccinations and this has reduced those dying from the virus.

Vaccinations over the centuries have stopped many diseases that were automatic killers.

If we stopped all vaccinations, than deaths would once again go up.

 Smallpox which first appeared in the 1500s was eradicated once there were vaccinations. John Adams, 2nd U.S. president was one of the first to see the value of a smallpox vaccine.  Outbreaks are now rare but during its heyday half a million deaths were the norm. Those that lived were scarred. Thus by re-introducing the virus and not having any vaccinations, we would be able to reduce the population by a billion people every two years.

Before Salk's polio vaccine, epidemics were common. Depending on the year from the early 1900s to the development of the vaccine in the 1950s annual deaths were anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000. Granted smallpox was a better way to keep population under control, but often victims were young which meant the chances of reproduction were reduced.

There is a monetary advantage to increasing polio cases. Many people who didn't die could no longer breathe on their own. Iron lungs will be needed to help the patients breathe the rest of their life would provide entrepreneurial opportunities.

Of course, there are childhood diseases that used to provide fatal such as measles, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever ... Although many children lived, those that didn't would never add to the population, another control. 

Some 59,000 people die each year world wide from Tetanus also known as lockjaw for its muscle spasms. When people have a bad wound it is almost automatic they will get a tetanus vax booster. If we stopped giving those vaccinations that would help reduce the population too. 

Every little bit counts.

So maybe we should give in to the anti-vaxers and stop giving any vaccinations. Let nature take its course.

 

Strange

 

We were riding back from Blagnac Airport in Toulouse after watching my daughter go through security, a bit of my heart heading back to Boston. We had left Argelès a little after 3:00 to make sure she could make her plane at 9 a.m. After two years a covid-enforce separation, the three weeks had been my best Christmas gift.

It had been a magical holiday combined with moments of great sadness over my mother-in-law's death and worry about my brother-want-to-be. He'd been in a horrendous car accident. He will be in rehab for the next 8-9 months. Worry is combined with relief he's alive.

We've driven the autoroute between the two places often. In fact, at one point I'd lived in a suburb of Toulouse. As always I made it point to check out Carcassonne, a place often visited as we drove by.

Suddenly, I remembered some 40 years before I'd been on a plane going back to Boston from my father's funeral with my best friend Susan.

He had died a day after his 69th birthday and the day he had played his best round of golf. I was in the library when my Uncle Pat called. "Are you sitting down?" he asked. I said I was, although I wasn't but when he told me, I sank to the floor.

Before I could truly comprehend the news my other housemate Bill had airline tickets and a rental car arranged for me and Susan.

Because it was Christmas the funeral had to be postponed. Aunts, uncles, cousins arrived in droves. Neighbors acted as a catering service. It would have been a fantastic party except for the reason.

Strange! It seemed as if it were not decades before but now, a wave of sadness at his loss almost drowned me. It was if I had lost him just a few days before. As adults we had a great relationship. I'm sorry he never knew about the books I've had published. I'm sorry he can't play golf with my husband, whom he would have loved if he had been in my life while my dad was still alive. 

I'm grateful I don't have to tell him I left the U.S. and that I gave up my nationality. I know he would have supported me but with lots of head shakes. He would try and understand why I became Swiss and just plain confused why I also took Canadian nationality. He had been born in Nova Scotia making me eligible but had migrated to the U.S. and become American at 12. I doubt if he would have felt the same pride now as he did then.

My daughter once told me that missing him was a tribute. 

One of the hard parts of aging is losing people we love and those we like, of meals that can on longer be shared, of conversations no longer held. The tsunami of loss I felt was a reminder to treasure every moment of those who are still here.

Christmas Aftermath

 

It's over.

My daughter is with her stepfather getting q-tips jabbed up her nose to prove she can enter Germany and Boston and resume her life there.

The fairy lights that have created magical awnings all over our little French village are being taken down. The chalets in the Christmas marché are being dismantled and the rabbits and donkeys have been returned to their farms. 

Our tree decorations painted over 50 years and combined with those collected as gifts or purchases in between then and now are packed into their plastic bag, even the eyeless moose ornament bought at Jardinland in early December. They await another year.

There were meals cooked at home and those eaten in restaurants, a luxury denied during the worse of the Covid. 

There was the three of us sitting on the couch, four if you include the dog, watching streaming of the Revels. This annual Christmas show was enjoyed when she and I lived in Boston and was joined by my relatively new husband the Christmas we spent together with her in 2019. We had walked through snow-covered Harvard Yard or Hahvahd Yahd to Sanders Theater. I was so excited for my husband to see what I had talked about, to participate in Lord of the Dance ritual. Now in 2021, even without the audience some 3000 miles away from Cambridge,  we could watch the mummers, hear their bells, watch their handkerchiefs wave and pretend.

Like all Christmases there are memories of every Christmas past spent together, spent apart but always with the people we love in our hearts many of whom are no longer with us in life.

The three weeks of my daughter popping in during the day will end tomorrow when we drive her to Toulouse for her flight. She has stayed in my Nest, the studio I bought for my retirement.

The Nest didn't work out like I planned for me but now makes a wonderful guest bedroom two doors down. When my husband reappeared in my life, the Nest was too small and we have made our home in Switzerland, visiting another flat in France often.

We will go to Switzerland for the winter in a couple of weeks. We have things to do there, some practical, like taxes and bills, some fun like taking Sherlock to play in the snow in the Jura and maybe Alps. I will never understand how a dog who avoids water like some horrible fate can think snow is better than biscuits and bones. And unless stopped by Covid, there's a Garou concert, friends to see, walks to take through the fields and city.

Having my adult child in hugging distance after two-long years of being separated by Covid restrictions was a great gift. I like my daughter. People sometimes do a double-take when I say that, but like is different from love. Yesterday it was so strong as we drank coffee and tea in one of the sidewalk cafés and just talked and talked and tal...

Of course, we will go back to the many computer messagings during the week, sometimes with visuals, sometimes not. 

Life will return to our normal within the virus-defined limits in Switzerland, France and Boston. The veil of sadness will blow away because the life we have is about as close to perfection as it is possible to have. Still, the memory of a kid-hug if not in my body is pressed into my heart and soul along with the fairy lights. 

I am so grateful.