Category: Holding onto the Past
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The Moonflower
The heavenly fragrance of moon flower permeates the air in the whole garden. –The Flower Expert website In the summer of 1965 I was busy preparing to leave my home, family and friends and go off to college. Actually, only part of what I just said is true. I was going away to college, that’s…
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The Ball: A Fable
So you want to hear a story, is that right? Yes. Okay, then I’ll tell a story to you…even you, over there in the corner. Come closer. The boys did as they were told. A story? Well, if you don’t mind I’d rather call it a Fable. That is if you don’t really mind. Fables…
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Reflections on Father’s Day [My Split Personality]
My wife showed me the mirror. “Shall I toss it?” I looked at the brass Art Nouveau frame, just enough Erte to grab my eye. “No way,” I said. I was standing on the deck and I held the object d’art up and found my reflection. The glass was broken in several places. My face…
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The Child and the Sea
Children are attracted to the sea. Perhaps it’s the thundering waves, or the endless ways that sand can be used. The waves are constant, soothing and steady, like a lullaby. The castles that can be built in the sand can be as humble or regal as the wildest imagination. Perhaps, the attraction is in the…
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Passports 15: Good-bye England [I Want You]
We sat in an Irish Pub, O’Neills, in the west end of London. It is my last night in England. I can see Bushmills Irish Whiskey etched into the glass of the large window. The letters are backwards. Two singers–one on an acoustic and the other on an electric guitar. They are playing a Beatles tune…
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Passports 9: Guests and Ghosts in an English Hotel
We chose to be guests at the George & Pilgrim Hotel in Glastonbury, England. What we did not choose was that a few other guests were quite dead. Yes, there were a fair number of living travelers that night but occupying the same space and the same time, were the resident ghosts. What else would…
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Passports 7: Last Thoughts on Listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in Pere La Chaise Cemetery
I find Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to be a sad song of life, mistakes, loss and death. Freddie Mercury was a beautiful man who died too young. His vocals are pure and haunting: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? When you wander Paris and take time to look, really look around, you find…
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Passports 6: The Quiet Skulls Beneath Paris
A small quiet square, Place Denfert-Rochereau, in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris looks like so many such places. Beautiful and expensive apartments line the streets that radiate out from the plaza. Small gardens and vest-pocket parks abound. The locals and tourists hurry along…heading into the Metro or hailing a taxi, catching a bus…or simply strolling…
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Low Tide at Mont Saint-Michel
There was a time when you needed to watch the rising sea water if you found yourself on the Mount of St. Michael. The abbey and village were situated on the tidal flats of the second largest bay in the world, off the coast of Brittany. You would cross to the abbey during low tide,…
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