Category Archives: Memories

Catching up

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We took the red-eye back from San Francisco on Friday night, and I've done nothing but sleep or think about sleeping since then. I guess that's not entirely true, but it's Tuesday morning and I'm still not functioning properly. I'd like to go back to bed.

SF was fun. Unfortunately we seemed to be between new exhibits at the Asian Art Museum and the DeYoung. The best thing I saw was at the public library: an exhibit of drawings by Paul Madonna that appeared as All Over Coffee, in the SF Chronicle, over the past five years.

Library


The library doesn't open until noon on Friday. Here are people pouring in as soon as the doors opened.

In a kind of nostalgia trip, on Thursday I took the Caltrain down to Palo Alto and Stanford. (Never thought of taking the train while we lived there.) We lived in Sunnyvale for two years, and Robin was born in the hospital on the Stanford campus. I did not go down to Sunnyvale, but I could see from the train some of the same type of houses we lived in were still in existence. These were built for returning GIs after WWII and sold for $10,000. I think you could get one for a thousand dollars down and a hundred a month for the mortgage. We rented; I don't remember how much we paid.

I went to see Asian art and the New Guinea Sculpture Garden at the Cantor Art Center. Robin arranged for the mother of a friend to meet me at the train so I had a companion for the afternoon. She was lovely.

I was most impressed with the sculpture garden. Ten artists were brought from Papua New Guinea to create sculpture in the garden. Some of the pieces resemble things I brought home when I visited Robin and Steve during the year he was doing field work there. I'll put up a PNG slide show soon.

More Door County

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I began writing on my new toy computer even though I couldn't connect it to the internet. Here is some of what I wrote:

September 17

I am a mass of thoughts and impressions
as I wake this morning and don't know how to put them all down. This
is so strange to me. This house reminds me of Kentuck Knob, one of
the Frank Lloyd Wright houses near Pittsburgh. It has that kind of
show house/museum quality. There is even a table and lamp in my room
that look like FLW. I think my apartment could fit in here 10 times
with space left over. The custom made dining room table comfortably
seats 16 and you could probably squeeze in 20. We had an elegant steak dinner last night. I don't
remember when I last had filet mignon. And there's more beef on the
way. My mostly vegetarian family would be appalled. Here is the sun rising over Lake Michigan.

Library - 6035
Not much art today. Lots of ideas; we took a trip
to an antique store for books to alter; had lunch at Door County Coffee
and Tea for Pilgrim sandwiches, hashbrown bake, triple layer brownie
and tea; wound up at Kathy's studio, a wonderful log cabin and
separate studio and garage in the woods. Back at Anita's we looked at
some of the idea books we brought and decided we were too tired to
work tonight. Tomorrow we'll begin.

After dinner, reminiscing,
and trying to remember names, (raja says we have problems with nouns
that won't remain in our heads), I brought up someone I had worked
with who left the area and went to Arizona with her husband and
kids, they ultimately returned and she remained with another woman.
Sandy was remarkably compassionate saying how awful it must be to
hide your own needs for so long then finally come out of the closet.
I hadn't thought about it quite that way, preferring to believe one
could be first one thing then another. Now that doesn't make sense to
me. Sandy was right and I was impressed with her compassion. Here is Lake Michigan from the porch.

Library - 5946 And Lake Michigan while walking on the beach.

Library - 6045

I've begun posting on my other blog. If you want to know what I did today, go to Japan and China on My Mind.

Questions about China

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I’ve been spending a lot of time reading China Wakes by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It’s an easy read–lots of stories about how they got the job done as New York Times correspondents and stories about how people are living in China. All of those stories are used to illustrate the point that all is not well in China. Interspersed with the stories is speculation about the end of the Communist Party, because of corruption, peasant uprisings, various other disasters. The book was written around the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre, certainly reason to think about these kinds of things. But it hasn’t happened yet, and the Party is probably as strong as ever. To give Kristof credit, he says it could take a very long time.

It’s a scary book to read. He makes the point, and I know this from my study of Chinese history, that sometimes dynasties have fallen because of natural disasters, such as that earthquake. He was actually talking about a previous earthquake. The book was published in 1994. My inner voice of gloom is speculating about what might happen if the Olympics are not a huge success. I was left with lots of questions about China’s stability, and also about Kristof.

In his most recent column about China he is much more optimistic and tempers his criticism in ways he did not do in the book. Have things improved, or is Kristof older and wiser?

My biggest question is why the book is on the reading list I got from CCS. If their concern is that we might all be starry-eyed idealists then a better and more recent book with more narrative and less prognostication is Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China by Kang Zhengguo. His terrifying picture of life in Communist China comes from his own experiences and reads less like propaganda, although I had to wonder about his naivete. So I am not going to China because I think I will change anything. I am going because I had a Chinese pen pal, Laura, when I was 13 or 14, who had to stop writing because of the Communist take-over. I am going because my interest in Japan constantly leads back to China. And more than anything, I am going, as I used to tell my mother, because it is there.

Random thoughts

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A Prairie Home Companion is coming from Ravinia this week. Sitting here listening I’m feeling very nostalgic. I’ve spent many summer evenings there, although I never considered it a great place to hear music. But some of the concerts were good and I saw Stravinsky conduct the Chicago Symphony.

I’m sure my cousins are sitting there in the audience. Maxine lives near the park and is always urging everyone to come and picnic on the lawn. Garrison Keeler wished Paul of Chicago happy 94th birthday. That’s probably my cousin, also. I was supposed to go to a party for him, but had to cancel my trip because of my detour to the hospital.

I think about Chicago often. Even now, after eleven years away, it’s still a big part of me. I plan to visit in September, make up for the trip I missed. Sometimes I think about moving back. But it’s probably true, you can’t go home again. My cousins are very good to me and I still have several good friends there. But I’ve decided it’s better coming back and visiting. After all, then I’m a celebrity. And I would miss my family terribly.

Charna is going to the Governor’s school for international studies this summer. She’s been there for two weeks; this weekend is her only opportunity to come home, then back for another three weeks. I think she’s enjoying it very much. She was very happy.

I’m still concentrating on all my exercises. I went back to the mobility clinic on Thursday and they suggested a few more exercises for mastering those steps. They also told me the beta blocker I’m taking is what is probably making me more tired than before. They think I’ll get used to it. I did manage my three miles yesterday and didn’t collapse afterward, so I guess I’m doing better.

Passover

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We had a great seder last night, and I’m looking forward to another great, but longer, one tonight. Steve did the honors, making sure everyone participated; we got through most of the Haggadah, learned some things, had a few laughs. Pictures when I get home.

This was nothing like the seders of my childhood. They were always somber and more than a little agonizing. Truth to tell, everything about Judaism was like that when I was a child. Between the war (WWII), antisemitism and my father’s paranoia about antisemitism, it was not a fun scene. My grandmother, who lived with us, sat at the head of the table, usurping my father’s place, although I never heard him complain. She and my father would race through the readings in the Haggadah, entirely in Hebrew or Aramaic, their Austrian accents making them sound like they had stones in their mouths. I would follow, reading the English translation, which was stilted and not altogether intelligible to me.

My mother, whose only interest was cooking would sit there asking when she could start serving the food. There is a lot of reading and discussion before you get to eat.

The Haggadah, in addition to praising God, is primarily a discussion about how to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. In fact, the Exodus plays only a small part in the story, the recounting of the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. It is almost as though everyone knew the story so well they didn’t have to repeat it in the Haggadah. Moses and Aaron get short shrift, as does Joseph and how the Israelites got to Egypt.

Unlike my childhood seders, in which I had almost no part except to sit quietly and behave, Steve had all of us reading, mostly in English, and discussing what was written, what was omitted, and what it means for us today. Good job. We had a great dinner; Renee’s matzoh balls are easily as good as my mother’s; we finished reading and singing the songs about 10 pm and had time to visit for a while.

All of this was punctuated by the sirens from the Pope’s motorcade as he went up the FDR to a youth rally in Yonkers and returned to Manhattan. I have some pictures of that, also.