Winter Time

I am in winter. Actually i am in Iceland where it is cold and wet. Tonight I went out to dinner and put on just about every item of clothing I brought with me. And I should have put on the one thing--a fleece vest--I didn't wear. Fortunately the food was fabulous and worth the walk through the pouring, freezing rain from our hotel.

This morning immediately after we arrived, Jane and I went to the Blue Lagoon spa where we "relaxed" in a flotation tank for an hour, a procedure that is supposed to make up for all the sleep we lost on the flight over from the states. The only thing missing from this experience was nice big spliff to share. After the float, I had a fabulous massage. For this I flew five and a half hours to a rocky island in the North Atlantic where the natives speak a totally incomprehensible language that sounds nothing like any other language I ever heard.

Tomorrow we head out to the country to hike and see incredible natural wonders. I plan on wearing everthing i have in my suitcase including that fleece vest. Wish me luck.

L'Shana Tova

I suddenly realized that Rosh Hashonah starts Wednesday evening. I only know this because there are New Year’s greetings in my mailbox. My ignorance of the holiday’s imminent arrival has me thinking: Is it possible to have a spiritual life, Jewish or otherwise, and not believe in God?

I used to say I was agnostic, kind of hedging my bets. But that’s dishonest. I really don’t believe in a divine being of any sort. Or at least such a belief doesn’t factor into my daily life. It certainly hasn’t provided any solace this past year. What has gotten be through?—faith in myself, friends, family, the mere fact that I am alive and still capable of happiness and engagement with the world. Does that qualify as spirituality?

We live in a sick society

The idea that even a shred of doubt exists about whether Davis committed the 1989 crime of which he was convicted—shooting to death an off-duty policeman in Savannah, Ga.—should make a society either grind to a halt or erupt. Davis’s conviction has a thick cloud of doubt hanging over it. But as the executioners in Georgia waited for the Supreme Court’s decision about whether to proceed, you felt the public conversation impatiently drumming its fingers. In the end, the court declined to block the execution, and Davis was killed at 11:08 p.m. Now the question of America’s sick passion for capital punishment will slide away like a baseball score.

Read the whole article here.

Murder Inc. aka the United States of America

Is there anything more important than trying to stop the execution--no, murder--of Troy Davis. How can we profess to live in a civilized country where this can happen. The sense of powerlessness in the face of such injustice, such cruelty and inhumanity is enraging, frustrating and overwhelming to me. Where is the outcry? What can do do?

Puppy Love

Who would have thought I would turn into a dog person. But here I am all googoo eyed and mushy over Wilbur, the cutest puppy ever. I willingly clean up his shit, laugh when he pisses all over my house and insist on cuddling with him for six hours in the car on the way home from New Hampshire.

This is definitely a new experience for me. I never had a dog as a kid. My parents never allowed it and I don’t remember ever really wanting one. Steve, of course, was terrified of all dogs so having a dog was never an option when we were together. The closest we came to having pets was living next door to the dogs in Maine and those dogs were not at all adorable.

Wilbur is off the charts when it comes to adorable.

Home with Wilbur

My husband thought he would live forever. So did I. So it was a big surprise to both of us when he died. It’s been over a year now and I’m busy living my life without him. It’s hard work but I’m managing. But, he, how is he doing up there, down there, wherever he is, without all of us around him. Is he lonely too? Does he miss the laughter, all the good times.

I like to imagine him sitting quietly up on the hill overlooking the lake. He’s dressed in a saffron colored robe and wears his favorite hat. Does he wonder when it will be time to get up, rejoin the party, make noise again. Or is he content to watch it all go by.

I’m having all these thoughts because I am in Maine again just for a day and a half on the way to a wedding in New Hampshire. I am here with Liz and Giuliano and Wilbur, the most adorable of puppies, and being with all of them makes a huge difference in my mood and my outlook. The house doesn’t seem haunted now. I can see a future here and it’s a happy one.

Gazpacho

This has been a strange summer for lots of reasons, the most obvious one, of course, that it was my first full summer in Maine without Steve. Actually, it turned out not be a full summer in Maine. Spending two and a half uninterrupted months at the house on Pleasant Lake proved too difficult this year so I boldly broke with tradition and interspersed my summer in Maine with excursions: a rafting trip in Montana, a week in Cartagena with Liz and her girlfriends, visits to LA and Jamaica and then a trip to Scandinavia at the end of the summer. It was a good strategy although now that I look back it feels like I probably spent more time in airports and airplanes then anywhere else this summer.

When I was in Maine, I mostly had a good time. I got back on the tennis court, discovered paddle boarding on the lake, sat on the deck with a glass of wine to watch the sunset--all the usual things. But now that the summer is nearing its official end, I have one major regret: I never made gazpacho. A pitcher of that fabulously chunky liquid salad spiced as I like it with smoky Spanish pimento was never to be seen in my refrigerator this year. A staple of lunchtime, a healthy pre-dinner or late afternoon snack, perhaps the best reason ever to purchase a food processor, gazpacho has not appeared on the menu at my house in Maine or my apartment in Philadelphia. Its time has passed. . .at least for this year. Maybe next summer I'll be ready for gazpacho again.