Welcome to Philly, Cuz

I now have a roommate for the first time since college over 40 years ago.  (A husband, which I had for 41 years, does not qualify as a roommate.  Living with a spouse is way different from living with a roommate.) My new roommate is my 25 year old nephew, Jonathan, who is starting graduate school at Penn this summer.  He moved in on Thursday and immediately experienced Philadelphia at its best--the Night Market down on Washington Avenue.

 This is going to be fun. 

Dateline: Heaven

I'm in Maine, a refugee from the heat in the city.  It's hot here, too, but there's a lake to cool off in and a breeze coming off the lake that makes the deck the perfect place to sit and read. . .or watch the dogs.  Because, dear reader,  I live in dog world now with Wilbur, the wonder dog, and his brother Ackee who do nothing but run around and play all day inside and out.  Wilbur sleeps like a prince in a huge crate in the living room, his toys litter the floor.  He even lounges on the sofa like it a king on his throne.  How things have changed in Heaven.

Some things never change like the consistent variability of Maine weather.  We've had the full repetoire of weather today--blazing sun and clear blue skies in the morning and early afternoon followed by an epic thunderstorm with roaring winds and lots of lightning after lunch.  Now it's sunny again, the lake is flat and the light is glistening gold and green in the trees.  I can't see a rainbow but I can hear the very distant rumble of thunder as the storm rolls away. 

Personal Space

I am heading up to Maine tomorrow, the beginning of my annual warm weather pilgrimage to Heaven.  Only this year, it will be different.  I know that I will not be spending the whole summer in Maine.  I tried that last year and it didn't work.  It's too hard, too lonely to be in the house all by myself.  I keep waiting for Steve, a towel wrapped around his big belly,  to walk up the steps from the lake and plop down on his favorite seat on the deck. 

I'll have Giuliano and Wilbur, the wonder dog, with me this time and over the Fourth the house will be filled with people.  Right now, it's company I need when I am in Maine.  Empty rooms make me sad.   I certainly don't feel that way in Philly.  I relish my privacy there, rarely feel lost in my apartment despite its size.  Maybe it's because I never felt Maine was truly my space.  It was always a shared space, even a public space.  Who knows. . .just know I am going with the flow this summer.

My Jamaica

This is what I do in Jamaica.  This is why I love being in Jamaica.

I help out in the garden. I have the blisters to prove it.

I take in the beauty of the sunset.

I play with the dogs--all three of them!  This is Rocco who LOVES me.

I snuggle up with a good book in Liz's comfy bed.  Giul, the ideal son-in-law, sleeps up in the loft when I visit.

Down with the Plutocracy

I've been staying away from national politics, refusing to get involved or give money.  But this brief but powerful essay by Gary Wills, "Why 2012 Matters,"  makes a strong case for reconsidering reconsidering that position.   Not the money part, though.  I still can't see my way to participating in that heinous and corrupt system even it's a donation to the "good guy."

 "This election year gives Republicans one of their last chances—perhaps the very last one—to put the seal on their plutocracy. They are in a race against time. A Democratic wave is rising fast, to wash away the plutocracy before it sets its features in concrete, with future help from the full (not just frequent) cooperation of the Supreme Court." 

Read the whole essay here.

Mango Season at Yellow Plum Farm

It's mango season in Jamaica.  The mango trees at Yellow Plum are laden with beautiful, juicy fruit.  The air is pungent with the sweet smell of mangoes in the trees, on the ground, on the road, everywhere.  I did my part to celebrate the season eating at least two a day, the juice dribbling down my mouth, my hands, my arms.  A delicious mess.

Book Report

I have spent the last two weeks carefully and slowly re-reading "The Ambassadors" by Henry James.  Audaciously, I made the case to select this book as the next assignment for the Occasional Reading Group of which I am a founding member.  (We call it the ORG because we don't meet regularly but the real reason, I think, is that we snobbishly didn't want to think of ourselves as just another women's book group.  I think, unfortunately, that I forced it down their throats and there was REBELLION.)

I became a devotee of Henry James my senior year at Brandeis when I took a one on one seminar with Philip Rahv, the one time famous editor of the one time famous Partisan Review. (Does anyone in college today remember who he was or the magazine he edited?  And does anyone still read Henry James?)  I'd sit in his cramped office watching him smoke and eat a corned beef special at the same time, smoke and Russian dressing coming out of his mouth while he talked to me.  Mostly I remember his telling me not to bother with graduate school because all I was going to do was get married as soon as I graduated.  And one year later he was right.

I still have my original copy of "The Ambassadors," the margins scribbled with mostly illegible notes, whole passages underlined.  This time through I've underlined even more.  I read it really slowly, letting the words unfold--and there are so many of them!  It took patience and persistence, qualities that most contemporary novels don't call for.  The story or the plot is a really simple one but told with such intensity and discrimination, nuance upon nuance. And, of course, it takes place exclusively in Paris, that most magical of cities. 

The whole experience was exhausting in the process but exhilarating by the end.  Maybe this should be the summer of Henry James.

On the Table

Massage usually makes me happy but massage music always makes me sad.  All those cellos bowing away, all those tunes in a minor key, or worse yet,  the sounds of the ocean.  Instead of soothing they just make me sad.  I'd rather silence.  Now I know why Steve always had one of the Kings--Freddy, Albert or B.B.--blasting at full volume when he was on the table.