Early Enough?

Early Enough?

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Am I early enough? That’s the question I ask myself now. How early must I rise to walk and beat the heat?

When the low is 80 and the humidity is high, the truest answer is no answer. But the question remains. Yesterday I started before 6. Today a quarter past 7. Monday I was far too late, almost 9.

I tell myself it’s just summer heat. We’ve had it before and will have it again. I try to forget the heat warnings, to pace myself, drink water and stay inside during the heat of the day. I’ve done all of the this, but it’s not enough.

I need to rise even earlier, to take a siesta, to make the day conform to the weather, rather than the other way around. Either that, or I can wait for the heat to break. It will … eventually.

(A rice paddy in Bangladesh, a country that knows how to handle heat.)

First Movement

First Movement

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Last week, unable to stop listening to Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, I took the next logical step. I found the music online and am now trying to learn this amazing piece.

As typical in an endeavor of this sort, I come up against my impatient personality and some basic questions: How many mistakes can I tolerate? How correct must I be? I have no teacher to suggest fingerings and dynamics. I’ll rely on YouTube and my own rusty technique.

The music has been in my head since the concert in Providence. Now I must get it into my fingers. I’m starting small, a page or two at a time. If I can even semi-master the first movement up to the repeat by the end of the summer, I’ll declare victory.

After the Pool

After the Pool

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The windows were down and my hair was flying. I had punched some buttons on the car radio and found the jazz station, which was playing a blues tune. The Beach Boys would have been better, but blues worked too.

This wasn’t just any drive; it was heading home from the pool, the quintessential summer excursion. Swim suit cool on the skin, air blowing through the car, wet towels on the back seat. The sun so warm on my bare left arm that I slathered it with sunscreen as I sat at a light.

What is it about driving home after the pool that seems the very soul of summer? Is it the weariness in the muscles? The trace of chlorine on the skin? Or is it knowing that you’ve imbibed the season in all its glory?

Powerless

Powerless

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No matter how often it happens, I never learn. Even though the radio has gone silent and the house is dark, I flick the switch, expecting light. No air-conditioning, of course, but I’ll use a fan. Nope! Fans need electricity, too.

It lasted only six hours, but it was the third power outage here since February. Once again, it reminds me how thin is the layer of civilization, how quickly it all comes tumbling down.

I’ll admit I’ve been spoiled living in this land of buried power lines. It has lulled me into a false sense of security. Maybe the neighbors are right. They bought a generator years ago, and its whir rubs salt in the wound. But it would take many more outages to justify the expense. Better to do without, to learn (and relearn) the lesson, to be reminded of how powerless we really are.

(Though our trees were spared, wind gusts at Dulles reached 66 mph and some homes were without power 24 hours later.)

Pouring

Pouring

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Our rain saga continued yesterday with morning mist, intermittent showers, and, in late afternoon, sheets of rain that just begged to be photographed.

As I’ve mentioned before, though, rain is tricky to capture, at least with a phone camera. Or with any camera not wielded by an expert.

I did the best I could, and the sun helped, shining crazily through the drops. It was that kind of day.

A Nursery

A Nursery

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The fence that was built to keep out the deer apparently provided a safe delivery spot for one doe. Yesterday, this little guy appeared in our garden. We knew enough to leave him alone; his mother would be back for him soon. She must have come for him after dark because there was no sign of him in the morning.

It’s been a strange year for the garden, producing more animals (fawns, cardinals, ants) than flowers. I’m writing it off to lack of deer-proofing and unseasonably damp weather.

What it reminds me of, though, is that nothing is promised to us. April showers don’t always bring May flowers. It’s something we know, but tend to forget — until life provides the proof. Now the garden is a nursery … in more ways than one.

A Visual Feast

A Visual Feast

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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.

Heading Home

Heading Home

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We head home today, down the northeast corridor on an Amtrak train. This after travel in a van, taxi, hired car, rental car, commuter train and subway.

The transportation has been as varied as the trip itself, which has featured a wedding, hikes through farms and conservation lands, and lots of visiting. We’ve seen sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews and cousins, wonderful friends and adorable doggies.

It’s the kind of travel I’m seeking now, which is not just about rekindling adventures … but renewing relationships.

Moment Musicaux

Moment Musicaux

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The composer Franz Schubert wrote his Moments Musicaux between 1823 and 1827. These short pieces are some of the composer’s most popular. He wrote them to give his public what they wanted, a chance to play music at home. He gave them much more; he gave them a masterpiece.

Yesterday, I heard pianist Jonathan Biss play Schubert’s three last sonatas. He performed them flawlessly, viscerally, emotionally. The last piece on the program was the Sonata in B-flat Major, Opus 960, which begins so melodically, with such depth and richness, that another world seemed to open with those notes and harmonic shifts.

We sat around the piano, about 200 of us, and at intermission the piano was flipped so that those who saw Biss’s hands in the first half of the program saw his face in the second half. I’m not sure which was more moving. Biss’s hands never stopped, even in “rest,” but his face was transporting.

I was lucky to watch it during the final piece, the Opus 960 Sonata. Biss then became a conduit for Schubert, lying on his deathbed, sending his last notes to the world. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so moved by hearing a piece of live music. It was my “moment musicaux.”

Old House

Old House

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It was home for almost two years, and I loved it for the light that poured in the windows and the hill across the street. We were lingering at the bottom of the steep driveway when its owner drove up.

“Sorry we’re standing here, but we used to live in your house,” I said.

“You lived here?” he asked, amazed. When we said yes, he invited us inside to look around.

For the next 20 minutes we chatted with the current occupant of our long-ago home. We walked inside and up the stairs, saw the new patio and the old fireplace. He asked us questions: was there a wall here? a door there?

I couldn’t stop thinking of the young couple who rented the house, the baby born to them there (now a young mother herself) and all the wonderful people who lived nearby. So often I imagine the rooms and contours of our old house. To see the real thing was a strange and wondrous experience.