A Walker in the Suburbs

Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Renoir. The eyes rest where they will. And though they will marvel at the fabric arts, the silver and the ancient Buddhas, they will linger longest on the Impressionists.

The day before yesterday we wandered through the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum. If Saturday’s concert was a treat for the ears — and it was, with haunting melodies and an obsessive need to listen to them again — then Sunday’s expedition was an equally delightful feast for the eyes.

It reminds me that one need not travel far to truly travel, an observation that others before me have shared. “I have traveled widely in Concord,” said Henry David Thoreau. I was only a few minutes away from Concord last week, and now am only an hour away from the National Gallery, with its Picassos, Rembrandts and Van Goghs.

Travel, true travel, never ceases.

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.

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.)

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)

Already St. Patty’s Day. The grass is greening, but barely. The corned beef I usually start early in the day has yet to be purchased. And there is certainly no green beer in the house.

I’ll celebrate, then, by looking through photos of the Emerald Isle, searching for the greenest grass, the softest air. Not that you can tell the air is soft by looking at a photograph, but if I recall it was warm enough to remove a layer when I snapped this shot in Connemara National Park.

We were in Galway, the ancestral home of the Concannons, my mother’s people. It’s a beautiful, rocky place, more lovely to visit than to live in, I’m afraid. Then again, I’ve never lived there. Today, I’ll be dreaming that I’m back.

A few days ago the world celebrated International Woman’s Day. This holiday was once on my radar, since I had to write and post articles to celebrate it. But it wasn’t on my radar this year until the guide on our rainy walk mentioned it, partly in jest.

I was reminded again when handed a flower on my way into breakfast at the hotel, and again when our walking group stumbled upon a Dia Das Mulheres brunch at the hotel cooking school where we sampled from a delicious buffet, all you could eat for 20 euros.

But most of all I was reminded when I stumbled upon this board in downtown Funchal, which invited comments from any woman who passed by. Some of the remarks are in English, others in Portuguese, but I think you’ll get the general idea.

Modern air travel may be grueling and crazy-making, but consider this: I woke up yesterday on an island 300 miles off the coast of Africa and today I surfed to consciousness in my own bed.

Jet lag was no match for sheer exhaustion, so I slept through the night and am writing again from my morning spot, a view not of Funchal harbor but of our own backyard. I see no profusion of bougainvillea or jacaranda. Instead, just the earliest blush of spring: daffodils budding and weeds coming to life.

But my mind is still in Madeira, with its dramatic scenery, its bluffs and beauty. As I plunge back into normal routines, I’ll try to hang onto that top-of-the-mountain feeling travel can give.

The lights of Funchal glitter across the distance. They are the last sights I see before I close the curtains for the night. They are coming on now, across the river and the valley, turning a view that is red tile and greenery into a sea of pinpoint light.

Our flight leaves in the wee hours, so I’m writing a few hours ahead, at a time when I might be going out to dinner.

Leaving is never easy, but it’s part of the process. To travel again someday requires leaving here tomorrow. And so, we leave.

(A few lights linger in a Madeira dawn)

It thunders through Funchal, swirls through levadas and gurgles in mountain streams. To be in Madeira is to be within earshot of flowing water.

The island is built on water, within water. Of course, it’s an island. But I’m not just talking about the surf that pounds the shore. I’m talking about fresh water, and the system of irrigation canals known as levadas. The careful husbanding of water has made Madeira into a garden paradise, which hikers know from the profusion of flowers and trees they see along the trails.

But they know it also from the sound of water flowing. It is water with a presence, with a heart. It is water so clear that to look into it is to see absence itself. It is water tumbling from a cliffside or springing from a crevice in the rock. The sound of flowing water is the soundtrack of Madeira.

I will miss many things about Madeira when we leave tomorrow, but one of the things I’ll miss most is the sound of flowing water.

I’m a map lover, someone who can settle down with a town plan and busy myself for an hour or more studying streets and intersections. I’ve certainly done that with the map of Madeira. But there’s one very significant detail I’ve only begun to visualize correctly on this trip.

I stay on the south side of the island, in the town of Funchal, but for our entire stay last year, I kept thinking I was facing north. No map study would convince me otherwise. Nor would noting how the sun rose on my left as I looked out at the ocean.

It makes me think about how bungled one can become when one’s original assumption is way off the mark, how every decision after that is flawed by association.

But this year I’ve mastered the basics. When I want to look toward home, I look to the right. I look west.

(Heading west on the boardwalk.)