Summer Season

Traffic has become a steady stream. Enough locals are in that stream to maintain the local kindness of stopping for pedestrians who want to cross the street. This is just the beginning, when the weather is really warm traffic will crawl. Suddenly the many outdoor tables of the Main Street restaurants are busy instead of being forlornly empty as they were a few days ago.

Walking Molly on the beach late Friday afternoon the air was sweatshirt cool and the wind came in inexhaustible gust so strong grains of sand struck bare body parts like tiny bullets. Molly's thick coat protected her, she loped down the sand with all her doggy enthusiasm for being off leash. The shell tree stood festooned as usual but winter's gales had covered the ground at its foot with shards of broken shells. The wiccans or elves or local ecology worshipers had replaced the broken ones. This tree is always numinous to come upon -- here in buttoned up preppy-dom it speaks to something shaggier and freer in the spirit of the place. Some white beach roses are blooming. They have red and pink cousins all along the dunes but only the white were out so far as we saw. They had that heartily delicate [a true oxymoron] scent. When I decided to photograph them, having just passed the shell tree and its magical aura, I said to the gusty wind -- not commandingly or even with any intent -- "stop. Be still. Stop a minute." And it did. Rachel was impressed.

Hereafter permit stickers will be needed for the parking lots and, except very, very early in the morning, Molly will have to be on leash. Gradually the water will get warmer and locals -- except for those under 16 -- will cede the beaches to the summer people from midmorning to evening. Sunrise is usually too early but 7:00 or 7:30 isn't, and sunset is a wonderful time. These are good times for my tiny patio too so I welcome the season and don't worry too much about trusting my life to strangers in murderous vehicles when I cross the street.

Vintage Reading

Memoirs of a Mountaineer, Helvellyn to Himalaya, by F. Spenser Chapman was discovered at a used book section of a thrift store for a couple of dollars. In fact, the named book is the shorter of two books it contained, the second, Lhasa: The Holy City, I read some time ago. Because I enjoyed Chapman's very simple and rather naive style I bought this book and am now rereading [which I very rarely do] the Lhasa part.


The book itself is a bit beat up, I think probably from age and neglect for only the cover is worn, the interior is pristine, with wonderful pictures like the ones seen above. The distinguished mustashed man is the 13th Dalai Lama. I can say like an old curmudgeon "They don't write books like this nowadays." It's true. Mountain climbing is a totally different undertaking these days. Chapman was first to climb Chumolari, a magnificent mountain on the Sikkim/Tibet border, 23,000 plus -- using no oxygen, wearing multiple layers of wool socks and sweaters, long before Gore-tex existed. He had no "expedition" really just one sherpa companion [not so different from Hillary on Everest twenty years later].

Best of all is Chapman, the writer. An orphan raised by pastors and apparently with enough money to go to private [what they call public] school and then to Cambridge where he learned roof climbing. A bit of a loner, like so many English writers of the past he wandered fields and England's small mountains and learned names of flowers and birds -- which no modern day writer seems able to throw into observations with the casual assurance of many former British writers -- we've lost touch with the natural world except those writers who take an ecological stance.

Chapman is proud of his mountain climbing but never brags or shows off, gives the local men their due -- in words, although they were paid very badly. He observes both the mountains and then life in Lhasa with a fresh and largely unprejudiced eye, though always taking British superiority for granted. He has not done a lot of research to make himself an expert, rather he simply relates what he did and saw and what happened around him. There is no gee-whiz, and no ponderousness. In short this is a very refreshing read. He had an ease with language and unpretentiousness that is a joy to read. I have no idea what kind of career or life he had after these Himalayan adventures in the mid-1930s. I sincerely hope it was a good life. He was a very likable individual.

Unique Place to Life

Many things about this little arm of land sticking out into the Atlantic like an arm reaching up toward Boston are unique. Right now I'm looking at a feature I've found unique -- the light in the sky in the late afternoon; it has a watery softness.

But that's chocolate in the photo. There's chocolate most places and this may be cornucopia shaped with various chocolate goodies spilling out but even that is not very remarkable. No, what's remarkable is that people like my daughter who has no political involvements and no "social" standing in what is probably the old establishment of the town of Hyannis, can carry to her grandson's graduation luncheon a chocolate centerpiece courtesy of "the Senator". Well, sort of. She did enjoy saying that and in a way it's true. A friend of hers works at the Kennedy compound and occasionally, after various social events, has to dispose of overages such as too many chocolate cornucopias. So, in this case the friend asked Rachel if she could find a use for it. We indulged in the only okay chocolate [standards get higher in such circumstances] and muttered "Our tax dollars at work." Which may not have been fair, it may have been paid for out of Kennedy deep pockets.

When I walked to the post office yesterday morning, this still being pre-vacation time, the only place in the center of town that showed a bustle of people and activity was the small museum to JFK. Ourside is a nice bronze statue that is a bit smaller than life size. I don't understand why it wasn't made life size. It wouldn't have required much more bronze. Certainly he was a bit taller than approximately five foot. tall.]

Brandeis Graduation

For a variety of reasons I've never been to a college graduation ceremony until today when I went with my daughter and her husband to see their son, Joel, graduate from Brandeis. I expected familial pride and a lot of sitting listening to boring reading of names and honors. That was part of it but also fascinating people watching -- it was a BIG event in a big gym. Happily, a wonderfully varied and lengthy musical background accompanied marching in and settling down before the event -- everything from Handel to ethnic to rock, arranged both tastefully and amusingly.

It's a given that the speaker will say the equivalent of seize the day and take a responsible role in the world and that this will be forgotten along with all else except maybe who the speaker was if prominent enough a personage. In this case the speaker was Newark, New Jersey's relatively young mayor, Cory Booker. He was a wonderful speaker, he told personal stories that will not soon be forgotten, he recited an entire Langston Hughes poem apparently from memory -- he seemed to not be using notes at all. It was, in fact, a beautifully crafted and delivered speech. I was afraid early on he was going to lift the Obama "Hope" slogan and batter it to death but he did not -- one mention and he moved on to responsibility and, indeed, the seize the day theme, and ended with love -- of self and others. I totally enjoyed it.

Grandson, Joel, seemed very mature and confident -- he leaves for Washington tomorrow to take up a government job -- and to at least minimally furnish an apartment from Ikea and with kitchen and bathroom necessities we took with us for him. On the few occasions we've had a chance to talk in the last couple of years he's clearly got an education in world events, Arabic, Middle Eastern studies, philosophy, history his majors and minors. He's won many honors as a debater which has given him a self-confident air that is mature. I've always been attracted to smart, articulate people, so he makes me very happy and proud.

Nature Girl -- moi

Poet Mary Oliver, whose work I enjoy very, very much, wrote in her poem "Summer Day", "I don't know exactly what praying is/ but I know how to pay attention". I have not had a great deal of opportunity to pay attention to wild life in the last good many years. But I discovered something today about the Canadian goose that could well be my alarm clock because it seems to arrive on the lawn outside my window about 5:00 in the morning, honking loudly as he lands. I thought a bit about where he spends the night and decided it must be on one of the nearby ponds. Being on or very near water is probably a goose's best defense against predators such as dogs or foxes. I doubt there are any foxes around. And all the dogs seem to be owned and usually leashed, although I suppose any passable size community may have some strays. Be that as it may, the goose's instinct probably tells it to spend a night afloat or close enough to escape if need be -- and of course he can fly.

I'm becoming fond of Sir Goose, who had two companions later in the day. But the fact I noticed to my surprise as I was watching him while I was at my sewing table, is that when he is standing in the grass and for whatever goosey reason decides to honk for a while, every time he honks, his tail wags up and down. It really does, I watched quite a while. Later when he took off into the air, honking -- for he seems not to take off or land without honking -- so far as I could tell in what was then the early evening mist or fog that dropped like a veil from the low sky, his tail did not wag as he soared noisily upward. Those are my avian notes for the day.

No, I don't plan to become a birder. However I was gratified that Harriet at Overseas Adventure Travels had solicited notes from travelers for her newsletter and published the letter I wrote her. I said, in summary, that my African adventures was greatly enhanced by having a roommate who was a birder and who became excited about seeing several kinds of storks, as just one example of the many birds she introduced me to because of her love for all the winged creatures of central Africa. One of my favorites was the Egyptian goose, of which there were many. As I think I've written I felt a particular thrill that they looked exactly like the ones on a papyrus copy of a tomb painting from nearly four millennia ago. Let's hear a happy hurrah for the good old goose.

I wake up to the honking of a goose -- the one who considers the lawn outside my apartment his personal deli where he can find tasty bugs for breakfast and snacks any time during the day. Sometimes He allows a pal -- or a girl friend [all geese seem to be unisex although I know that's not true] -- to join him for a half hour of grazing over the grass. A cardinal came to case the joint the other day. I've been watching for the chipmunk but haven't seen him for a couple of days.

The sky here often has a water-y grayness, like murky water, all one color, as it is now, neither blue nor gray with late afternoon sun on the facades across the street. A tree directly in my line of vision has a perfect arch of it's top, architectural as if it were a cut out model to become part of some architect's project design. We accept such regularity in a drawing but in reality it is surprising. I know few humans who seem such perfect specimens. How nice to know that such calm spring days are the prelude to truly warm and wonderful summer days. Oh, certainly, some not so nice wet and darkk gray days are ahead yet in May; but that's fine. They'll water my geraniums and the many plantings all over the area. Being in touch with weather in the way I am now is a very nice change for me. I'm enjoying it.

The "Girls"

There are funny throw-backs in families. My mother had a special passion for photos of generations of the family. Rachel seems to have some of the same sensibility. She suggestd this three-generation mother's day photo. It's my photographic debut exhibiting the disastrous hair cut that resulted from stopping in a cheap-o Super-Cuts one day when I had been working hard packing and was very tired. I closed my eyes a few minutes while having my hair "trimmed" -- I don't think I feel asleep but I was spaced out -- and when I opened my eyes, I had been scalped. I had the haircut of a little boy. "You said short," said the hair dresser. But I was only talking about the part at the back of my neck. Well -- it can't be glued back on but it will grow. I think it does make me look a bit distinctive. But it doesn't feel like "me" whatever, whoever "me" may be. It's growing -- a little. By summer's end I should be more normal.

Cori, my granddaughter, has a very good photographer's eye and imagination. I've seen several pictures she's taken of simple things we all see, but she sees them freshly and photographs them. She also has a fun imagination for photos she's in. The one above cracks me up every time I see it. Cori and her mother were at an orchard and pumpkin patch farm last fall. They climbed on this tractor and had Jason, Cori's husband, take a picture of them looking like heroines of the Russian Revolution. You've seen the posters, here's the 2008 version.