Last night, about ten o'clock, I opened the front door and invited the cat inside…
Down to New England 6: A Darning Surprise
I just wasn’t expecting it. We were on the lower level of the Yale University Art Gallery, down among the American decorative arts, just poking about, trying to see a few more things on our way out of the building and out of New Haven. As we veered from a period room...
Down to New England 5: Monuments, Memorials and Memories
This was the branch that most frightened me, the one most perfectly positioned to do irreparable harm to the monument. Lower and smaller branches had already been removed, opening space around the slender column surmounted by its neoclassical urn. Four of us—two on...
Down to New England 4: Earth, Air and Water
It is the light, it is the air, the dark featheriness of pine and fir, and the distinct chill of a summer’s evening. Our camp on Squam Lake in New Hampshire, my realest “home” gave me this with each visit; and now so does Maine. Whether it was the strangeness of the...
Down to New England 3: Jerry and Doffy
When last I saw him, the blue and lavender and green plaid cotton shirt Jerry was wearing made his bleached-denim eyes bright. The reason to travel to Damariscotta, Maine, was to have more time with Jerry before he loses his way in Time, to have dinner with Doffy and...