OK, two years later I’m back in
Rockport, and this time my son, who’s done his google-work, comes up with a
half-day excursion to a place called Halibut Point, which has nothing to do
with the fish and everything to do with the words ‘haul about’ in your boat,
warning of what you’d better do fast to get around the ‘point’.
The park was gorgeous and flooded
with songbirds, and we came to an old New England granite mine which was
abandoned in 1929, and has since become a natural lake. The veins of granite
are visibly layered. There’s a
resident cormorant with other bird buddies and the most perfect serenity –
inspiring both of us to meditate then and there, on birds, bushes and granite. Animal,
vegetable, mineral.
Beauty, nature, love, the full
monty.
And of course the only non-rainy
moment for several days.
The park had the requisite
crumbling trees and rampant vegetation as well as the myriad birds, who seemed to be the very soul of the place.
Down by the point were long,
narrow slabs of granite, immortalized by Emerson*
"'Tis a noble, friendly power and seems to me 'Why so slow and late come to me? Am I not here always thy proper summer home? Is not thy voice my needful music, my breath thy healthful climate in the heats; my touch thy cure?...........Lie down on my warm ledges, and learn that a very little hut is all you need. I have made thy architecture superfluous and it is paltry beside mine. Here are twenty Romes and Ninevehs and Karnacs in ruins together, obelisk and pyramid and giant's causeway---here they are all prostrate or half piled.'"
All this, Bearskin Neck, Emerson
Inn, lunching with dear ones and the Jupiter Quartet playing at sundown in
the Shalin Liu Performance Center --- le paradis, quoi.
see also one of my early blogs http://lexieintrator.blogspot.fr/2011/08/blogport-little-piece-of-heaven_11.html
So I wondered: am I too old to do
studs? I mean the metal kind.
Needed some shoes to walk me
around London and not look like a LOLIT (Little Old Lady In Tennis Shoes). The
original LOL phrase dates from the early mesozoic era and meant ‘frumpy and
without style’ before sneakers became a definitive fashion statement.
Found a perfect pair, and wow
were they comfortable! And sort of chic.
I began
to notice that London was full of studs, both human and vestimentary. Studs are
in, sprinkled on shirts, dresses, wallets, bags and epaulettes and flaunt it: I am urban, shiny and tough and I don’t
take (sh)it from nobody.
Well of course my new shoes ended
up taking (sh)it, and it’s not an urban legend. But they also took me up and down
Southbank, through museums and London markets and off to the countryside.
Walkin’ tall in my studs.
She was 96 and tiny and wise
and beautiful and the undisputed (but not self-appointed) matriarch of the
Indian community in Geneva.
Her parents had her married by
age 13. She bore three sons. She visited Geneva with her husband in 1949, and in 1956 they moved to Geneva for good when her husband was recruited by the ILO. Not end of story.
Her middle son died in his
twenties in a tragic car accident, her eldest son died in the US at age 47 leaving a
wife and two young daughters. Patti outlived her husband by decades. She lived
with her youngest son and daughter-in-law, who died in her fifties of cancer;
her youngest son (my good friend) went totally blind. Patti was there for her
family and there for friends. The household was warm and open to friends from all over.
Patti loved to dance. And to
teach. She taught dance, she taught a bit of Tamil. Patti loved to read, all kinds of books
and the international press. Patti loved the Indian soaps. Patti loved to cook, her vegetarian cuisine was legendary. Patti loved to knit and did so any time
her hands weren’t busy working at something else. Patti loved to hang out with
people, and listened with interest and compassion and responded with frankness
and intelligence. Her grandchildren adored her. Her great-grandchildren adored
her. We all did.
She was one cool lady.
Don't be shy if you need dictionary.com. I had to look it up a few years ago.
Ekphrasis is Greek, and is the
(usually verbal) praise of a work of art (usually visual), often in poetry (my definition).
See also http://lexieintrator.blogspot.fr/2012/07/daphne-transformed-poem.html
Went with my sister-in-law and
niece to the Courtauld Gallery on the final day of Becoming Picasso. And as we drifted toward the Impressionists, appreciated the grand lines and proportions of Somerset house, the
present home of the collection. A sumptuous building, Victorian and neoclassical.
Works by Cézanne hang in
a fancy room at the old/new/old home of the Courtauld Gallery. And there is
a disconnect. Inappropriate and distracting, this beautiful, ornate room makes
this Cezanne look a country cousin attending a posh tea in old trousers.
To place him here disrespects Cézanne. I suppose curators wish to give
him a prominent spot, so they chose this room. But why? Why here?
Cézanne’s simple portrait of a
man in a hat hangs way above a fancy mantelpiece, well above anyone’s eye-line:
painterly, eloquent, plain-spoken and out of place.
But then there is another painting
hanging closer to the window, and my eyes focus in on the lake with a castle, perhaps
the Château de Chillon?
Turns out it's the Lac
d’Annecy, but no matter.
It is the Léman of my mind. Cold weather blue on blue with
blue, the kind of blue that moves through thick waves, deep and understated.
The kind of blue you feel
watching an ancient glacier lake feeling the unexpected roil and flow of your
life. The water holds me as it moved on
the oil canvas, carrying whole epochs in its liquid mass.
Didn’t matter where the painting
was, I was elsewhere.
