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Well the Forty-Niners beat the Saints in a heart-stopping final two minutes of the playoffs, and the Patriots beat the Broncos and their verbified quarterback, Tim Tebow.

Does this mean that those who pan for gold have an advantage over they who have hearts of gold? That success comes to those who place constitutional values over religious doctrine?

Maybe. But probably not. What it likely means is that the ‘Niners and Pats outplayed the Saints and Broncos when it came to controlling the pigskin and moving it efficiently down the field.

I wouldn’t bother to give this much thought—I care hardly at all about sports in general and football in particular—except that Mr. Tebow and his Rodin’s-Thinker posture of gratitude and the fad it has sparked have forced themselves into my consciousness the way that a whining child demands attention. Even a running toilet stops if you jiggle the handle, but nothing seems to nothing seems to halt the metamorphosis of Tebow into trope.

Perhaps I’m just sick and tired of the public practice of religion as a demonstration of moral virtue. It is not spirituality or faith in god or goddess to which I refer; it is the dogmas designed by (mostly) men, and the rules enforced by individuals whose own adherence is flawed, that gets my scapegoat.

Which brings me to the subject of the men who would be Republican presidents of the United States of America.

Collectively they provide only the faintest echo of what “Republican” meant even to the bleeding-heart-and-kneejerk-liberal, Kennedy-loving, Leftist Democrats who brought me into this world and imbued me with their politics. Even to my mother and father, most Republicans were political centrists operating further to the right than they felt could countenance (and my mother’s mother was a registered Republican, anyway).

What conjoins this collection of antagonists into something like a pack are their Tebowesque religiosity and their blurring of the boundaries between democratic engagement in the political process and mob zealotry.

The folks they would persuade into their political sects are Americans who want god—specifically the Christian God—“returned” to government. “God,” however, was never a Founding Father, or even a Founding Consultant.

Article VI, paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution states, “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” This means that no religious affiliation or beliefs, or the eschewing of religion, is relevant to governmental office. In reference to religion, the first amendment to the Constitution stipulates that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This certainly suggests that while all American may freely express their religious affiliations and practice their religious duties, the government cannot advance some particular creed over another.

Okay, this is a sticky area.

I certainly interpret these statements the way I interpret the inalienability of the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” asserted in the Declaration of Independence. (Just this morning I watched a clip of Gingrich reciting those words and his emphasis was on “endowed by their creator” rather than “inalienable rights” and what follows. I also notice that he changes “inalienable” to “unalienable.”)  Just as my living, my freedom and my pursuit of happiness cannot infringe on those rights as held by others—I am not free to steal, kill, or abuse, no matter how happy that makes me—religious beliefs and practices held by some cannot be imposed directly or indirectly on others and never through the agency of the government.

From this I conclude that a government shaped and guided by a single religion can never be a democracy and can never lay claim to the moral territory staked out in the U.S. Constitution.

Many governments have claimed their authority from religion. Kings ruled by Divine Right; individuals were disenfranchised, imprisoned, exiled, and executed for adherence to something other than the official religion; and punishments were exacted—and still are—based on edicts in holy texts. A government based on religious precepts is a theocracy. The most significant theocracies in today’s world are the Muslim nations that observe Sharia, or Islamic law. Sharia developed in the 10^th century and includes schools of thought that range from the comparatively liberal approach of Hadith to the extreme orthodoxy of the Taliban.

But the question is: In America, do we want our lives, our business practices, our sexuality and marriages, our creative endeavors, our educational opportunities, our economic potential and more to be governed by a mindset that gelled almost two thousand years ago?

I don’t.

I want the discourse that deals with our lives, our business practices, our sexuality and marriages, our creative endeavors, our educational opportunities, and our economic potential to be shaped by facts and rational analysis not by emotion and beliefs in supernatural forces. I want the debates our political candidates engage in to focus on documented problems not fantasized perils. I want the private issues of faith and religion to remain private and I want the electorate and the candidates alike to focus on the public weal. To paraphrase the words of President John F. Kennedy, I would like people to think more about way they might do for this country and less about what the country should be doing for them.

And I certainly don’t want as president a man who is following with blinkered passion the precepts of a faith not embraced by all Americans. Give me, at least, a president and maybe even a congress willing and ableto collect and analyze facts and engage in rational and civil discourse to find those compromises that genuinely serve the public weal.

the Founders' vision of the Nation

dustjacket of the novel "War Horse"

Apparently a few British critics have made the connection between Anna Sewell’s classic, Black Beauty (1877), and Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, the basis for Stephen Spielberg’s most recent film, but no American reviewer I have encountered has thought to compare them. Perhaps in this country the relationship is not so obvious but Black Beauty belongs to the canon of English children’s books and Michael Morpurgo, O.B.E., held the title of “Children’s Laureate” from 2003 to 2005.

Black Beauty, Ginger and Merrylegs at their greatest pleasure, a riding party.

British kiddie-lit has a long and noble history of rural settings and beasts in leading roles: The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) and about two dozen other books by Beatrix Potter; The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame; A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh (1926); and James Herriot’s stories of the life of a Yorkshire veterinarian that began with All Creatures Great and Small (1972) and included a number of wonderful children’s books. C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia written between 1949 and 1954 fits comfortably among these others as well.

But back to War Horse. When I heard about the book—which I did through articles about the play—I quickly bought a copy and read it. The attraction? It’s a horse story and it’s a work of fiction set in World War One. Readers of this blog already know my fascination with the Great War; friends and family know that I am no less horse-crazy than I was when I was ten years old. We then attended in a performance of the play at Lincoln Center; a few days ago saw the film. All three are splendid works, each in its own way.

Joey, the “bright red bay with a black mane and tail… a white cross on his forehead and four white socks that are all even to the last inch,” narrates events in much the same voice as Black Beauty. Morpurgo only gives voice to Joey, however, in contrast to Sewell who fills her book with conversations between Black Beauty and his friends, the mare Ginger and the former war-horse, Captain, among others. In fact, Sewell assigns the first speech, if not the first narration of memory, to Black Beauty’s mother, Duchess, who articulates the moral vision that will guide Black Beauty and by extension the child-reader:

“I wish you to pay attention to what I am going to say to you. The colts who live here are very good colts, but they are cart horse colts, and, of course, they have not
learned manners. You have been well bred and well born…your grandmother had the sweetest temper of any horse I ever knew, and I think you have never seen me kick or bite. I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”

It takes only a slight revision to transform this admonition into the instruction I received from my New England family: “Stand up straight and look people in the eye. Don’t shuffle. Be honest in all you do. Practice kindness and courtesy to all people at all times.” Morpurgo does not have his horses sermonize and instead slips his values into the words and actions of people—English, French and German—who become part of Joey’s life.

Black Beauty’s story spans only a few more years than does Joey’s. Both experience training by loving and patient hands. Both enjoy a relatively exuberant youth although Beauty, at Squire Gordon’s, lives in a more rarified stratum of society. Both eventually encounter a harsh reality filled with struggle, physical pain, and emotional loss. Joey’s boon companion Topthorn collapses after months hauling heavy artillery over nearly impassable terrain; Beauty encounters Ginger in the ranks of hackney-cab horses, a fate that has befallen them both, and later sees her lifeless body hauled away from a dank London street.

There is a happy ending for both. Black Beauty is rescued at a sale by a farmer with an eye for quality, nursed back to health and—miracle of miracles—is acquired by a trio of ladies whose groom is Joe Green, the former stable boy who had been trained up alongside Beauty. Joey tears through No Man’s Land on the Somme, inevitably becoming entangled in barbed wire. He is freed through the efforts of German and English soldiers working together. When the Tommy wins the coin toss, Joey is brought back to safety on the English side of the Front. Another miracle of miracles, the soldier assigned to care for him is none other than Albert, the farm boy who trained him and who ultimately brings him home to Devon.

My Dear One pointed out to me that David Thewlis (Harry Potter’s Remus Lupin and the malevolent Devon landlord with absolute power over the Narracott family, forcing the sale of Joey to the army) played Jerry Barker in the 1994 film version of Black Beauty. In the book, Barker was the kindly hackney-cab driver who has to sell Beauty, beginning the steep slide into misery from which Beauty is saved at the end of the book. I don’t remember Thewlis’ characterization although I am pretty sure I saw the movie. When I reviewed the cast I realized that I would never have missed a movie featuring the likes of Alun Armstrong, Sean Bean, Jim Carter, and Peter Davison— keeping it all alphabetical—to say nothing of Thewlis. I was impressed that my Dear One remembered the actor and role and stunned that I had no recollection of any of it.

How could that be possible?

It is possible for the same reason I can recite The Jabberwocky and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, poems I memorized in my childhood, and still know the telephone number at our home in Cleveland Heights from 1957 to 1964 (FA1-2992), but can’t remember pretty much anything from yesterday or the cell phone number I have had for several years now.

There is a more important reason, too. I read War Horse once, soon after seeing the play and the film. I have read Black Beauty scores of times. I still own the copy I was given about fifty years ago, the edition printed by “The Around the World Treasures.” That is the only publication information to be found. Amazon.com suggests that I have the edition put out by the English firm F. Watts in 1959. That seems about right.

I remember every scene in the book, know each character however minor, and recall every moment of the story arc that begins with such hope and threatens to end in tragedy. I remember the color plates at the beginning and the sketchy, ink-and-brush vignettes sprinkled through the book. All of this is locked so securely into my mind that no other visions or interpretations can gain entry. This is way beyond my dislike of a variety of film treatments of well-loved books starting with Gone With the Wind.

This post, however, is not meant to be a paean to the values of the written word.

War Horse—and the various formats into which it has been translated—is an exploration of human choices, the heroics of honor, and the terrible consequences both of choosing selfishness, cruelty and evil, and being unable  to see beyond the flaws inherent in all social, political and moral definitions of right and good. It has its limitations as a work of art—as indeed does Black Beauty, a book I personally enjoyed more. Judgments as to what is “art,” though, have their limitations, too.

January 5^th is the best day to have a birthday and there seemed to be no shortage of warm wishes from the cosmos. 2012 is, I hope, an auspicious moment to enter, along with the Today Show, a seventh decade.

My Dear One devised the perfect plan: leave the car in Wilmington and take the train into the Big Apple for a day and a half of pure pleasure.

His execution was even better. We arrived early enough at the Amtrak station to be able to upgrade tickets for the earlier Acela train. For the record, the Acela, between Wilmington and NYC is not worth the cost, but at least now we can say we rode it. We had enough time at the Hampton Inn on 8^th and 51^st to sip a little vodka over ice with a twist of lime (never travel without a flask) and confirm the precise locations of dinner and theater.

Basilica Restaurant

On our way to Basilica (very pleasant, food good not great, but the three-course, before-show menu at $29.95 includes a free bottle of wine) we passed a drycleaner-cum-tailor where a slender, brown-haired, thirty-something (I guess) woman was trying on a silky ivory garment, adjusting the fit. It was a strapless top over palazzo pants, softly draped and elegant, and when our eyes met I gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled in evident happiness, pressed her palms together and bowed in thanks.

There was enough time between dinner and The Follies, which was just the perfect show for a woman entering the seventh decade, to soak up the ambience of Times Square after dark. We surveyed the Great White Way from the Glowing Red Steps that constitute the superstructure of the TKTS booth. The January air, cool but not cold, was nippy enough to make me think the Naked Cowboy was insane to be prancing around in naught but boots, hat and briefs. He strummed the strings on his guitar once or twice but mostly reached out for pretty girl tourists and posed for pictures with them. How exactly does this guy earn a living? Is the Naked Cowboy more of a Midnight Cowboy?

Bernadette Peters headlined Follies and she is marvelous—and diminutive.  I knew, of course, that she is petite, but I had not really realized how short. She’d come up to my elbow, I think. Imagining us side by side was just the opposite of a night in the late 1970s when I mingled with the New England Patriots. The gallery at which I worked was hosting an opening for their tight-end, Don Hasselbeck. Yes, he’s better known these days as QBs Matt and Tim’s dad and, yes, he majored in fine arts at the University of Colorado-Boulder. On that evening, I—a big girl at 5 foot 10 ½ inches and weight to match—felt positively tiny.

The leads—Sally Durant Plummer (Peters) and Phyllis Rogers Stone (Jan Maxwell)—were good but Jane Houdyshell playing Hattie Walker and Terri White as Stella Deems knocked my socks off. Houdyshell, large in body and generous in comedic gifts, personifies the fat woman with an AARP membership who looks back on slenderer days as a song-and-dance girl with unadulterated delight and no sense of loss. White has a monster set of pipes and charisma to spare, and plays the beautiful girl grown into a mighty woman.

Fellow Travelers at the Hampton Inn were charming, too. Maybe I was radiating birthday happiness, who knows.  I especially liked the fellow waiting on the 6^th floor with me for an elevator. I noted his Steelers scarf and allowed that while I was supposed to support the Baltimore Ravens, I had a soft spot for the Patriots.  He gave me the sweetest smile and said, “You’re just all kinds of wrong, aren’t you?”

view from the subway stairs

Mother Nature smiled the next day, or two or three. January 6 started with close encounters of the wild kind. As we went to buy a MetroCard, a brown rat—Rattus norvegicus—scooted from underneath the glass-enclosed agent’s booth across the floor and disappeared under the bank of kiosks. It was an ordinary denizen of the city, looking a bit stressed, somewhat disheveled.  Despite claims that New York City rats are the size of small dogs, this one was about the size of a lab rat and about as intimidating. I wished it well and we pushed through the gate and found a train headed uptown.

light of day in Central Park

distant downtown

The Upper West Side. Central Park. A beautiful and unseasonably balmy January day. If I thought that all days would be like this and if I had four or five million to sink into a comfy pied-à-terre, I’d buy season tickets to the opera and consider moving. As we emerged from the 86th Street station, the expanse of lawns and thickets of trees beckoned. The walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is so lovely, pathways curving between Pinetum and Great Lawn, the geometries of downtown skyscrapers rising dull blue against the pale blue sky, songbirds flitting through the shrubbery.

The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini was our intended destination but we strolled through various galleries and examined Art in Renaissance Venice, 1400–1515: Paintings and Drawings from the Museum’s Collections first. We concluded the visit in the 20^th century collections, spaces that seemed in disarray. We couldn’t find old favorites. Works seemed clustered by donor and with little discernable logic to the installation. Sometimes I sensed thematic sets, occasionally saw chronological orderings, and also encountered hangings that were reminiscent of the formal kinships that governed Albert Barnes’ installations at his Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. The effect was a cross between a merry-go-round and Groundhog’s Day, the same artists grouped together no matter where we went. But never mind. The Anish Kapoor on the second floor was very cool.

girl studying Anish Kapoor ("Untitled," 2007)

at the Fledermaus

In time for coffee and cake, we strolled northward to the Neue Galerie. Finding the Café Sabarsky on the main level crowded, we headed downstairs to the Fledermaus. The coffee was strong, the poppyseed cake was flavorful if dry and the hazelnut torte in its coat of ganache almost too sweet. A moment of rest and the twin infusions of sugar and caffeine, however, were rejuvenating. The exhibition was The Ronald S. Lauder Collection: Selections from the 3^rd Century BC to the 20^th Century / Germany, Austria, and France. The title delivered much less than it seems to promise, but a few early Renaissance portraits, some Seurat drawings, and a lot of horse armor made it worthwhile.

As the shadows lengthened and the air chilled, we trudged back across the Park and waited for our ride home. It had been a perfect day, a perfect finale to a perfect birthday…and I was very, happily, tired.

At the Met, "...the Genius of ambitious rectitude sleeps the agitated sleep of misfortune and glory...his head extending beyond the periphery of the world..." (or so says sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1845)

A mild January day is a gift any time but on New Year’s Day it seems a good omen. Most every January 1 my Dear One and I go walking, partly to allow the miasma of rich meals, welcomes prepared, and emotions charged to dissipate, mostly to regain the sense of us that we feel when wrapped in the quiet of some corner of Nature. One-One-Two Thousand and Twelve was about perfect, about 50 degrees, not much in the way of a breeze, sun squinting between patches of cloud.

The Goats of Robin Hood Road

The goats of Robin Hood Road were relaxing on the far side of the field when we pulled up, but curiosity pulled them over to the fence as I called out good wishes and waved apples and ears of corn. They’re an amiable lot, and friendly—well, greedy. Big Billy seems to exert leadership but there is no obvious hierarchy, perhaps because they’re moving from long in the tooth to toothless.

Flint Furnace, Stafford Road, Susquehanna State Park

We drove into Susquehanna State Park along Deer Creek, which is flowing briskly and wide these days, last year’s hurricanes Irene and Lee having swept away brush and deeply undercut the banks on both sides. We parked across from the restored flint furnace where the town of Stafford existed until the last resident left in 1904. The old cast-iron bridge was replaced long ago by a sturdier and more modern bed on concrete on steel—although not so long ago that the original has been erased from living memory.

It is a favorite spot. A wide trail curves through the woods, occasionally arcing close to the river, at other times cutting nave-like through the forest. Once we surprised a stag—or perhaps he surprised us. We spend a fair amount of time in the Park yet we do not see deer. Squirrels, certainly, and the occasional chipmunk, and lots of birds, but no deer and certainly not in herds like those we watch from the comfort of the our deck. This young monarch of the glen bore a substantial crown and regarded us with some disdain as he vaulted up the hill and out of sight.

There were others there that afternoon. A couple walked tiny dogs, he a chihuahua, she a miniature dachshund.  Athletes jogged past and a fellow on a mountain bike wheeled through the brush into the road. We shook our heads. Sure it’s legal, sure it’s a good thing to be out on a bicycle enjoying some exercise, but mountain-bikers wreak such havoc on delicate ground, ripping through moss and wildflowers, gouging ruts into the dirt.

water falls

The brook that runs alongside Stafford Road had grown during the wet autumn and a series of small cataracts marked its merge with Deer Creek. I creep down the slope, clinging to the squared-off rocks that act as a retaining wall below the furnace, so I can get closer. The water is so clear, heavy as lead crystal, as it sheets over granite rocks. It is a scene of subtle colors, the pale brown of dead leaves, gray stone, dry green grasses, white and pink gleams of quartz, and moments of blue sky.

We are not far from the creek when I hear an odd sound, not the chatter of stream and rocks but an insistent tapping. Rain? I hold out my hand and a feel nothing, but then I see ripples on the water’s surface and suddenly a drop or two on my cheek. Mother Nature says it’s time to go home and start supper.

New Year's Rainbow

I am thinking about a glass of wine, organizing a plan for cocktails and wondering if I need to toss apples and corn out for the deer that seem to think Happy Hour starts around 4:30, when the room filled with reflections from the setting sun. Rain and sun? Their sum is rainbow and as I looked into the east I saw it grasping the bare treetops and reaching down, just beyond the edge of the neighborhood.

Welcome the New Year.

an elf that once jigged on my mother's tree

What will happen to all those Christmas ornaments when I am gone?

The tree is finally decorated. We bought it five or six days ago and it has been sitting in a bucket of water awaiting installation in the living room. Then yesterday we set it into the stand, draped it with twinkling white lights and gold garland and gave the branches a day to relax before starting in with the decorations.

Nutcrackers belonging to my Tattooed Boy

The system my Dear One and I follow is more relaxed than the one I remember from childhood. When we lived in Cleveland Heights, we all piled into the car and drove what seemed an intolerable distance to the Christmas tree lot, a place in the countryside where we could also buy wee gifties for our teachers. It was always night, I guess because the clocks had fallen back, Dad worked all day, and decorating the tree had to be done on the weekend.

I don’t actually remember that the event ever took place on a weekend, only that my father erected the tree, secured it in place, tested the old-style, screw-in lightbulbs, finding and replacing the ones that darkened the string. My mother supervised the trimming itself. There were precious family heirlooms that only she could handle and which were usually placed near the top. There were colorful glass balls, so fragile that a few inevitably smashed. When all that had been done we opened packages of tinsel. Ma insisted that each strand be hung carefully so that they formed a shimmering sheet of silver. No throwing. Ever. We did our best, but this kind of meticulous effort belongs to adults who actually care, and I have a sense that tinsel-draping was not something we kids did much of.

goose egg with Chinese landscape

At some point we children received our first ornaments, I am not sure from whom. One was a glass mushroom with a tiny bunny inside. The second was a golden snowflake, a perimeter studded with tiny crystalline forms. I treasured those ornaments and hung them carefully each year.  Then one year the mushroom broke. I saved the bunny, though, and still have it; she now suspends from a noose of black thread. My snowflake survived until the 1970s when it fell victim to the efficiency of my brother-in-law who helpfully denuded the tree one year and disposed of the piney carcass, failing to notice the delicate circlet that was hardly visible in the light of day. I was devastated.

Twas the Night before Christmas

One year Ma gave us each an ornament purchased on a trip out West. Mine was a little angel. Subsequent Christmases also included the gift of an ornament. Somewhere down the line we all followed suit. When my Tattooed Boy was born, pink of skin and free from markings, his collection got underway: a block, a miniature book with The Night Before Christmas, several whales that allude to his given name. His grandmother sent painted eggs, bamboo butterflies and beaded and embroidered trifles during the Christmases she and her husband Charlie lived in Beijing. The “Santa Head” that was a gift from Jim and Emily was shredded by our corgi or our cat or possible the two in collusion, and the Santa Head that I found to replace it reminds us of that story.

Santa Head

Penguin, the First Bird

When my Dear One entered our lives I bought him a penguin on skis to hang on the Norfolk Island pine that served as his Christmas tree.  Why a penguin? His preferred coffee cup was decorated with a penguin. After that, however, and every year since then, I have chosen a bird, or at least an ornament on some avian theme. For almost as long he has given me—and often the Tattooed Boy—an ornament too, and being his remarkable self has personalized each one and marked it with the date. This year it was a little donkey that commemorates the donkey on

Earlton Road I fed apples and photographed (and which, one day, was simply gone), the shaggy gray fellow who abides just down the road from Boordy Vineyards and the innumerable burros over which I have cooed and fussed.

the donkey of 2011

My Dear One’s nest in their own box. My Tattooed Boy has an even larger carton filled with his collection; he even has a sheet of paper that identifies each and lists the year they were given as well as the name of the donor. My ornaments are mixed into the rest. I am not sure how many there are, well more than one hundred I regard as mine plus another forty that belong to the Tattooed Boy and then my Dear One’s twenty-seven birds.

a furry little mous

I can look at each one and remember the moment it entered our home.  There are the handmade foil ornaments produced by us children and tucked into the Christmas cards my parents sent out that year. A small wooden elf made in Germany came from Ma and was part of the treasured decorations that graced the top of our tree those many years ago. There is the glazed ceramic snowman Martha made to commemorate the new friendship that arrived with our firstborns. My aunt Doffy and I share a memory of a real mouse and knitted mice, mice sleeping in walnut shells, little furry mice, wooden mice and more remind me of that. My Tattooed Boy gilded a crabshell and filled it with a cottony landscape when we had just moved to Maryland and a lifetime later created a different ornament at a winter festival when he was in college. There are so many and each is my favorite.

two turtle doves

One day, however, I will no longer hang them on the Christmas tree. One day I will be gone and they will lose their place in memory. Perhaps my Tattooed Boy will keep one or two. Perhaps I will have grandchildren who will select ones for their own collections.  Will my beloved ornaments be sold on eBay or in a garage sale? Some may be beautiful enough and sufficiently unusual to attract the eye of a stranger. Most or even all may languish, boxed and forgotten, until someone simply tosses them.

I do not reflect on that moment. My Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come has not yet offered me a glimpse of the future beyond my lifespan.

a few things avian

The great golden globe of the moon rose above the horizon as we came around the curve in I-95 headed home. His expression was slightly drunken, a laugh out of one side of his mouth and eyes askew. Too much eggnog? An excess of champagne?  The old fellow was clearly jolly, as full of holiday spirit as we were.

We were on our way home from the Christmas Concert at Grace United Methodist Church in Baltimore. My Dear One had noticed an advertisement in The Sun, “Songs of Mary,” and what is more festive than seasonal music in a church sanctuary?

Music—and the chance to perform it—have always been at the heart of my Christmas memories. I went caroling in Cleveland Heights with my Girl Scout troop as a girl. I listened in awe to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recordings my father played on the hi-fi. I had endless tolerance for Alvin and the Chipmunks trilling, “Christmas, Christmas time is here, Time for toys and time for cheer…”    I thrilled to the basso rumble of Thurl Ravenscroft (aka “Tony the Tiger”) grumbling “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel…” (and later loved the irony that the tune’s composer, Albert Hague, played music teacher Benjamin Shorofsky on the television series “Fame.”) Every year I was glued to the television set to see Giancarlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and waited for Kaspar to explain “this is my box…” and the shepherds socialize: “Emily… Emily, Michael, Bartholomew – how are your children and how are your sheep? Dorothy… Dorothy, Peter, Evangeline – give me your hand come along with me…”

I remember vividly the first time I saw “The Nutcracker Suite” live. It was in Boston and close to the first time we attended a performance of Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity” at the Elma Lewis School of the Fine Arts that left my feet aching and my hands raw from stomping and clapping. The year that I worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, part of the Quadrangle in Springfield, Massachusetts, (and now the Michele and Donald d’Amour Museum of Fine Arts) I went to hear Handel’s Messiah. As the audience stood for the “Hallelujah Chorus” I was brought upright by a collective force rather than my own will.

Christmas is about all kinds of things for all kinds of people but I suspect it is about music for most of them—music and the granting of one’s heart’s desire.

At Emma Willard , the great motivation to make it through to senior year was to be part of Revels, an enactment of a medieval manor Christmas.  The structure varied slightly year to year—depending on the size of the class and the range of musical and dramatic skills—but key elements included the Lord and Lady of the Manor, their guests, their servants, performing troupes of mummers and singers, and so on. I had my heart set on being a Lord and was thrilled to be assigned as the dashing escort to Wendy’s demure lady. Despite endless rehearsals, the parts were kept secret and underclassmen oohed and squealed as they recognized the players. Revels music became for me the quintessential soundtrack of Christmas: “On this Day,” “The Holly and the Ivy,” “Masters of this Hall/Sing we Noël.”

The other great moment of that season at Emma was Vespers. The service was a celebration more of spirit than religion; everyone belted out favorite hymns, the choir’s sopranos soared on the descant to “Angels we have heard on high”, and our featured piece was always something challenging and wonderful— once it was Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. Then came the lighting of the candles: the congregation with flickering tapers filed out of Chapel and edged the geometric greensward, the Triangle, outside. The choir, given their notes, scrambled out of the loft, down the stairs, and onto the steps of the archway to sing “Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming.” I can still hear the alto part in my head even if I can no longer render it tunefully.

It has been years since I wedged some kind of Christmas performance into Advent; teaching, final exams, and the calculation of grades normally fill the first fortnight of December. This year, however, is the Year of Present Living so I dressed in scarlet jacket, reasonably-green scarf and Christmas-tree earrings and brooch and my Dear One donned a bright red tie, and off we went. Wreaths adorned the windows of the Georgian-style interior and choir and orchestra filled the chancel. Songs of Mary was a moving exploration of the idea of family, the birth of a child, and the angst that hides within that joy. Ancient carols bracketed the Magnificat by English composer John Rutter (b. 1945). The Handbells of Grace pealed out during the offering and sent out a “Christmas card” to all assembled after the benediction: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”

It was just so…right.

We navigated the traffic on Charles Street, pushed our way into the flow in the Inner Loop, and finally headed north toward home, guided at the end by the happy and benevolent face of the moon. A short detour took us up Paradise Road to the crest of the hill where we stood gilded in the moonglow in the crisp night air. Paradise Road, indeed.

I write a Christmas letter every year and finish each one with a quotation, a poem or passage that seems to express something of the season as well as something about the year gone by. In 1988 I offered the closing of Louise Moeri’s The Star Mother’s Youngest Child. The story, and especially its end, has been on my mind.

The Old Woman sat on by the fire, rocking and grumping. She was aching tired but happy, in the strangest way. “Uproar,” she said, nudging the old dog at her feet, “what a day it’s been, what a day it’s been. What a Christmas —“

Then she noticed the other gift, lying under the fir tree. Strange she had forgotten to open her package. Now what had that Ugly Child found to leave her? She squatted down and drew it out, surprised at its great weight. But it didn’t rattle. Carefully she opened the string, and lifted back the paper. And as she did so, out came the sound of bells, and the sound of laughter, the light of a candle, the light of stars…

“I’ll keep it forever,” the Old Woman said.

Up in the sky, Star Mother had been watching for her Youngest Child to come home…

At last she saw him, trudging up the long slope of the great black night sky. She put on a shawl of moonlight and rushed out to meet him. “Well — how did it go?”…

Youngest Child sighed, and leaned his spiky, yellow head against Star Mother’s breast. “Oh, it was a lovely day,” he told her sleepily. “And I’m…so…tired…”

“Wait,” cried Star Mother, “Tell me about it…”

“It was — oh, Mother — “ Youngest Child yawned and looked around at all his brothers and sisters with whom he would now take his place forever in the sky — “it was enough,” he said.

Yes. It is enough.

What a wonderful time we had in France. Here is what we learned:

• Northeastern France is a really muddy place.
  

  in 140 meters, enter roundabout

• Having GPS makes a world of difference. Whoever rides shotgun gets to look out the window and enjoy the ride instead of staring at a map and turns are announced to the driver decently in advance of the move. Of course, it is important to do what GPS says to do. Our Serena, She Who Must Be Obeyed, generally knows our wants and needs better than we do.
• Serena can be a tad quirky; in her commitment to the shortest route she seems often to find the most eccentric route. Fail to follow her directions and she will always “recalculate”–but the alternative way may much longer. Roundabouts in France seem designed for returning one to the point where the wrong turn occurred.
• Once in a very great while, Serena will be wrong.
• You can’t plug both the iPod and the GPS into the rental car. Plug in the GPS and tune in to Nostalgi. If you are lucky you’ll catch Joe Dassin singing Salut les Amoureux, which is his lyrics and Steve Goodman’s tune, City of New Orleans.
• You can’t buy music from iTunes-France with an American account and the selection for Joe Dassin is much better on iTunes-France.
• Make the Office de Tourisme wherever you are the first stop and don’t plan on it being open between noon and two-thirty. If you aren’t sure where it is, pull over when you are a few kilometers from your destination and ask your GPS for the Office de Tourisme; otherwise just head to Centre Ville  and keep an eye out for signs.
• Don’t settle on a parking spot before you get to where you are going; drive by your actual destination first. Chances are–particularly if it is something other than the height of tourist season–there will be ample parking wherever you are going.
• Keep a decent variety of change on hand because most parking involves feeding coins to a machine and the payant will not accept a two-euro coin when it really wants one euro, forty.
• You will have Internet access problems. Keep calm. There is bound to be a bibliothèque/médiathèque (a.k.a. public library) or a cybercafé somewhere that’ll do in a pinch.
• Pate de Fruit is the best candy ever. Keep a selection in the car, by the couch, and in the bag used for dragging around superfluous stuff.
  

  the empties... and the Cote de Rhone we liked

• Don’t be a snob: buy your vin ordinaire, your plonk, your Chateau Thames Embankment, at the grocery store. Pick a price point under 5 euros and buy 2 or 3 different labels. As soon as you find the kind you like, stock up.
• Sniff around—I mean literally, follow the scent of baking bread—until you find a boulangerie-patisserie that bakes what it sells, and buy your baguette daily. The walk (or drive) in the cool of the morning as the birds run through their repertoire, is a pleasure of its own. A folding serrated breadknife with corkscrew is an incredibly useful travel accessory.
• The only kitchen staples necessary for a week in a gîte are: a tiny bottle of extra-virgin olive oil; a tiny bottle of good vinegar; a tiny pot of mustard; small shakers or grinders of salt and pepper. Those plus a pound of lovely local butter can transform whatever you have into gourmet eats, particularly if you splash in some of the plonk you are swilling while cooking.
• Plastic bags from shops and grocery stores are great for wrapping leftovers.
• Scheduling a fall trip to conclude before November 1 means never having to learn that some place is closed for the season. By the same logic, a spring vacation should commence after April 1.
• If you feed horses carrots and lumps of sugar every day they will look forward to seeing you.
  

  Taj Mahal

Best of the Best, Fall in France, 2011

During this 21-day excursion we stayed in three gîtes plus one night in a B&B. We ate a meal out, which is to say in a restaurant, about once every other day or every third day. We spent a lot of time at World War One battlefields and monuments but dropped into some museums and churches and did a little shopping.

Comfiest gîte: Les Tilleuls, Hauteville, Pas-de-Calais

the courtyard of Les Tilleuls

Best bed: Milleroses, Crecy-la-Chapelle, near Meaux

gîte Milleroses

Most enthusiastic host and most important experience with WWI history that I could not have anticipated: gîte l’Alambic, Montsec, near Saint-Mihiel

American Monument at Montsec - visible at night through our bedroom skylight

Best croissant: Le Fournil Avenois, 62 Grand Rue, Avesnes-le-Comte (near gîte Les Tilleuls)

Best éclair : Boulangerie du Marché 6, rue du Marché, Crécy-la-Chapelle (near gîte Milleroses)

Best baguette: Hautbois Mikaël (a.k.a. Mike and Julie’s), 28 rue du Général LeClerc, Crécy-la-Chapelle (near gîte Milleroses)

Most entertaining way to buy a baguette: the bread and pastry truck that arrived at 8:40 a.m. at the doorstep of gîte l’Alambic every morning except Monday

Best chain grocery: Carréfour

Place de Béthune, Lille

Best meal: Le Broc’, 17 Place de Béthune, Lille, France—every menu item involves cheese!

Most surprisingly yummy meal: Restaurant Efes, Chez Hasan Kebab, 41 rue Saint Remy, Meaux. We were cold, we were tired, and it was a Sunday and a lot of places were closed. A beer, grilled lamb, couscous salad and a pile of hot frites could not have been better.

Lucie

Most adorable server : Lucie at Chez Angelo pizza, 6 Rue du Général Leclerc, Crécy-la-Chapelle

Best radio station for car travel: Nostalgi. It fades in and out in hilly locales, and the programmer has a taste for Bee-Gees, it’s a great mix of French chansons and American golden-oldies.

Best city for an urban-fun kind of time: Lille—and Aline at the tax-refund desk in the Printemps department store is more helpful and way more friendly than any of the staff in the Office de Tourisme a few steps away.

Best—or at least most unexpectedly delightful—museum: Musée Bossuet, Palais épiscopal, 5 place Charles-de-Gaulle, Meaux

Best WWI memorial experience: Newfoundlanders, Beaumont-Hamel or the Yankee Division Memorial Church, Belleau

the Boston Window, Yankee Division Memorial Church

the Newfoundlanders' elk

Best—well, most meaningful—WWI cemetery experience: Saint-Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial, Thiaucourt, or Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, Belleau

Thiaucourt

Belleau

Crécy-la-Chapelle on 11 November 2011

The Museum of the Great War officially opened on 11 November 2011, the 93^rd anniversary of the Armistice. The ceremony was intended to take place at 11:00, apparently, but was pushed down to 3:00; speeches aired at 4:00 suggesting that there were further delays. Doors opened to the public at 6:00.

My Dear One and I were part of that public.

We had an early supper (the remains of the roasted chicken bought at yesterday’s market in Crécy-la-Chapelle and the last of the sauerkraut), set aside the vanilla éclairs for later, and headed to Meaux. The trip was quick and easy; there was no traffic until we were about three kilometers from the building. Then there was a lot of traffic and a notable absence of traffic direction.

Parking was completely inadequate.

We were turned away from the lot, couldn’t see anything along the rue de Varreddes, circled the roundabout at the corner and came back for a second look. This time we could see cars entering the pavement leading to MacMonnies’ giant sculpture. We wedged ourselves into a space that surely was never intended for that use and walked around to the entrance.

visitors waiting on line

The line of visitors stretched from the building across the plaza and down the walkway, a crush five or six people wide. Children were tearing around, neighbors were greeting each other. The wind was icy and the temperature was maybe forty degrees, feeling colder because of windchill.

video over map

Light and color—a montage of vintage film footage and animations—swam across a section of the plaza, flickering over a map of the region carved into the pavement. Museum staff came by handing out melting-plastic cups of hot tea and coffee. Every so often we shuffled forward. A baby who may have been ten or twelve months old screamed in his father’s arms. Other families had loaded wee ones into strollers. I was in total sympathy with the screamer. What on earth were these parents thinking of?  It was dark, late and cold and I could not imagine what such an experience could be for these tots except punishment.

light, color and place

We shuffled forward a few more times. Finally we could see the doors and the press of bodies beyond. We could also see Jean-François Copé, Chairman of the Communauté d’Aglomération de Pays de Meaux. Copé presided over the ceremonies alongside President Nicolas Sarkozy and appears to covet Sarkozy’s job. Monsieur Copé, a balding man with Gallic good looks and obvious charm, came through the doors, pressing the flesh and smiling. My Dear One pushed me forward and I managed to shake his hand and wish him and the institution well on behalf of the American people. He shifted into flawless English, thanked us, and encouraged us to see the last gallery at the end of the installation which was devoted to the American presence in the war.

(The next morning when we shared this anecdote with Colette, doyenne of Milleroses, she was theatrical and very, very funny in her demonstration of distaste for the man. In the background the morning news repeatedly mentioned that Copé was scolding the Netherlands for their willingness to engage with the leftist Green Party on the matter nuclear energy.)

the stairs to the Projection

We shuffled forward and up some steps. It was by now about eight o’clock and we had been in line for almost two hours. Finally we arrived at the entrance to a “projection.”  I asked a staff member how to skip the projection and get on with our tour. We could decline to watch the film, which would last about five minutes, she said, but we still had to get through that space to get to the displays beyond. So we waited a little while longer.

My recollection of the museum is of lights and books and uniforms and weapons and an astonishing range of artworks and artifacts. The collection is the life work of Jean-Pierre Verney, an acknowledged expert in World War One and a distinguished amateur in the admirable 18^th- or 19^th-century sense of the word. He was offered $2.7 million for it, but opted to accept something around $800,000, and have the guarantee of the museum.

The museum approaches the story of the Great War thematically, using chronology only as a general armature for these themes. Labels are trilingual: largest print is French but translations into English and German are also there. Displays are organized in such a way as to engage children, and in fact, it may be a model museum, educationally speaking, for families. It certainly should be interesting to people not well informed about the war. It does not, however, offer the harsh realities that one encounters, say, at the Memorial Museum in Fleury in the Verdun battlefields. Both have their place. I would not say that the one in Fleury-Verdun is better; it is, however, the one I feel I would like to go back to.

The fact is, however, that we zoomed through the space quickly, it was late and we were tired, and we were stressed from the long and mostly frigid wait.

There are a number of museological criticisms I would raise, though. The entrance is confusing and the Accueil/Reception does not appear to be located where it can be immediately seen. The passageways from gallery to gallery and space to space are narrow; they will be a problem for people in wheelchairs and for school groups. Similarly, there is inadequate space for skirting a visitor who is examining a display; one or the other of the visitors, or both, will be inconvenienced.

My other criticism is about the didactic shape of the museum. The appearance is that of an encyclopedic review of the war but this appearance is misleading. In the absence of an assertive timeline, the sense of the rise and fall of Allied fortunes gets lost. The identity of the institution is intertwined with that of the Pays de Meaux. The key battlegrounds of the Marne, the Meuse, the Somme and the Saint-Mihiel Salient get short shrift.

Liberty Weeping and the Musée de la Grande Guerre

As an American, I feel that my nation’s contributions are blurred. There isn’t much attention paid to U.S. support of the Allies, economic involvement, or volunteer efforts, all of which preceded our entrance into the war in April 1917. The role the American Expeditionary Force played in the final resolution also seems unclear. Even the symbolic presence of the MacMonnies’ sculpture adjacent to the museum seems to get lost. The building itself turns a metaphorical back on the sculpture and there is no effort to conjoin these contrasting monuments to memory in any meaningful way.

On 11-11-11, when the nations of the West stop to remember what was lost and analyze what may have been gained by the carnage of the War to End All Wars, this new museum opened to great fanfare. While I assume that there was some sort of diplomatic presence by the United States, I could find no American names in the recitations of honored guests. As we walked back to our car after all the fanfare, only a single light illuminated the gift from America intended to commemorate French valor at the first battle of the Marne. The only detail visible was a single sorrowing face.

a single face

Museum of the Great War

We learned of the imminent opening of a museum dedicated to World War One from a cashier at a Carréfour market somewhere on the outskirts of Meaux as we headed into our final week in France. Her English was superb, but then, she said, she was half-English. Once settled into our gîte Milleroses, we tried to find out more. There is a poster for it, the Museum of the Great War 1914-1918, on the bus stop nearby. We collected brochures at the Office de Tourisme in Meaux. We searched the Internet for information and queried everyone we could find.

Information came out in drips and puddled in ever-changing configurations. Finally, a conversation with Flora Nicolas, Cemetery Assistant, and David Atkinson, Superintendent of the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, brought details into focus. Work on the site was running behind and there was not a snowball’s chance in hell I would be able to witness the dedication or even be on the premises at that time. Mr. Atkinson made another comment that has stayed with me.  In reference to the amount of publicity dedicated to the museum, he said, the border between Île-de-France and Champagne is more like an impermeable wall. On his side, practically nothing has been said; on Paris airwaves it’s been Musée de la Grande Guerre 24/7 for months.

The late Speaker of the House of Representatives, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill of Massachusetts, coined the phrase “All politics is local” decades ago. It’s true, and in France it seems that history no less than politics is also local. The British think of World War One in terms of Ypres and the Somme, the Canadians claim Vimy Ridge and Beaumont-Hamel, and Americans focus on the Argonne and Chateau-Thierry. The French, especially the denizens along the Front including the Saint-Mihiel Salient, the area around Verdun, and the Aisne-Marne, have different claims on the war, the battles and the suffering. Locality, or as the French say, pays, shapes memory, both historical and personal.

Frederick MacMonnies, La Liberté Éplorée (Liberty Weeping), 1932, Meaux, France

Tuesday afternoon, feeling somewhat at loose ends, my Dear One and I drove to the museum to see the massive monument,  La Liberté Eplorée (Liberty Weeping) designed by American sculptor Frederick MacMonnies (1863-1937) that has towered over that location on the Route de Varreddes since 1932. The commission came from an influential group in New York City as a way to honor those who died in the First Battle of the Marne and was seen as a gift in exchange for the Statue of Liberty. MacMonnies began work in 1917; carving began in 1924; the monument, all seven stories of it, was not finished until 1932.

detail of Liberty Weeping

Bodies twist and fall, intertwining in almost indecipherable complexity. The work is huge; it is visible from a distance although one wonders what will be the case in twenty or thirty years when the newly planted oaks and lindens have achieved mature size. For all its Baroque spiraling, the monument has a front and makes the most sense from that point of view. An allegorical figure, female and mighty, howls toward the heavens as she clings to a nude figure, presumably the body of a soldier, lying backwards over her knee in a sort of pietà .

François Rude, The Departure of the Volunteers (The Marseillaise)

The total effect is something of a cross between The Departure of the Volunteers – The Marseillaise (1833-36) by François Rude (1784-1855), which is on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and Call to Arms (c. 1879), a bronze by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).

Auguste Rodin, Call to Arms

Musée de la Grande Guerre from the route du Varreddes

The museum itself looks approximately finished.

The exterior, sheathed in metal and glass, appears to cantilever from the hill where the MacMonnies’ sculpture stands. It suggests an abri and explores notions of shelter, to my eye anyway, in various ways. At the same time it has a somewhat anonymous, early-21^st century modernity that alludes to the early 20^thcentury functionalism of the architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret better known as Le Corbusier. That at least was my first impression as I stood in the cold and damp, sneaking pictures that a worker had told me were not permitted. (I suspect restrictions had more to do with security for the opening than any concern about the building itself.)

new trees

Photographs and a video on the Internet show an interior and displays that are more or less complete. The next twenty-four hours are likely to be a mad scramble of positioning labels, closing up cases, and making sure the toilets are all functioning. Landscaping, pavements and plantings, will likely continue for the next month or so.  It’s an extensive piece of real estate and the museum and sculpture will anchor a new park. By spring I imagine it will look beautiful, as flowers and shrubs come into bloom.

on the sidewalk in Crécy-la-Chapelle

Neither I nor my Dear One thought Crécy-la-Chapelle would have much to recommend it beyond access to the Champagne battlefields and a relatively short drive to Charles de Gaulle for our flight home. There were some charming pictures of the town center in spring and summer but nothing we could see through Google’s satellite-eye inspired us.

Milleroses is a comfortable gîte, of course, entirely suitable.

gîte Milleroses

arum lily in November

The garden is a romantic tangle of flowers and vegetable gardens overhung by the heavy green branches of firs. The owner Colette is a red-headed dynamo, the mother of artist-daughters (a ceramist and an animal sculptor or  animalière) and a specialist in lymphatic drainage massage.

mon ami féroce, Carat

There is moreover our garde-chien, the big, beautiful Carat who walks us to our door but politely waits outside for us to come and play catch with his deflated soccer ball.

Yes, Crécy-la-Chapelle was the most practical choice for us. The battlefield of Champagne, in fact most of the Aisne-Marne is a hop-skip-and-a-jump down lovely country roads. So is the Forest of Chantilly with its Château Musée Condé. Paris is less than an hour away by train. It’s the town that caught my surprise, not for what it is convenient to but for what it is.

Modern Crécy-la-Chapelle, the “Venise Briarde,” came into being in 1972 with the merger of Crécy-en-Brie and La Chapelle-sur-Crécy.  The villages arose on terrain occupied since the Neolithic era. For several hundred years the main industries appear to have been tanning and the milling of grain, and the sobriquet of the Venice of Brie comes from the series of canals dug to make use of the waters of the Grand Morin. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the area was a magnet for artists both modern and academic.

Corot's studio from the Quai des Tanneries

The most renowned of the landscapists was Camille Corot (1796-1875) who rented a house and built a studio in a ruined tower that was once part of the town’s fortifications. Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) swung through. The photographer Eduard Steichen (1879-1973) also had a house here and the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) joined Steichen there while creating the Endless Column. American, Canadian and Japanese painters admired the area’s churches, hillsides and responded to its changeable atmosphere and light.

Yeah, but just because the tourist brochures tout such connections, it doesn’t mean that a location is either interesting or fun.

Crécy-la-Chapelle is a blast.

The weather report promised partly cloudy skies and mild temperatures.  Okay, it’s not the first time the meteorologists have been wrong. We drove down the hill into the town center discovered that Thursday is market day.

fishmonger at the Thursday market in Crécy-la-Chapelle

The Grand Place was filled with butchers and fishmongers, greengrocers and cheese vendors with massive wheels of gorgeously oozing brie, purveyors of clothes and household goods, and a fellow who will cane seats for your chairs.

some seats are in need of repair

We bought a roasted chicken from a cart in the market and vanilla éclairs from the Boulangerie du Marché for tonight’s supper and left them in the car then settled into a bar, La Cervoise on the rue du Marché, to get something to eat. It was possibly the best hamburger and heap of frites I have ever had in my life. We took note of Angelo’s Pizza, Le Commerce, a Chinese place, a kebab joint, and a creperie: so many reasons to stay and eat.

Charcuterie, anyone?

Fortified, we walked to the corner by the Office de Tourisme and studied the map of the walking tour we had picked up before lunch. That comparison to Venice is, in fact, apt. In particular I was put in mind of the quiet areas of the Dorsoduro.  We walked down the Quai des Tanneries and wondered how long it had taken the waterways to be restored once effluent used to treat skins ceased pouring in. Three small towers, the third of which was belonged to Corot, are visible from the Quai.

monsieur le paysagiste

We crossed the canal and angled our way through a narrow alley to encounter a modern paysagiste, an older gentleman scrunched on a stool, working on a watercolor of one of the towers.

We paused on a bridge over the Grand Morin and watched the steady flow of water. Over the doorway of St. George’s Church a sort of palimpsest and relic of the French Revolution identified the building as a Temple du Raison. I hope it is.

le Grand Morin

Back in the Grand Place, the sky darkened, the wind picked up, and there was no question that whatever sun was going to come had already gone. We returned to the car and imagined another visit, a month’s or year’s stay, in Crécy, walking to a boulangerie in the morning, stocking up on cheese and meat at the Thursday market, paddling down the waterways, walking in the hillsides. reading books and writing our chef-d’oeuvres. We turned left at the Beffroi, crossing yet another canal, to return to our car.

south façade of the Collegial, Crécy-la-Chapelle

We decided the Collegial would have to wait for another time or another visit. We could never have anticipated that sunshine and spare time as we rolled down the hill toward the A-4 and the Aéroport Charles de Gaulle that the day would dawn bright and make sure we got a few pictures if nothing else.

Is Corot’s studio tower for rent?

Corot lived here.