Stepping out of the Frame

Farewell, fab-bo life in Somerville. Hello, life somewhere else!

www.roadmuse.com

Blossoms and Shadows and Trees (oh my!)

A Watercolor Skyline

A view of Boston from the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Apparently, back in the day, you could see ships in the harbor from this vantage point.

BTW, these are not actually watercolors, they're photos, but they sure do feel like watercolor. There must be at least 12 shades of gray in there.

Springtime Perambulations in New England

A sunny afternoon at Sheepfold Meadow. A drizzly morning at the Mount Auburn Cemetery. These were some of our first springtime rambles after winter seemed to finally thaw. How wonderful to enjoy New England again without the bitter cold standing in our way!

May Flowers

Some of the many flowers and blossoms that burst on the scene starting in late April and early May. It is now late June and we are still in springtime mode, with more rain than is really necessary (though of course if I were a flower, I might disagree with that pronouncement).

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Blog Night

How do you know when a blog is finished? How do you know when to throw in the proverbial towel? (or in this case, URL)? I guess you could ask yourself the same question for every endeavor in life, from a job to a relationship, though blogs seem particularly hard to let go of, since they occur virtually and out of real time, and thus could, with minor tweaking (and access to passwords), actually continue after the blogger's demise (uh, don't get any ideas...)

For me it is a matter of inspiration, or, to put it metaphorically, whether there is water in the well, or coming through the faucet. This particular blog spigot feels tapped out, for no particular reason except that it does. Oh, there are dribs and drabs, but nothing requiring a bucket to fill, no danger of a floody mess.

So what's next? Perhaps - if we can keep beating this poor metaphor to death - I will use my water divining rod to find the next source of inspiration (though I feel I already know what it is, to be revealed soon!). And maybe it's just a matter of moving the spigot over a few feet, or twisting some pipes back in place (ok, enough of the metaphor, I'm not a licensed plumber for cryin' out loud!)

Meanwhile, I have a whole heap o' photos to post before I quit, a photographic last hurrah if you will. Thanks for reading and I promise I'll leave a forwarding address!

Springtime on Spring Hill

Um, er, hello....long time no blog...missed ya...

I haven't blogged in so long I don't remember how!

Anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is that winter is over, spring is in the air, and the colors are bringing life back to the landscape, and to my winter-addled brain! And I wonder: Is this how New Englanders became so taciturn - by losing the habit of speech during long winters when they were snowed in?

I don't know. All I know is that I can leave the house without swaddling myself in 20 pounds of clothing, and I can walk without feeling like I'm a ship being blown about at sea. Birds are singing, people are smiling, delicious plans are being made for summer -- oh sweet summer! But be careful what you wish for - the temperature has already climbed to 93 and it's only April (that was the day we decided to paint the front porch; Mensa candidates 'r' us!).

(By the way, is it just me, or do those tulips look a little David Lynch-ish?)

In Like a Lion

After a couple of weeks of thawing temps, it snowed again yesterday, the first day of March. In fact, it's snowing right now. It snowed all night, and well into the morning. I had trouble opening the front door; there was, like, almost a foot of snow!

I can't say I'm displeased. The last few weeks have been exceptionally dull, a sort of neither/nor blankness that makes it hard to imagine anything else. I'd forgotten about this sort of "fifth season" that happens in New England: a time when any lingering holiday spirit or winter magic is really and truly gone, and the need for spring, for warmth and flowers, becomes so intense that you would almost sell your soul to have it (hence the sudden desire to move to a soulless place like Los - no, I won't mention any names).

So the snow is a nice distraction. I still feel excited about looking outside and seeing the world covered in white. And there are some fringe benefits. A healthy 45 minutes of shoveling, and - hurrah - I don't have to go to the gym. In fact, there is really no need to go anywhere right now. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

February Thaw

Some pics of last weekend - the beginning of the first thaw. Water has been busy doing its thing, turning from snow to ice to water again. Do humans go through a freezing and a thawing time as well? I have noticed more smiles lately, and more people saying Hello than in the last couple of months. But maybe it's because we are no longer dressed as abominable snowmen, thus more recognizable as fellow humans.

Winter Whites and Blues

It's official. Winter has set in with a vengeance. Life has slowed down here almost to a crawl. The phone has stopped ringing and I'm considering cutting off service. Who needs friends anyway? I've got a subscription to Netflix!

Oh well. Spring will come (at least that's what everyone tells me, in the rare moments of human contact that I do have).

Meanwhile, there are things to notice. A hawk. Ice on a branch. Blue sky exploding behind a tree.

Updike

I was just scanning the BBC headlines and I saw that writer John Updike has died. I don't know why, but the news shocked me. He is one of those figures who seems to have been around forever - solid and immortal, like a building.

I haven't read any of his books in ages, but I remember reading him in high school and envying his way with words. Not to mention the, uh, juicy bits.

Here's a quote from a section in the obits called "Updike in his own words," about what sets a writer apart:

"There's a kind of confessional impulse that not every literate, intelligent person has. A crazy belief that you have some exciting news about being alive, and I guess that more than talent is what separates those who do it from those who think they'd like to do it. That your witness to the universe can't be duplicated, that only you can provide it, and that it's worth providing."
Boston Globe, 1990

A Few Words About the Crowds

As I mentioned in an earlier post, many people felt compelled to warn me about "the crowds" before we went to the inauguration last week. While my response was perhaps a bit flippant at the time ("I've lived in the densest capital city in Western Europe; I can handle Obama crowds"), it really is something which has been on my mind, as a subtext to this entire event. And so I ask myself now: What about the crowds? How were they? What was it like to be in a place where MILLIONS of people congregated, in the US of A?

Well, first of all, I can't speak for what the crowds on the Mall were like, because we never got on there. No tickets, no luck. But I can say that I was surrounded by hundreds and possibly thousands of people at several points throughout the day (a little like Paris during the sales). We found ourselves in enormously long lines to buy Metro tickets, to get into the gates to see the parade, and then to go home from Union Station. At all these points the possibility for stress and conflict was high - and I can easily imagine other situations where fights might have broken out (I'm thinking mainly about sporting events). Yet the mood was calm. People were patient. There was a sense of, "We've waited 400 years for this to happen, we can wait another hour or two!" I talked to one woman who had been waiting to get onto the Mall since 5 in the morning and never got on - yet she was not bitter, or complaining. She was just happy to be part of the history in the making, part of the event.

If only every crowd could be like the ones we experienced, I think people who normally hate crowds (like me, often) would change their thinking about them. Honestly, everyone around us was so polite, kind, so - how can I put it? - downright NICE, I felt my latent misanthropy slowly melt away (and in truth, I think everyone was too cold to start a fuss!). No one pushed, no one shoved - a woman shared her Tic-Tacs with me - it really felt like everyone was on their best behavior. At one point outside the parade gates, a few people who were complaining and pushing got seriously chastised by the people around them. Peer pressure in the name of civility! I love it. Which speaks volumes about Obama, and the kind of energy he puts out and creates. Contrast that with the testosterone-fueled energy of sporting events - what a difference. Maybe so many Americans hate crowds because crowds here so often lean towards violence (or that's the perception)? Because our collective unconscious remembers things like Kent State, or race riots, and the fact of police shooting at citizens? Or because we are just by nature wary of the power of mass protest?

Perhaps part of the Obama legacy will be a raised level of civic awareness, so that Americans can learn how to be in crowds peacefully, and joyfully, without the usual fear or distrust in the equation. I would hope this could be created without the need for so many security forces - that we could learn to trust eachother, and ourselves, without someone in uniform scaring us all into submission. Well, that's another dream for another day. For now, I'm just happy that things were as surprisingly pleasant as they were. Another bonus point to add to the evergrowing Obama pile!

Showing Up for History

We're back from our trip and I am still dazed by the experience. Were we really there? I look at the photos and can't believe we were. It has already become a blur of driving, looking at maps, standing in the cold, and having dozens of small conversations with strangers who didn't feel like strangers, in a country that felt like home for the first time in a very long time.

I think that is what will stay with me the most - the people I met and who I stood next to: all so different but all connected by the same desire for change. All there in one place, on one day, for one person, in the form of Obama -- but also for a shared set of ideals that is much larger than one man. Yes, I felt that. A dream of society which I carried with me once, long ago, a dream my mother gave me (as Obama's mother gave him), and some teachers and leaders tried to help me remember, but which lost force over the years, as I gave in to the easier path of cynicism and apathy.

There have been plenty enough superlatives going around the internet in the last few days, and plenty enough written about the event, so I'll just say one more thing: I'm glad we were there.

As Alessandra Stanley writes in the NYT:

"Television celebrated a new president making history, but the screen also belonged to those millions in Washington who made history just by showing up."

I hope that in future times of darkness and cynicism (which are bound to occur), people will look back and remember this event as evidence that, with the right kind of leadership and inspiration, Americans can come together peacefully, truly as one people, one nation. (And what more proof do we need than to know that in a crowd of maybe over 2 million, there was not a single arrest or violent event?)

(You can see a little video we made of our trip on www.roadmuse.com)

Showing Up for History, Part 2 (images)