Picture-Postcard Views

Picture-Postcard Views

Comments 0 Comment

I took dozens of picture-postcard photos yesterday. The sun was finally shining and we were back in a place I loved so long ago. There are hiking trails now and we could walk the whole day, leaving the car parked for 24 blissful hours.

We found the Nashua River Rail Trail and made our way north then south. It felt good to stretch the legs and move through space. Next, we hiked to Barcroft Castle on Gibbet Hill, which burned in 1932, leaving only the pebble-stone walls.

I was looking for the backdrop of the scene in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” where Laurie and Jo break up, which was filmed a mile from my old house. I think I found it, looking west from the castle across the Nashoba Valley toward the mountains of New Hampshire. I share it with you at the top of this post — and just for good measure — below, too.

Return to Groton

Return to Groton

Comments 0 Comment

We arrived during rush hour, as a steady stream of cars headed north on Route 119. Time for only a quick walk before dinner. There’s a pizza place across the street. Could it be the same one we patronized years ago? We didn’t enter to find out.

Up the hill from the inn is the First Parish Church, scene of our friend Kip’s funeral. Standing room only for that kind and friendly soul. I miss him still.

We searched for the post office, and found it … now an antiques shop. But the large white houses remain, and Hollis Street still angles off to the east.

It seems like a lifetime since we lived here. And in so many ways it has been.

Place Shaping

Place Shaping

Comments 0 Comment

When I lived in Massachusetts years ago I thought I’d fallen into a fairytale. Here were small villages with big white houses on a hill. Here were narrow lanes and old barns. New England wasn’t like anywhere else I’d ever lived.

When we moved from Massachusetts to Virginia, we tried to replicate that experience, searching for a house in a small town outside Washington, D.C. It didn’t really exist. Virginia wasn’t settled by small farmers and tradespeople. It was carved into large plantations, and when those went away the settlement patterns were newer and more individualistic.

It’s fun to think about how people and history shape the places we visit. I’m doing it now, at least in an informal way, marveling at the twisting roads we took last night driving from New Hampshire back to Haverhill. And I’ll continue doing it today as we drive to Groton.

(A detail from Haverhill. Bird bath on a boulder.)

Free and Public

Free and Public

Comments 0 Comment

It was a rainy Saturday in Boston, perfect for inside activities. So we visited the library — not just any library but the Boston Public Library, the first free municipal public library in the country. We walked up the marble stairway, past the lions and into the reading room.

Here were scholars at work, green-shaded lamps and a vaulted ceiling. Here was a temple of knowledge. The library holds 23 million items, I learn from its website, including Mozart’s scores, Shakespeare’s first edition folios and John Adams’s personal library.

The Boston Public Library serves 4 million people a year and millions more online (one of them me). It was the first public library to lend books and the first to offer a children’s room and a branch library.

I took only this one photo of the reading room, intruding any further would have been a desecration.

Boston Bound

Boston Bound

Comments 0 Comment

We’re off today for Boston, Massachusetts, where my niece will be married on Saturday. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in New England, though we lived there for two years. I’m readying myself for the distinctive difference of that part of the country.

When we first moved north I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t realize how unique each village would be, how some (Groton, where we lived) were market-type towns and others, like Lowell, were mill towns. After some lonesome weeks early on, I found a newcomer’s club and began to make friends. Our oldest daughter was born there, further endearing the place to me.

By the time we left I was hooked on the vibrant autumns, the apple orchards — and most of all the people. I miss them still.

(Boston’s Copley Square, courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Scintillating Shade

Scintillating Shade

Comments 0 Comment

The rains have stopped, which means not only a return of sun but also of shade. I saw some spectacular specimens on yesterday’s long walk on the Reston trails. In fact, some of the patterns made me stop in my tracks, pull out my phone and snap a shot.

What contrast, what texture! It reminded me of the shade during the eclipse, the tiny crescent-moon shapes into which it was carved.

No eclipse yesterday, of course, so the textures all came from leaf wag and leaf meal, from earth and pavement, from the filter and the canvas.

Stony Man

Stony Man

Comments 0 Comment

The views went on forever. The Blue Ridge that appears first as a smudge on the horizon driving west from D.C. became a green and glorious reality late Monday during a brief trip to Sperryville and environs.

The hike to the Stony Man viewpoint was uphill enough to get our hearts pumping but not so rigorous that we couldn’t talk along the way. We passed some through-hikers, serious folks with heavy packs. But we were there for the visiting and the views.

I often find myself in the park around this time of year, mountain laurel season. And there was some of that on Monday, too. But what will remain with me is sitting on warm rocks with friends, catching up, looking west and south: the light green of trees with leaves newer than those at sea level mixing with darker firs and pines. Beyond the trees the hills rose ever bluer and more distant, less distinct, until it was impossible to know whether I was looking at earth or sky.

Mall Alone

Mall Alone

Comments 0 Comment

Granted, I was there on an odd Thursday afternoon, but at first I was optimistic. There was a crowd outside the Cheesecake Factory, a post-graduation celebration from the looks of it. Maybe the mall would be bustling, as it used to be.

But once inside, my spirits sagged. It was the usual sparse crowd: a few mall walkers, some mothers and children, people marching determinedly from one store to the other, completing their errands with dispatch (one of them me).

So many mall memories: taking the girls there to buy summer play clothes, First Communion dresses, prom gowns. To have their ears pierced or celebrate with lunch on the last day of school.

I miss the girls’ young selves more at the mall than most places, which is strange because we often had battles there. I didn’t buy them skanky shorts and tops at Limited Too. I humiliated them when I asked the clerk at Abercrombie and Fitch to turn down the music. The mall was one of those places where we interacted with the world — and the world seemed to be winning.

Now the children are grown and the mall is empty. I know that these two states are linked mostly in my own mind, one truth personal, the other sociological. But it’s hard not to see a connection.

Party Animals

Party Animals

Comments 0 Comment

We have to keep a close eye on our parakeets. Any excuse for a party. This weekend there were two birthdays, so they went to town.

They can’t eat cake, and though they are extremely musical, have not yet managed to warble “Happy Birthday to you!”

But boy can they fly around, pull toys apart, and make a mess. It’s tempting to put them in time out … but they already live in a cage, so what to do?

Just realize that birds will be birds, crank up “Celebration” … and let the good times roll!

(The parakeet’s cage after a night of hard partying.)

A Scaffolding

A Scaffolding

Comments 0 Comment

I came of age in an era when writers produced words not platforms. Which is not to say I haven’t promoted myself through the years. When my book, Parents Who Think Too Much, was published, I quickly learned that if it was up to me to bring it to the world’s attention. I devoted several months to the task, but after that I reverted to type, toiling away in obscurity.

I kind of like obscurity. You can let your hair down there, can be yourself. It’s easy to freeze when people are paying attention. One of the reasons I started this blog 15 years ago was to write more freely and for myself, not for whichever publisher or establishment was paying me at the time.

But now, with the monkey of full-time employment off my back, most of what I write is for myself. It makes sense to meld the “professional” me with the “blogging” me. I’ve added a new page to the site with links to some of my published works. I’m hoping to add another page or two before I’m done, for other works and projects. It’s not quite a platform, not yet, but it is, perhaps, a scaffolding.

(Nature’s scaffolding in miniature, shot August 28, 2021, outside Lexington, Kentucky.)