final birthday post (I promise)

Do you see what Eliza is holding in her hand? My present.
She is standing in front of the oldest paper shop in Venice, Italy.
In this shop there are hand made papers of all sorts as well as
prints made from hundred year old wood blocks.
This is my dream location and Eliza found it.
Hand made leather bound books, prints and marble paper.
On the door are collages of figures in action.

The elderly couple who run the shop sold
Eliza scraps of paper that she chose from piles cascading
off the work table. Once she made her selection, they
wrapped them up with care.

My birthday celebration is now complete.
It simply isn't a birthday without hand printed
paper from the oldest shop in Venice.

Goodbye to April and on to the merry month of May!

My Day!

My first celebration this year was with Carrie in New York. The waiter overheard us talking about birthdays (not an accident I'm sure) and arrived with my first piece of birthday cake of 2010. There will be more as I celebrate with David today and Eliza on Monday when she wings her way back to this continent.
I love the month of April. TS Eliot has given it a bad rap. The only line most people know from The Waste Land is "April is the cruelest month." Below are the next few lines which are lovely and not cruel but a sign of the earth waking up.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Here are some birthday memories.
The cherry tree in the Summit garden with the pink blossoms bloomed on April 23 every year. I wonder if it is blooming today in what is now someone else's garden.

My sister who is ten years older planned my parties. At least she planned the one my father filmed with his new movie camera. I must have been in fourth grade. I've watched the blurry images over and over. Girls in full skirted dresses and party shoes dance around in a circle holding hands. My sister calls out the commands and one of us rushes to the center (farmer in the dell) or picks up a handkerchief (a tisket a tasket, a green and yellow basket.) I was proud to have an older sister who made everything fun. I loved having my birthday party outside. We did go inside for musical chairs and to untangle the spider web that was strung from one end of the living room to the other.

In high school, when Martha Rhodes and I discovered our birthdays were one day apart, we celebrated each year together. We called each other "star sister" since the stars were clearly in line when we were born. Sometimes our birthdays were during Passover so we had to have an unleavened cake. I remember thinking that was exotic.

Since I have had a family of my own, I have been richly celebrated. Breakfast in bed, presents, singing, homemade cakes. Now emails come from across the ocean and early morning phone calls start my day. Friends and siblings send cards or call. Apple blossoms on the tree in my Lincoln garden are just opening. Forsythia and daffodils in full bloom.

April is the kindest month.

Earth's Day

Yes, she is having her day. Have you noticed? Eyjafjallajokoll erupted and grounded travelers for five days. No small event. The ripple effect was fascinating. I never knew that so many of the flowers at Whole Foods and Stop and Shop came from Africa. Never thought about it until I saw photos in the paper of boxes and boxes of dying roses in a small African country. With no planes flying, there was no way to make deliveries to Europe and the United States. This past week has been a stark reminder of the breadth of our global economy. We take for granted our ability to have fruits and vegetables year round. There are no seasons in how we eat. We can have raspberries in the darkest winter. Kiwi and persimmons at a moment's notice. Unless the planes are grounded. Then its beets and potatos around here in April. And asparagas.

I'm sure you all have heard stories of people grounded on a vacation or business trip. People waiting for heart transplants were in trouble. Then there was the disconcerting story of Laki Volcano in Iceland which erupted in 1785 and caused widespread famine across Europe when the weather pattern affected the crops. Some attribute that eruption to the start of the French Revolution as so many people were starving. I wondered, could this volcano keep erupting and keep planes grounded for weeks? I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

The main point here is the power of this ever changing and evolving planet. We are beginning to see what it feels like to be very small and powerless in the face of its movements. Tectonic plates silently shift under water and underfoot and eventually the earth quakes. Molten lava stirs below and erupts with great fanfare. Planes are grounded. Rain pours for forty days and forty nights, rivers overflow their banks. Roads are closed.

The earth speaks. It is kind of exciting when we all have to stop and listen. But will we learn anything from all of this? I promise I won't pontificate here. Or maybe I'll get revved up for my next blog entry. Some of the weather changes are due to man made climate change and some are natural occurrences. But it's good to pay attention to the earth. To notice everything. Stop and appreciate a spring day, the first birds, but notice also the awesome power on this life sustaining planet. Be humble. Make efforts to care for the land, the air and the water. With big gestures and small. Happy Earth Day everyone. She had a blast this year!

photograph

Sometimes the simplest details say it all. I took this photo in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on a side street between Broadway and Riverside Drive. The layers of white paint were applied over decades of time. Each "super" preparing it for a new tenant, erasing all record of former lives lived here. The mirror imbedded in the medicine cabinet door reflects light that streams in through a small window above the cast iron radiator. In the corner is the reflection of the present tenant's color scheme. A fleeting thing. Soon to change. People come and go, but that toothbrush holder, that mirror, they remain.

The water coming out of the tap is so hot it could burn you. And oh, the luxury of the pre-environmentally friendly shower with water that shoots out with such force, you have to be careful how you position yourself! Turning your back to it is best, a serious shoulder massage can be had.

The sounds outside the window flow in a steady stream twenty-four hours a day. Voices calling, dogs barking, trash truck brakes squealing and unexplainable crashing and yelling flow on and on. You are never alone in New York. There is always life on the street.

Can you tell I went to an exhibit of the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson at the MOMA? From then on everything I saw looked like one of his photographs. He was so good at portraying a larger message in his photographs of everyday life. He traveled extensively, mostly in Asia, between 1930-1970 as a news photographer and art photographer as well. There is a lot of history represented in his work; but indirectly. He often photographed the people watching the historic event rather than the event itself. Beauty and tragedy, joy and sorrow and everything in between are represented in the faces of his subjects. It was a thrill.

The apartment is where Carrie has lived for two years. She will soon be moving so this is an homage to the little foothold we had in New York for that time. Goodbye to West 109th Street!

Bridge walk

Thursday was a great day to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, stand in line at Grimaldi's for the best pizza in Brooklyn, eat peach ice cream while looking down the river at the Statue of Liberty and then to walk back over the river to Manhattan and take the express train home to the upper west side.

As Carrie's two years as a Columbia student draw to a close, I took the opportunity to visit her before she packs up and leaves the island for good. I was doing my part by prying her out of the library for some fun in the sun. The weather cooperated; spring really sprung this week in New York! I returned to New England today under overcast skies and frost warnings for tonight. But in all fairness to this northern clime, I think New York had the same forcast. I hope the tulips survive!

Spring comes to New York City