Waiting for Tony

Vladimir: “We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment.”

Almost five years after his death, my daughter and I made the pilgrimage to place her father’s ashes in his family crypt in Brooklyn. Tony, like so many men before him, had been an indifferent father. Though not as ‘important’ as his own father, Tony had been far too important to be concerned with the childhood of his children. While ‘distant’ as a father, it must be added that he was a pretty awful husband. With such a dark--but not especially unusual for its time--family history, it is essential that I go on to address Tony’s Redemption. His redemption, like a rich and nourishing meal clumsily served at The Last Stop Café. Tony spent his final years making amends, stretching his elderly limbs over the chasm of his past as father and husband.

Some of the story

Tony & I had our first date on December 9, 1965. We were married four months later.

The following spring, Tony and most of his colleagues resigned in protest after the administration at Tulane University refused to commit to building a theatre for their internationally-known theatre department. Tony’s colleagues went on to head theatre departments at such places as NYU, Illinois State, and Temple University. Tony came to Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State Institute to establish a theatre department, a unique opportunity to begin at the beginning. Our first born, Paul, was seven months, and I was twenty one years old when we moved to Blacksburg—then, a town of 7,000. Our daughter, Gretchen, was born the year Tony directed Measure For Measure and our youngest son, Tod, the year of A Funny Thing Happened on The Way To The Forum.

Tony worked days and nights and weekends, expanding the department, promoting the arts at a former military and agricultural college; back then, a most fallow field for the arts, a Quixotical task if ever there was one. He helped form the Virginia Theatre Association, became President of the American Theatre Association and Dean of The College of Fellows of the American Theatre. He put the young Theatre Arts department into a national spotlight. Tony turned down a deanship at Penn state and formed the Marching Virginians at what, by then, was beginning to be called “Virginia Tech.” Tony led and chaired the growth of a department of music. The combined departments merged to form the School of The Arts, with Tony as director. In those intense, hardworking, tireless years completely devoted to the university and his profession, our household went on without him. Tony worked harder. He envisioned a future where, one day, there might actually be a formidable performing arts center on campus, his lance pointed at windmills. In those intense, hardworking, tireless years completely devoted to Virginia Tech and his profession, he missed birthdays, family dinners, ballgames, plays, and teacher conferences. His young family slipped away. In November of 1978 the children and I left the drafty 200 year old house on Shadow Lake Road for a tiny house in downtown Blacksburg.

“Discipline is the essential ingredient of art,” Tony told his students. He worked ever harder, spreading the word of the power of art to transform.

His work drive took his family and his drinking kept Tony from the life he deserved. His youngest brother died in 1981, his oldest brother in 1990. He was alone in that 12 room house on Shadow Lake Rd for almost 40 years. It was probably not until after he left the University and navigated the waters of institutional amnesia that he realized what he had given up, what he had missed: the first steps, the birthdays, the bedtimes, the bad dreams and funny dreams, the first loves and last school days of his beautiful three children; the buzzing, growing, stretching of the community his family had created. Tony woke up to the missed years and his missed chances.

He paced the waiting room while his first grandchild was being born and became a wildly devoted grandfather to her and to the ensuing other four grandchildren. Tony gave his time and money; sleepless nights of worry, and summer seaside afternoons of delight to his family—the three children who had been there all along and the five, precious, unique, off springs of the three.

While he was parsimonious with himself—Tony’s lunches were baloney sandwiches, he drank generic vodka and bought all of his clothes at Penny’s--his generosity to his children and grandchildren was boundless, as was his philanthropy to the schools he attended and to The Lyric Theatre, The Warm Hearth Foundation, and Planned Parenthood.

It is true that Tony did not have the personal life we would have wanted for him; but he appreciated the life he had. He gave almost everyone the benefit of the doubt. And he always, always loved to milk a joke. He died, surrounded by his loving family, in that big old house on Shadow Lake Road. A lifelong member of Actor’s Equity, he was a consummate show man who continued to look forward to each new season. Tony Distler reluctantly left the stage just as the curtain was closing on 2016. Art and Redemption were the show of his life.

My sons--for different reasons, but reasons all their own—chose not to join Gretchen and me in taking their father to be interred with his own father, mother, and siblings. So, it was just the two of us catching the train from Roanoke to Penn Station on an early morning in June. It had been planned that we would meet Tony’s sister-in-law and her oldest daughter in New York, but they were forced to cancel two days earlier. Gretchen and I would be the only mourners at the cemetery in Brooklyn. We carried Tony’s ashes in a beautiful urn, bundled in bubble wrap, tucked into Gretchen’s suitcase, and stored in the overhead rack. Slipping our masks on and off, we nibbled on snacks, drank wine, and read during the 8 hour train ride. A lovely easy day, summer scenery passing by.

New York had only just ‘opened’ from its Covid shut down the week before. The night we arrived in Manhattan, we dined in our hotel’s spectacular restaurant and it was crowded with beautiful people wearing clothes we’d only seen in glossy fashion magazines. The Beekman hotel was lovely and secluded; walking distance from the Brooklyn Bridge, and crazy expensive.

We spent the next morning meandering the High Line and browsing through the Whitney, where—because of Covid restrictions--we were part of a sparse and socially distanced group. It was a privilege. We had an early afternoon reservation for the opening of the Distler Family crypt. So, we caught an Uber from SoHo to pick Tony up at the Beekman and take him to Brooklyn where his parents and siblings were waiting.

We settled into the back seat of the car; Gretchen cradling the urn of ashes in her lap; me with a small cooler in mine as we rode over the Brooklyn Bridge into clusters of leafy neighborhoods and past a scattering of sun blasted shopping centers. My daughter and I were quiet during the long drive, each of us drifting in very different memories of her father. As he aged, and she matured, Gretchen tended to Tony more and more. In mid-autumn of 2016, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died three days after Christmas. Gretchen took a leave from teaching to look after him as he was dying. She kept company with her father in the house where she had lived for the first nine years of her life. Almost five years after his death she was still deeply mourning Tony. He had been my husband for slightly over twelve years. Those twelve years had long been put to rest, and I know I was thinking only of the redeemed Tony, and, among those thoughts, a particular memory:

The scenery began gradually to change until we were driving through neighborhoods of abandoned buildings, trash-laden streets; store fronts and open car windows blaring dueling music over the scream of sirens. It seemed the further we were from Manhattan, the more desperate and rundown our surroundings. Gretchen and I found ourselves dreading our destination, fearing for where the end of Tony’s road might be. Then. . . and then, the driver turned off a noisy, crowded intersection and drove through high stone gates into a lush green place of gardens and ancient trees. ‘An oasis Grows In Brooklyn.’ It was as though a door had subtly closed behind our Uber. We were enclosed in a place of enchantment. The car left everything urban behind and we were now gliding into a silent and shimmery June; a forest opening filled with lovely marble cottages, family crypts. Tony’s last stop was in the Evergreens Cemetery, a unique place founded in 1849 as the first secular cemetery in New York. The marble crypts bore writings in Hebrew and Arabic, French and German; some of the crypts were like small palaces, others were humble stone huts.

We had hosted a full weekend memorial in Virginia the May after Tony died—all of his family present, and his most beloved former students, eating, drinking, telling stories—lots of laughter. But this June day, in the shadow of the Distler crypt, was elegantly personal.

We stood in the cool darkness and read the names of family we had known and family who were only legend. We toasted Tony with the small bottle of champagne I managed to keep fairly chilled.

Gretchen had expected to weep and instead found herself laughing at the stories of the 4 brothers from Queens who had opened the crypt for us, respectively left, and then returned to seal Tony into his rightful place. They were like the comic relief in Hamlet. Those good men were enamored with Gretchen and vied for her attention, trying to top one another in Tales From The Crypts: ‘the biggest crypt,’ ‘the most haunted,’ ‘most eccentric’. All of which made the end of Tony’s journey much less grave. He would have loved it.

PAUL ANTONIE DISTLER

Born May 5, 1937; died December 28, 2016

Father of Paul Conrad, Gretchen Elizabeth & Theodore Eliot

“Good night, sweet prince, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Reading in the Time of Covid

While I know I don’t read nearly as much as I did when my powers of retention were stronger, when—as a single mother of 3, working full time, writing pre-dawn, rehearsing children’s plays in the evenings—I probably read at least a book a week, I was surprised to see that I’ve read over 60 books in the last two years. Oh, right ! The quarantine. So, I should have read a lot more. Anyway, below is a list of my top recommendations:

BORN A CRIME - Trevor Noah - Great ‘voice’ (because we know the voice?) and very, very interesting about growing up in South. Africa, both during Apartheid and the period thereafter. An incredible homage to a unique mother and a good, not very long read. 4.3 out of 5 “stars”.

THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS - Chris Bohjallian - Gretchen doesn’t know this interesting novel set in Tuscany during the Nazi occupation—though, of course, the Italians were allied with Nazis. The moral compromises of the time. Much about art theft and such. I enjoyed the author’s SKELETONS AT THE FEAST (though I’d forgotten about it.) This was kind of a murder mystery too—not my cup of tea usually. Very interesting. 4.5.

WHERE’D YOU GO BERNADETTE - Maria Semple - I never intended to read this novel, but stranded in airport I bought it and loved it. So funny, such interesting characters, a clever & witty satire of Microsoft culture, private schools, Seattle—fascinating facts about Antarctica. I just loved it. 4.5.

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE - Elizabeth Strout - This novel of loosely connected stories, (like OLIVE KITTERIDGE) made me want to go back re-read MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON, since all of the characters were connected to her, however removed. Strout cuts directly to the gut in subtle way, while ‘memory’ serves as the central narrator. Really good read, set in the miserable mid-west. 4.5.

THE IMMORALISTS - Chloe Benjamin - An enticing story which begins with 4 young Jewish siblings going to a ‘fortune teller’ in late 1960’s in NYC. She tells each (separately) the date of his/her death. We follow three of the four siblings to that date. The AIDS epidemic, magic, medicine, San Francisco—then & now—all make up this interesting novel. 4.

THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK - Imogen Hermes Gowar- Not being a historian, I can’t swear that this is an excellent rendering of a village on the outskirts of London in 1785—but the novel was rich with period details and fairly unpredictable characters. There are 2 mermaids, the later one quite mystical. I was engrossed in this story of whores, mistresses, ship builders and middle class merchants. And loved the ‘mermaid.’ Good read, with the ending, perhaps too rushed. A brilliant revelation of the State of Women in those times (in fact, in most times). 4.

IMPROVEMENT - Joan Silber - A tight novel, created from interconnected stories. As the back of the book says: “a remarkable novel that examines connection and the possibility of generosity in the face of loss.” Well drawn characters and surprising twists. 4.4.

WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES - Georgia Hunter - For people, like me, who have read a lot of Holocaust literature—there was much in the book that wasn’t new. The way Hunter unfolded her tale, with brief historical notes worked well. Getting this family, or most of it, back together was the cliff hanger. I hadn’t known a lot about how & why Jews made it to Brazil. Lots of characters—thanks to the writing—who were easy to follow and to whom the reader became attached. From the author’s notes, it appears that just about all of the characters are her real relatives. 4.

GIRL, WOMAN OTHER - Bernardine Evaristo - 12 women characters, almost all black and British. An interweaving of narratives and character, class, genders, time periods brilliantly done. Lots of gays a trans or three. No periods, but the stories wove themselves beautifully. 4.

THE LIBRARY BOOK - Susan Orleans - Non-fiction page turner about libraries. Just fascinating by the writer of the ORCHARD THIEF. Any book lover, library lover, will really get involved in the story set around the great fire that nearly destroyed The L.A. Public library. 4.5.

THE NICKEL BOYS - Colson Whithead - Better than THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD- But a hard read, a bright young black guy with a great future gets framed and sent to a ‘reform school’ like place of horrors. 4.

MEMORIAL DRIVE - Natasha Tretheway - A poet, coming to terms with her mother’s murder, 30 years later. Civil Rights and BLM so relevant. A short book. 4.

WRITERS & LOVERS - Lily King – The most engrossing novel I’ve read in memory. She got everything right, the push pull of the obsession to write (‘can’t get over it like the flu’), the nitty gritty of F&B in a high tone restaurant, grief, Boston, writer’s community, debt. All with witty and heart twisting insights. 5.

THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO - Christy Lefteri-This story of a Syrian man and his blind wife, who have lost their only child to the bombing, trying to make their way to England through the dangers of smugglers, crowded camps, Istanbul, Athens, the horror and hopelessness. Well written and conceived by Lefteri, a British creative writing teacher who worked in the camps as an NGO. Elements of EXIT WEST; reality rather than ‘magical realism’ though. 4.5.

THE GIVER OF STARS - Jojo Moyes - Not great literature, predictable and packed with stereo types, yet such an interesting story set in Kentucky during the WPA—women carrying books by horseback and mules to families isolated back in mountain hollers, Engrossing. 4.

ACCIDENTS IN THE HOME - Tessa Hadley - Quirky insights, a chaotic and (believable) “family tree” of a blended family—written with an insightful sense of children, the pull of biology and trauma, forgiveness and non-forgiveness; an occasional flash of really fine writing. 4.

DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD - Olga Tokarczuk - Nobel prize winning novel. “A brilliant Literary Murder Mystery.” Yes, the writing (translated from Polish) was good, the band of friends endearing, the barren landscape, isolated villages well-drawn. The book just never captured me. Maybe, with a more concentrated reading (not scattered over a month). Maybe with a deeper interest in astrology. Though I haven’t included any books rated lower than 4, I’m leaving this one in…. 3.5.

CASTE The Origins of Our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson - Slow reading for my non-fiction reading self. But so important. I learned so much and this book is so very timely. Wish it could be required reading. Yes, we have a caste system, like India’s only younger. Learned that the framework of NAZI policy on Jew was modeled after the Jim Crow laws (though, some Germans felt those were too extreme). Left book with a deeper, much deeper, understanding of Trump’s appeal. 4.5.

THE DUTCH HOUSE - Ann Patchett - A deeply satisfying story of family and loss, sprinkled with little jewels, of children segregated and a crowded Thanksgiving: “..with kids stashed in the den to eat off card tables like a collection of understudies who dreamed of one day breaking into the dining room.” Patchett’s narrator is male and she does him great justice. I hear that the audio version is read by Tom Hanks. Perfect. 4.5.

HAMNET - Maggie O’Farrell - A rich re-imagining of the young Shakespeare, the times, his family—mostly interestingly—his wife almost a wood sprite, but domesticated. His children. His son, Hamnet—who dies of the plague and the author imagines inspired HAMLET, good on grief, and then overworked it. So many pages, near the end, were a bit too ponderous. The ending though was fine and fodder for the ‘personal’ in the creative process. 4.

TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM - Yaa Gyasi - Quiet the contrast to her first novel (HOMEGOING) in that this was personal, one character, one POV. Rather than a sweeping epic. Such good writing and a good story and a unique examination of science VS spiritual. Set at Stanford and in Huntsville Alabama. Would not recommend to my daughter, mouse experiments! 4.3.

FUGITIVE PIECES - Anne Michaels - This was my 2nd read of the powerful, poetic, heartbreaking novel. The Holocaust, hope, guilt (lots of guilt) love, passion, good and evil, weather, geology, archology, history.. .The little mud-covered boy, rising from the Polish bog, crying, “Dirty Jew! Dirty Jew!” Incredible descriptions of Greece, though the narrative goes from Poland to Greece to Canada and even dips into Antarctica; is filled with science and myth. 5.

HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD Inside The Mind Of an American Family - Robert Kolker - The front cover with 11 of the 12 children lined up before their parents on a curved stair case tells much of the story—the pregnant mom (the most determinedly optimistic woman possible in gruesome circumstances) is the only person smiling. ^ of the 10 boys develop schizophrenia. With so many names (not to mention names of researchers and drugs—it was a difficult book for me to stick to. The family dynamics were fascinating. The story both tragic and heartening. Leaving this ‘below 4 in too…3.7

AMERICAN DIRT - Jeanine Cummins - I was really caught up in the narrative of this controversial book. It follows and mother and her year old son as they flee a cartel from Acapulco to the U.S. border. A riveting story with good (perhaps ‘stock’ but still good) characters. Because the writer is not Hispanic and because the story was played for suspense and overlooked some of the deeper political issues, it was villainized. Still, I think, because it is a good read, the reader learns a lot about the plight of immigrants. And this time, more than any, is when we should be learning what is accessible. 4.5.

INTERIOR CHINATOWN - Charles Yu - Sister G recommended this book and I found it a powerful ‘speak out’ and an interesting read as racism against Asians seems to have raised its ugly head. The narrator places himself as ‘background’ in T.V. series where the stars and real character are a blonde woman cop, Black male cop in Chinatown where none of the Asians actually have ‘characters. Metaphor like S’s cancer ward was metaphor for the Gulag. Except lots of sly humor in this book. 4.

HOLD STILL - Sally Mann - This memoir resonated with me. I am not a huge fan of memoir, but there was so much I could relate to: the identification with ‘place,’ (the proximity of the place), family stresses, creative urge, even the times. The photos enhanced the narrative and also informed us about the creative process on some very familiar photos. It was interesting and I read the 470 page book a just a few sittings (all of train ride from NYC to Roanoke). 4.5.

MIGRATIONS - Charlotte McConaughy - Diane recommended this book, part meditation, part mystery, part adventure—set in the future, but not science fiction; just following the last bird migration. This blurb doesn’t do it justice. It was engrossing and moving. Important. 4.5.

THE WEIGHT OF INK - Rachel Kadish - Not actually sure when I read this, but forgot to record. A fascinating narrative like the Ay Byatt book—bounces from 1691 to preset day where scholars are unearthing letters they eventually discover were written by a Jewish woman in London. Great scenes of the plague, the Thames, Jewish tradition and immigration, gender roles, Etc. A wonderful read. 4.

SALVAGE THE BONES - Jesmyn Ward - Reading this novel again grabbed me just as it did the first time. Brilliant and flawless in the integrity of recording the experience of Gulf Coast Blacks living in extreme poverty, the dignity of their struggle, the ties that bind family—no matter how dysfunctional. Hard reading. The dog fight, the suffering. Even if you intimately know this life, the ability to put it on paper stuns me. (I re-read prior to Ward’s speaking engagement here. (I was gifted with a fifteen minute one-on-one with her. As powerful a presence as she is a writer. Oh lucky me!) 5.

THE OVERSTORY - Richard Powers - I’ve long avoided this book, expecting something esoteric, trees talking to one another (500 pages, small print). Instead, while learning a great deal about trees, you follow 5 or 6 protagonists as they come from very different lives to bond in protecting trees/environment. A psychological adventure story; romance and tragedy. 5.

A LITTLE LIFE - Hanya Yanagihara - (voted one of “best 25 books of last 125 years) is based on the premise that a man abandoned at birth and terribly abused for the first 15 years of his life, run over by a car, subject to seizures, and constant self-mutilations enters Harvard at age 16 where he acquires 3 (lifelong) best friends who are part of an ever-widening circle of blindly devoted friends—all of them magnificently accomplished—who stick with Jude, though he lies to them pathologically and returns their devotion by acting from severe guilt, anger ,or deep distain toward his cult. The book has good writing, time and POV are handled beautifully, flawlessly. I loved the descriptions of the plays and movies his very best friend and eventual lover stars in. I loved, loved the descriptions of the art of his artist friend, and the house designs by his architect friend. The 4 men all become fabulously wealthy and skip together over continents and through rarely seen global locations, buy penthouses & such here & there. On & on it goes, pages of masochism and Jude’s self-loathing, over & over. 814 pages Again, leaving this ‘under 4’ in… 3.5.

ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS - Ocean Vuong - Seldom, if ever, do I finish reading a book and have the desire to start all over again. Not because I missed something, but because it was transporting and beautiful, if painfully cruel sometimes. A gay American Vietnamese son’s ‘letter to his mother.’ Who cannot read. The descriptions, the empathy; horror and beauty Vuong sees, without judgement. Obviously a poet, a terribly gifted one and a brave and honest novelist. 5.

CROSS ROADS - J. Franzen - This man does family so well, and the American psyche too. Male ego; we watch the slow destruction of a young gifted teen by addiction—set adrift in the early 70’s time when parents were off ‘finding themselves, the Viet Nam war was winding down and there were a lot of guitars in churches. God is a theme throughout the book and the way the individual characters call upon, or interpret ‘God,’ is illuminating, quirky. Sin & freedom, family and the dissolution of it. I don’t remember THE CORRECTIONS & FREEDOM very well, but think this latest may be Franzen’s best novel. 4.5.

THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS - Laurie Frankel - An important book for understanding a Trans child and a family’s struggle to understand and protect the child. The quirky too cute family seemed to be invented by a writer more in love with the ‘idea’ of children than with children. The parents so in love and managing to make love all the time, despite a house full of young children. The trip to Thailand too conveniently inserted, some lay writing. But , ultimately, worth the read. 4.

BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2021 - edited by Jesmyn Ward - A diversity of stories POV writing styles, maybe two stories in the collection of 20 did not pull me in. A great feature is, along with their bios, the writers say a few words about their stories. 4.5.

GONER - me - In light of my sister’s forthcoming memoir, I re-read my novel, published in 2017. It was not dastardly as I feared. The most interesting part of the novel was where I played with the POV, commented on it, and the ending; the reimagined life for Margaret—how narrative or the existence of 4 people (& their descendants) can hinge on one mis-understanding, or one missed connection. 4.

THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY - Amor Towles - Not as good, or artful ,as A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW, but still an engrossing read of a sort of road trip, interesting characters, some nice plot twists and a good view of past WWII America. The good people are good, the bad people bad, but some nice gradations in between. 4.3.

BROWN GIRL DREAMING - Jacqueline Woodson - Listed as a YA novel, written in free verse, an autobiography of a Black girl, from her birth through much of childhood, vying between Brooklyn and So. Carolina. So forgiving, so caught between the contradictions of love. So much story with so few words. Just lovely. 4.6.

THE SONG OF ACHILLES - Madeline Miller - Not a book I’d usually read, a ‘retelling’ of the Trojan War, but it kept my attention. Kind of homoerotic and lots of interesting details relating to the Greek’s identification with their deities. Good book for a long day on planes and in airports. 4.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE - Lori Gottlieb - Recommended by my counselor (& avoided because I don’t do ‘self-help’ books), this book was witty, insightful, well-written and vastly helpful. The cover description: “A Therapist, Her Therapists, and Our Lives Revealed.” Something in here for everyone. 4.

the forgotten island

The word at the river committee table has been that the same flood that went off with our beach had scoured the river islands, left them sandy and clear. Not being a paddler, I had not been on our island, literally, in years. Also, the rumor of dense fields of poison ivy has always made summer exploration unappealing. His first year in Blacksburg, Jerry emerged from the island with a horrifying case of P.I. When Jon Henry and Jay were very wee lads they found a tattered old map that led them, and their dads, to a pirate’s treasure buried on the island. I don’t think anyone from my family has ventured there since.

This summer, while sitting on the diving rock across the river, I watched motor boats disappear into the island (also watched a bald eagle plummet from an island tree into the New) and not come out. When Shannon and Kathy kayaked the lagoon between land and island, they discovered the hidden spring of lore. Back when passenger trains passed through, in the days of passenger trains, they stopped at my spring to harvest drinking water. (Does anyone remember the French film “Manon of The Spring?”) When I bought the land, an old neighbor tried to bully the deed to the spring from me. I never could even find it, let alone feel I owned the spring.

Stream in the Island

Yesterday my ReNew friend Dave came by with his canoe and we set out to explore the island. The river is now too shallow to allow motor boat entrance into the stream that intersects the island; in fact, too low for even a canoe. The lagoon on the far side of the island is now also too shallow. But the water in those two streams flows startlingly clear over stony bottoms. Much of the shale in the lagoon is jade green, the island stream is paved with smooth pebbles, round river rocks; small sandy beaches rim the water edges, massive trees with mossy trunks cast wide shadows over the water. Flowers, sand, a fire pit festooned with beer cans, bright tunnel views of the river, ferns. . . no poison ivy. Except for the beer cans, and a few tires buried in pale sand, it was like being in a cathedral. I thought of “The Blue Lagoon,” “The Secret Garden,” and even “Swiss Family Robinson.” I wanted my childhood back, so I could spend all of those unfettered summers in shade and cool water surrounded by the sound of the rapids.

River jade

At the end of the island, where it opens suddenly to a wide expanse of the river, we waded into the lagoon and followed it back toward the beginning of the island. There was a small current and the water was slightly cooler than the sun-speckled island stream. We waded, sometimes thigh high, until the water became abruptly cold. The spring. When Shannon described it, the spring was bubbling up through the lagoon. With the water low, we could see where it spilled from the hillside. InDEED it was my spring!

The Lagoon

The island needs some care. There are those tires and beer cans, it has obviously been a party place. I can’t help but envy the party goers and feel regret that I’ve owned and neglected such a magical place for almost thirty years. Of course, it didn’t need me, its glory is all its own.

Place of the Heart

Corona's Splendid Spring

Ours was the Age

Of The Embrace.

The last of its kind.

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It begins.

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First Morning of Spring

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River on the 2nd day.

Tender Mercy in the Time of Corona

Sunrise Shadows

Strange, in that I am not entirely solitary. The good husband, who turned bad and suddenly left me nineteen months ago for some imagined life that failed to materialize is here. That husband, with all he knows of science, was terrified of getting the virus. He petitioned to move into the guest room before the craziness had even set in. There were a thousand reasons to say no, but I could not have lived with the women who left him to his big empty house in town, with no yard and (so he claims) only a mattress on the floor. I said I would not cook, and haven't.

The runaway husband runs his company from my dining room table, leafs through recipe books, and prepares a commendable dinner every evening; weather permitting, he works on a victory garden, mows, and moves rocks outside.

I write and continue my political and community work from my cozy study. And prepare a different cocktail every evening.

It has worked out. Imagine I am the landlady and he is the boarder who cooks and does most of the chores to pay his ‘rent.’ He has kept terror at bay, and I—who had not turned on my stove even seven times in nineteen months--am gaining back my wifely fat.

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Raven's Bouquet

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5th Day Sunrise

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Another Sunrise

And then it sets

Children cry out

In sleep dreaming

Of fearful flowers.

Cherry tree & river, 10 days in

River before evening

Sunset shadowed

In the shadow of summer

Strange things are growing

Twisting from damp earth

Suspiciously.

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River in the rain

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Ring in Spring

And this morning I was thinking of the beautiful, and very strong, young Bosnian woman who took us out on a small boat to swim in a blue cave off the Adriatic coast. The swim and the cave were memorable, but her story of waking up one day and finding their good neighbors had become their enemies, (reminiscent of Rwanda); dust and noise of bombs and gunfire, the chaos stayed with me. I remember few details other than she said that she spent her entire adolescence underground, hiding in a cellar.

The war happened that suddenly and what should have been (she expected to be) the most carefree time of her life was spent in darkness. Puts these times in sharp perspective. Corona came suddenly, yes. But our teens aren't hiding in basements, they're merely missing their proms and gradations.

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Light at the end of the tunnel

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Tunnel at the end of the light

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"Mr. Moon, you're out too soon"

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Corona's empty table

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Early morning, inside

Light

Blackdog looks toward river

My black dog barks

At the sun and

The sun retreats.

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River on a moody morning

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River & Ravens

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Full moon rising

Candle For Sarah

My niece is hiding in the attic from her small children.

They call up the stairs for her. She is feverish and coughing.

It is possible that snow is falling outside their gray house.

We imagine the children calling and calling.

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The path to the river

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Redbud

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The path away from the river

Revenge’s forked tongue Flickers at Liberty Fangs poised to strike.

We are a country Writhing beneath A headless snake.

Misty morning

Electric green

April’s Cover

Morning sun tugs back black billows to illuminate nuclear green grass slashed by silky crow wings.

A sudden quilt of cloud smothers out the sun.

The land goes still.

Eddy & the boys

“Heavenly shades of night are fallin
It’s twilight time. Out of the dusk
Your voice is calling…”

She has risen!

Resurrection

Early light of Easter morn A pair of bald eagles, The only thing flying. They are the American come back kids.

Easter tree

Nutshell

Time In A Nutshell

My ex is re-hanging the birdhouse shaped like a giant acorn that his father gave us the last Christmas he ever gave us anything, the Christmas after his wife died.

When he first hung the acorn five-year-old Paul Wyatt helped, chattering deliriously, by the sapling oak that today casts such a long shadow

Survivor

Survivor

Scarecrow tree still blooming Standing steadfast through a Couple centuries of Nature’s capricious temper tantrums.

Two summers ago, a fat bear Climbed the tree to get that apple, The one just out of reach, that Failed to fall too far from the tree.

Local lore claims Washington, After crossing the river right here, Passed over this sunken roadbed Shaded by a long line of apple trees.

Why did Washington cross the River? All that he could see was The other side of the mountain, The other side of the mountain Was all.

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The 24th day of spring

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Spring storm

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Oh the light!

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Forest Flowers & morels

In The Way of Angels

So We’ve wandered through the forest to ask your guidance and protection. We are lost now, inexperienced, uncertain. Tuck our children, and theirs, under your wings light a torch, draw a sword, show us the way.

Angel? Angel?

Hey!

Deep forest flowers

This spring of isolation has been breath taking. Perhaps there have been springs as lovely, but--not being sheltered in place--there wasn't the time to immerse. Yesterday I gathered an occasional morel in this forest--I am said to own--and climbed a steep ridge to an open meadow royal purple with Larkspur, carpeted with the smallest trillium I've ever seen. The new leaves on the giant beech, oak, and cherry trees too young and not-yet-out enough to shadow the sunlight; an illumination of green. Don't think I've ever before spent 4 hours in this forest, always too focused on the beloved river. The bounty of Corona’s Splendid Spring.

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BelleBend in April

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Sea Sky

All we know is

What we don’t.

All we have is

Here.

recent reads

THE IDIOT- Elif Batuman

Comparable to LESS, in that I often laughed aloud. The novel was quite an intellectual romp, making fun of theory linguistics, the intellectually elite in an insightful and occasionally sympathetic way. The naive protagonist made a great guide through a freshman year at Harvard; a summer in Paris, and as an “English teacher” in a small Hungarian town. Batuman was able to sketch in character depth with a light touch. We shared her confusion, heartbreak, insights, bewilderment and adaptability. I was thinking that, to avoid the Dostoevsky confusion (which may have entirely been the point of the title), the novel could have been called “The Freshman.” Which brought up the wonderful movie starring Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando. That movie was so good and seemingly seen by so few.

THE REFUGEES - Viet Thanh Nguyen

Not nearly as powerful as THE SYMPATHIZER, this collection of stories was uneven, but well imagined. Lots of diversity, among them, and interesting POVs. Yet, writing about the stories, a couple months later, I can’t recall any one story distinctly and almost feel I should read the book again. I do know the writing was very fine. Right now it doesn’t seem memorable, but neither does my memory.

THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN- Anne Fademan

A really intriguing non-fiction book examining the clash between Western Medicine and the Hmong people. The story centered on a little girl with extreme epilepsy. The writer was brilliantly fair and I think the story was a great many years in the writing. The sympathetic insights into the western doctors, several—to their great credit—deeply, and long, affected by the decisions they made concerning the care of a little girl the reader meets at age four. Her Hmong family and then their larger community were remarkable. What a culture!

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING-Delia Owens

Not good literature and in deep need of an editor (Galway Kinell is quoted in a time period he could not have yet been published, the dialect was uneven and sometime the same character dropped it altogether) still the nature writing was just wonderful and the story captured me. I loved, loved the place where the ‘Marsh Girl’ lived. Think this is the year’s most popular ‘beach’ novel. It is also the first novel of an 80 year woman who has been writing nature books for years.

LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE- Celeste Ng

Stayed up past midnight to finish this interesting story. Maybe a little stereotyping here & there, but the characters grabbed me, as did the story line. A couple plots within plots, wonderful descriptions of the creative process, the conundrum of nature/nurture (who should have the Chinese baby girl?) and the heart being a Lonely Hunter. So much better than Ng’s EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU.

looking upriver on a midsummer's evening

Our beach sliced more than half by the relentless spring floods.

Now, New Orleans,' the City that care forgot' awaits its own relentless flood down in the land of the steamy streams.

Our breaths are held worrying about family there in that enchanted city that has been 14 years rising from the waters.

preferred recent readings

NEWS OF THE WORLD (which I have loaned into extinction) by Paulette Jiles is just a good, good story: A little historical, a little psychological; cowboys and Indians; and real history of the world, the entire world right after the Civil (nothing ‘civil’ about it) War. The main character is the elderly Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a veteran of two wars, who makes his living reading newspapers, to gathered crowds in small (wild West) northern Texas towns. So that is how we really get the real ‘news of the world.’ The Captain is paid $50 in gold to return a ten-year-old girl to her relatives, after she has spent two years with a tribe of Kiowa. The developing relationship between the two is interesting but not blatantly heart warming, kind of complex. It drove me a little crazy that a ten year old could have lost her mother tongue in a mere two years. BUT, since I was also reading about Acute Childhood Trauma at about the same time, it came to make sense. You see your parents and siblings massacred and, along with abandoning your memory of the horror, it makes sense to abandon your language too. Unspeakable.

Anyway, lots of adventure, fairly complex characters, a shattering view of post war—very young—Texas, and—of course—news of the world. After carefully spinning out a somewhat unpredictable tale. Jiles seems to have rushed her ending a bit, tied it up in too neat a packet. Still, a very good read.

BEFORE WE WERE YOURS, by Lisa Wingate is a novel based on the real true horrifying story of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, an orphanage stocked with kidnapped children from poor families. I hooked into the novel at its very beginning: a counter culture-type family living on a houseboat on the Mississippi, right outside Memphis. The scent of Mark Twain and early Cormac McCarthy and my riverbank childhood immediately attached me to the novel. The story’s main narrator is the oldest of the five siblings stolen from the riverside. The story interweaves between two generations, but its meat is in the 1930’s with the tough oldest girl trying to keep her brothers and sisters together in a nightmare.

It can be said that the novel examines family, class, crime, coincidence, as well as mystery brought to a satisfying and Deep South conclusion.

AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones, a good story by another good African American woman writer. At one time Obama said this was his favorite novel. (We need to always remember that, in our lifetime, we had a president who read books.). It is hard not to think that Jones was influenced by Baldwin’s BEALE STREET when the plot revolves around a loving husband falsely accused of rape and, subsequently, imprisoned. There are three main characters, two men who have been friends, and the woman, a love triangle. The story is told in their voices and the setting is primarily middle class ‘new South’ Atlanta. Though there are three story tellers, there are many stories and they are stories that only black Americans could tell. Jones is not a great writer, but her attention to detail, the care and concern she gives in creating her characters is wonderful.

THERE THERE by Tommy Orange is a Native American novel of a different bent, a breathlessly plotted story of the Native American in the city. Though the book would be worth a read if only for the eleven-page prologue. The narrative moves almost seamlessly through a number of time periods, all of them leading up to the Big Oakland Pow Wow. The twelve characters exist sometimes nearly side-by-side and sometimes a generation apart. The writing is powerful, poetic, angry, depressed, defiant, occasionally funny, and always real. I like the Marlon James review on the book cover: “THERE THERE drops on us like a thunderclap; the big, booming, explosive sound of twenty-first-century literature finally announcing itself. Essential.” There, that’s pretty big.

HISTORY OF WOLVES by Emily Fridlund. This first novel, set primarily in the woods of Minnesota, has a ‘shut down’ narrator slowly reeling out an eerie story set in her adolescent past. To make the reader care about the removed (chilly?) narrator took quite a measure of skill, but the reader is pulled along by a sense of tragic foreboding. Protagonist Linda and her parents are the sole holdouts of what had been a hippie commune hidden in the woods. A mother, her sweet young son and sometimes the older dad settle in a modern cabin on the lake near the abandoned commune. They both attract and repel Linda, they are mysterious; their summer on her lake wrap the teenager, as helplessly as a small fly, into their web. Fridlund descriptions of place and character are exquisite. A scary, sad, ‘coming of age’ story, both bleak and shimmering.

THE FRIEND by Sigrid Nunez. My sister, Gretchen, deeply loved this novel, which I saw more as a meditation. A meditation on grief, gender, the craft of teaching, the art of writing. An interesting book, held together by a Great Dane, a dog the reader comes to love, cheer for, age with, and let go. The writing is skillful and wise, sometimes funny, always with an underpinning of loneliness. I never underline in a book, but expect to return to THE FRIEND with a pencil. So much of what Nunez says rings so true (& is so well phrased). Though I found the book at my sister’s recommendation, it seems it won the National Book Award and was published only in 2018.

LESS by Andrew Sean Greer is another personal ‘find’ that was already ‘found,’ having won the Pulitzer. I recall reading several reviews of this novel about a hapless, clueless minor writer avoiding his beloved boyfriend’s wedding by setting himself on a kind of worldwide book tour. Reading the reviews convinced me that I didn’t want to read the novel, but picked it up and leafed through it at Kramer’s Bookstore and ended up buying it. Good Thing! Less is one of the most original characters I’ve read in memory: engaging, foolish, lucky, cursed, guileless, honest. I laughed a lot and thought the ‘travelogue’ was just wonderful. Love and literature and time and memory flow through the story and by the book’s end, I just didn’t want to let LESS go. He was more.

Greece with my girl - getting there

SEPTEMBER 13

Hurricane Florence at our heels, we cancelled our flight out of Charlotte and for a scary 20 hours had no idea how we’d get to Athens in time to catch the boat and take our (no refund!) cruise (“It’s not cruising, it’s yachting.”) across three seas to Dubrovnik.

Laina, our committed travel agent and Gretchen’s dear friend, was 15 frantic hours trying to find alternate flights. Thursday, after her full day of teaching, Gretchen and I met in the Blacksburg Middle School parking lot and headed toward the interstate prepared to drive to Roanoke, NYC, DC, or even Toronto. We drove ‘pedal to the metal,’ knowing only to head North, while Laina clicked around and managed to book us Roanoke to DC (for an overnight), DC to Philly to Athens. Four extra hours in Reagan Airport and five extra in Philly, but we landed in Athens at the same time we would have landed without the 12 extra hours in transit. Scary Steve and his yellow car were waiting for us.

Greece with my girl - Athens

SEPTEMBER 15

An Australian, with Greek citizenship, there was no language barrier, a perk we came to regret. Our driver, STEVE, bragged about beating up ‘blokes,’ earnestly testified to the criminality of immigrants, and referred to his mom and mother-in-law as “whores.” Steve cheerfully drove us around Athens, dropped us off to wander the Acropolis, picked us up afterwards and forced us to have lunch at a (actually charming) waterside restaurant. Gretchen and I saw neighborhoods of Athens we would have missed and held hands tightly, cowering in the backseat, as Scary Steve turned corners on two wheels, talking about when he threatened to punch in his mother-in-law’s face, and earnestly promising that he’d be at the airport to meet our returning plane. My daughter and I each imagined the disguises we’d wear to sneak through Athens a week hence. All that said--Scary Steve got us to the boat on time.

We climbed the gangplank of Sea Dream (“It’s not cruising, it’s yachting”), refreshed by the offered scented towels, took chilled glasses of champagne in hand and entered the phantasmagoric world of the idle (idyll) rich. For seven days our every whim would be granted. We would cross three seas, read novels, swim, hike, see ancient sites, both wade and race in the fabled River Styx. We would sample fabulous foods, and indulge in an array of cocktails. Friendly and gracious staff members would pause by our lounging places to clean our reading glasses or offer dainty finger foods. And Gretchen would make fifty new friends.

Gretchen was a social creature from the time she could pull her wee self up on two dimpled feet and toddle across the sand making friends all along the unfriendly Jersey shore. She consistently chose the company of friends over family—until she started her own family—semi-disappearing as a teen, and then she was swallowed into wifehood, motherhood and her consuming profession. Other than the months I nursed her as a babe, Gretchen and I probably had never spent more than four one-on-one hours together. The greatest treat, for me, of this voyage would be my daughter’s good company.

Greece with my girl - Hydra

SEPTEMBER 16

Gretchen, for the first time in her memory, slept 12 hours. Thanks to our ‘early-to-bed’ ethos, she still rose in time to partake—shipboard--of local fruits, fresh–baked bread, cheeses and coffee before our Hydra hike. Located in the Aegean Sea, Hydra is a Greek derivative word for water; in reference to the natural springs of this island, where no wheeled vehicles are allowed. Donkeys and boats provision the island. We saw one (forbidden) bicycle as we (a group of maybe 12) hiked along the gorgeous coastline following our “Iron Man” guide with his buff body and deep love for his pristine island. We walked to a pebbly beach where I swam in the clear water and Gretchen lay in a lounge chair, stunned by the glory of Greece.

In the afternoon we dove off the back of the boat into the Aegean waters. I had not ever been swimming in open waters with my adult daughter. It was great. And post swim cocktails were great and our dinner for two was great, as was our nightcap of Cointreau (in memory of Conrad). 110 couples on the boat, plus Gretchen and me. Half of the women on-board older than my daughter, but we two were the only ones with gray hair. We were often complimented on our courage of coiffure.