Gifts

It has been a remarkable week, starting with the arrival of Krissy's friend, Parker, last Saturday, this delightful person. (Please take a look at A Glorious Sunday blog post because Parker is such a gem and I just can't give enough sense of that here.)

When my daughter was brought to me in the hospital, a tiny baby, her eyes were open and I had every sense that she was looking around, saying to herself, 'Okay, I'm ready. Let's get going.' As a child, I swore that she'd talk to a doorknob if no one was around to listen. She was alive, alive, alive, running, dancing, chattering, making up stories and languages. And she still talks, a lot, but not as much as Parker who is just chock full of stories, one after another and plans.

On Wednesday morning, Krissy and I went through my jewelry and found earrings that looked like Parker that Krissy put into little cloth bags, tiny boxes and then into a basket. After that K. and I took my first walk, as in truly first walk after I'd made the decision to try a few blocks toward the Chelsea City Cafe. To my surprise and relief, I made it to a bagel and ice water. 

When I got back, Parker and I sat on the back porch, and she opened her hand-me-down presents (quite nice, often silver with amethyst, or tiny jade leaves, all lovely gifts from I don't remember where), each pair reminded her of a story, often about someone in the ashram she visits every few years to continue her studies with her swami. (Twenty-two hours, not counting layovers and the taxi ride to the tiny village, yes, I would like to see India, but no, I won't ever, just tell me more stories about the two Nomads who came into the ashram, their muscular arms showing through the wraps, bracelets covering their arms so that they displayed their level of wealth and jingled when they strode out, having decided not to wait until swami appeared, tinkling bells and smiling -- these most fully-possessed-of-themselves, beautiful pair of women she'd ever seen, she couldn't stop starring. How could a pair of earrings remind her of them as we sat on my rickety steps overlooking the straggling back yard with a few daffodils starting to fade.)

Today, Parker's last day in Boston where she has been to Memorial Drive, Harvard Square, Marblehead (see Sunday blog), Salem,The Elisabeth Stewart Gardener Museum and on the Freedom Trail, she wanted to have tea at the Chelsea Cafe, the three of us, before we went to Revere Beach to walk the dogs. (So I could photograph Krissy and Parker, both with Cherokee cheekbones. Can you tell?)

THAT'S RIGHT. WALK THE DOGS. ME. ON THE BEACH. WALKING. It was quite amazing to be there, cool ("Is it always this cold? I'm freezing," Parker says. "This is nice," I say. She shivers. The dogs run ahead, around, Bogie rolls continually on his back, managing to unhook his leash and lose it for a while.)

The walking started last night after I got an e-mail from a friend of Elsa Dorfman's who has been advising me. Her latest hint is to keep up strength training. And my response ten minutes later was to decide that I could draggle around after Krissy when she walked the dogs. And to decide that I will walk twice a day, brute force if necessary. But it wasn't. I could actually do it. Followed by lying down, but who cares. I'd walked, slowly, for an hour.





Otherwise, I would be lying here reading Suetonius, something I never imagined I'd ever get around to.

I was touched to find a very old issue of Caterpillar 3/4, cost $2.50, with Atagawa's note to Masao Kume, dated 12 June, 1927, saying

 "Whether or not this manuscript ought to be published, and of course, when it should be published or where, I leave to you.

    You know most of the people who appear in it. But if you have it published, I'd rather it didn't have an index.

    I exist now in a most unhappy happiness. But strangely, without remorse. Only that I feel very sorry for those who had me as a husband, father, son.   Goodbye. In the manuscript, consciously (underlined) at least, there is no attempt to justify myself.

   Last, I leave this manuscript to you feeling that you knew me better than anyone else.   (The skin of this cosmopolitan me stripped away)  At the fool in this manuscript, go ahead and laugh."

Akutagawa (1892 - 1927): popular genius of his time.  Voracious reader, immersed in Chinese classics, Japanese history, Western literature. Author of "Rashomon" (1915), basis for the famed film..."

A Glorious Sunday

Krissy's friend, Parker, is visiting for a few days. What a gift. To me. She flew into Boston on Saturday, then C. took her for a long walk on Memorial Drive, and to Harvard and the Square, all of which was fascinating since she loves history and finds it remarkable to be here, where it's embodied almost everywhere.

When she got back later that evening, she came up, sat on the bed and talked to me for a couple of hours. Heaven. Many stories about the remarkable people she's read about -- like the woman who had been a laundress for all of her life, washing and ironing clothes, tithing, saving a third of her very small salary, centering her life about the family and her love of Jesus. After she had, little-by-little, saved more than a million dollars, she wanted to do something significant with it (but wasn't interested in recognition) and decided to endow a scholarship at the University of Mississippi (I think.) The whoever she spoke with couldn't imagine that a woman with no public stature, who had earned so little all of her life, had done this and naturally made a big fuss which lead to this humble woman giving public lectures on living modestly and doing something significant with savings.

A consummate extrovert, part Cherokee and from Tennessee, Parker's recovered (put behind her) a childhood that makes most, including mine, look like a walk in the park, and is consumed by a quick intelligence combined a remarkable openness to different experiences, an inner sense of joy, hope and enthusiasm. She's learned to forgive and exudes curiosity and, dare I say it, love. She has a lean face, high cheek bones, large eyes and an expressive mouth. Watching her face move is a past time in itself, as is following her breathless conversation. Heaven.

The first photo shows her beginning her demonstration of how a sari is 16 yards of cloth, folded into a gorgeous garment, so practical and comfortable. When she's at the ashram in India, she wears both western clothes and saris. At home and at work, she wears saris and western clothes, choosing to integrate both worlds that she lives in, instead of keeping them separate. The guru, with whom she has studied for many years,  discourages everyone from engagement with 'him,' as the focal point and she's thoroughly integrated this lesson. She has made part of her living doing complex astrological charts for well over twenty years as well as art modeling which is where she met Krissy some years ago.

The game plan for Sunday had been for C. to drive us up the coast (Krissy was working in New York) to Marblehead. I thought I was good for three hours, maybe, but at the last minute volunteered to stay home because I'm more than a drag, and because Parker really would have liked to stop in Salem, but fortunately, for me, they wouldn't let me. 

C. says that I'm like a wind-up doll. Get me going, shoved into the car, and I stay upright for a certain amount of time before the batteries run down and I have to eat. By the time we'd reached the restaurant I had in mind, seated ourselves at the counter overlooking the bay, I had disappeared. At least until the food arrived. I couldn't even listen to Parker and C. talk about whether there really was a white cross in back of the light house way across the water. The waitress didn't know, but by then C. and Parker had fabricated a story about all the fishermen lost at sea and this memorial. (Which later turned out to be something entirely different.

My aim had been to eat and then walk to Fort Sewall (1742, an earthworks fort) where I've been any number of times. I couldn't imagine walking further than the first bench (about 100 miles), but ended up making my way all around it and looking into the gated windows of the minute kitchen, guard and storage rooms. That's where Parker told us about the Sari.

While C. was driving around Marblehead earlier, I spotted a boat storage area and asked him to stop (he'd already stopped many times so Parker could photograph forsythia, lobster pots, a wooden swing in the middle of an island of daffodils. Later they would climb up into the cemetery and find gravestones so old that the writing has disappeared.) so that Parker could photograph the wrapped boats. And I found myself, for the first time, VOLUNTARILY getting out of the car and going to take pictures myself.

For several years I'd compulsively photographed (with film, black and white) any wrapped items, buildings under construction in winter, plastic wrapped boats, etc., with the intention of making a mock-Christo (sp?) piece. (His/his wife's work has so penetrated my references.) I never did, but here I was, VOLUNTARILY walking somewhere that was a mere luxury (instead of toward Ping and the Sushi bar...). Or toward my classroom, where I will go today.

That was quite a surprise. A fabulous day. Six hours outside. And Parker will be here until Thursday!