Amber is a peaches-and-cream Maine coon cat. Like all cats, he takes himself seriously. And characteristically of male Maine coons, he is completely lovable and goofy–in short, hard to take seriously. Here he rests in a sink half his size–which, in case you’re wondering, is 23 pounds (the cat, not the sink)–wondering what I’m doing with that little flashing box.
We’re back on the island after a winter away, and it is wonderful! Yes, it’s still a bit chilly, especially when the sun’s behind a cloud and the wind is blowing from the northeast, and we’re out planting beach grass. Yes, there was frost on the ground one morning–but the frost is beautiful.
And… we have a morning visitor!
It’s so good to be here…
A little while ago, Dan went on a business trip to Austin, Texas. When he came home it was late–after 10pm–but he was completely energized. And the reason was unexpected. He’d thought he had an empty seat next to his, always a pleasure on these days of (over)crowded airplanes. But at the last minute, a young woman with a four-month-old infant sat beside him. The child was fussy when the plane took off; his mother, apologetic. But we’ve taken our children on airplanes since they were that little, so Dan understood. And he was fascinated by the baby, who held Dan’s fingers so tightly that its little fingers had to be pried off. Who looked at him as if he was the most interesting creature to cross its path since the first day of creation. And hey, maybe he was.
I was reminded by this story, as I often am, of song lyrics. When I brought the song into focus, it turned out to be Paul Simon’s “Born at the Right Time”:
I see them in the airport lounge
Upon their mother's breast
They follow me with open eyes
Their uninvited guest
Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time
Well, and aren’t we all “born at the right time”? Babies are so full of promise and hope. Even young adults go out into the world, and the world tries hard to give them a break. Four years of college help them learn to be out on their own. They can do anything; all they have to do is choose. Internship positions offer work experience. Entry-level positions are made for them, not for the exit-level elderly.
Later, jobs don’t work out. Promotions are denied. Positions are downsized. Unemployment runs out. Marriages end in divorce. And the world situation, if they care about that, is getting bleaker. Depression. Medications. Arrgghh, back pain. And the chances of finding work after age fifty or so? Those entry-level positions aren’t for you any more, buddy.
Never mind. Empty nesters now, we can finally really enjoy ourselves and live the lifestyle we convince ourselves we always really wanted. People I know go on cruises, several a year. Travel. Play golf. Tennis. And as for those things we wanted to do when we were younger–you know, help to end poverty; protect the environment; work to ease the burdens of the downtrodden; seek social justice… We still believe in these things, but we no longer believe there’s very much we can do to make a difference. Except give money.
Shall I go on? We find we really love those elderly, magical people, our parents, more than we suspected at age fifteen that we ever would. But they are getting frail. Maybe also senile. They need care. Lots of care.
And we can see that, thirty years down the road, that’s where we’re going to be–old and frail, maybe suffering from dementia, and waiting, terrified, to die.
Not born at the right time any more, are we?
If you look at it that way, life is one long, slippery fall from grace.
Personally, I don’t believe it has to be this way. Maybe we were hoping for that empty seat next to us in a crowded plane, but the baby beside us turns out to be much, much better. Yes, we’ll lose jobs; have enough money to retire, or not; get old and frail. But no matter our pains, suffering, or disappointments, the opportunity for grace shines through in every moment of our lives if only we seize it.
Live fully and well. It’s all that’s left us, and it’s not half bad.
I never asked for a Nook. It never even crossed my mind to think that I wanted a Nook. I’m tempted to say I didn’t even know what a “Nook” was, but that would be an exaggeration. I knew. Maybe I’d never touched one, and I certainly didn’t think it had anything to do with me or the pile of unread books growing on my night table.
And then, unbidden, this Nook magically appeared among my holiday presents, a breathtakingly generous gift from my son Adam. (Thanks, Adam!)
For weeks it sat on my desk as I slowly learned how to use it. Well, okay; I learned how to plug it in and charge it.
And then I ran into my first problem: I actually own copies of some ebooks that I have acquired over the months and never read. So what would be more natural than to load them up on my Nook and read them there? You’d think, wouldn’t you?
But no.
The ebooks I owned were in Kindle format (a file with the extension .azw), and Amazon in its obscure wisdom has decided that the Kindle format is closed. You can’t read a Kindle book on anything other than a Kindle. Certainly not on a Nook.
Well, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I am not the first person to run into this problem. A little bit of research on the Internet revealed a number of software apps that might solve the problem. Some are old, and Amazon has updated its format so that they no longer work. But some of them do work. A little bit of reading, downloading, and experimenting, and half a day later, I have six ebooks that I own and want to read loaded onto my Nook and ready to go.
Needless to say, despite my having once been a great Amazon fan, I am now buying my ebooks elsewhere. (Amazon! Wake up and listen! You are not the only ebook seller out there!) As time passes, I have actually accumulated a number (twelve) of ebooks that I want to read, so I start to carry my Nook around. In my briefcase/ backpack when I travel. In my little handbag when I go out. On my nightstand in the evening, along with the pile of paper books. Just on the off chance that I might have an opportunity to actually read something on it.
No luck.
Too many paper books to catch up on. The books on the Nook can wait.
Until one day they can’t wait any more. I’ve had the Nook for over two months and it’s been as interesting and as useless as an elephant in Alaska. Time to see if it’s really worth anything.
So I start reading Kat Duncan’s romantic suspense novel Six Days to Midnight. It’s a good read, suspenseful all right, not too heavy, a good test for the Nook. I’m easily hooked on the story, but what about the device?
Here’s what I have learned.
I find that against all odds I like this thing.
It does have its drawbacks, however.
In sum, I like this little Nook and I think I’ll carry it around some more. But there still is that pile of paper books at my bedside, and I’m not going to replace them all. There has to be room in my world for both paper and Nook.
My hotel room here in San Francisco is on the corner of Grant Avenue and Harlan Place, a narrow side street that runs eastwards toward “The Irish Bank,” a pub with obvious ethnic affiliations. Oh, and I should mention that today is St. Patrick’s Day. And so today there were Scottish bagpipers in Harlan Place serenading beneath my window.
Eight pipers piping
Well, yes, Scottish is not Irish, but I think they’re both Celtic. And besides, on today of all days we’re all Irish, aren’t we? And it was wonderful! All the more so when the eight pipers piping were joined by eight drummers drumming.
I just love San Francisco!
My mother is packing to leave Florida, where she has spent the winter. She just came out of her bedroom shaking her head. “If you don’t use your head, you use your feet,” she said.
I looked up from my computer and smiled. “That’s what my mother always used to say.”
“These days,” my mother said, “sometimes you also have to use your car.”
My mom and me 03/12/2011
It seemed buddha’s lap would soon reappear amid the melting snow, but today we got another four inches or so of new snow. And Buddha got a new white coat and hat.
I live in an urban world. But through an accident of extraordinary good luck our house borders on three hundred acres of conservation land in the middle of the city. And we have coyotes. It is a miracle.
The coyotes are out tonight. There must be at least four of them and maybe six or more. They sound the way the Northern Lights look in the sky–something so large and incongruous your heart stops and you just have to open the windows and pay attention.
God speaks in many tongues.
It’s snowing here for about the 497th day in a row, and we probably won’t see the actual ground again until sometime in July. I don’t want to say anything bad about winter, but I think we could use a view of something a little green, don’t you?
And I do mean a *little* green. Maybe this isn’t what you were expecting, but it’s *so* Block Island!
We had done no research on Recoleta Cemetery–no knowledge of what famous people might be buried there–but friends who had visited there recently said not to miss it. And we had an image of what a cemetery not to be missed would be like. After all, we have such a cemetery here in the Boston area: Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, MA. Beautiful Mt. Auburn Cemetery, an oasis of peace embedded within a busy urban setting, its landmark tombs scattered widely among what must be one of the most beautiful garden landscapes in America.
Yes, we were definitely looking forward to seeing Recoleta Cemetery, an oasis of tranquility (as we imagined) in the bustling urban environment.
We should have been prepared, but we weren’t. It was as if having seen, let’s say, Block Island, we next went to see Manhattan Island with the idea that it might evince similar rural beauty and tranquility.
Imagine our surprise as we entered the gate to the city of the dead in the midst of the living city, far less green than the great city around it, its maze of shrunken streets crowded with mausoleums.
Strange and wonderful features abounded. Mausoleums topped with crosses and domes, and ornamented with wrought iron fences and elaborate doors. Round mausoleums and domed. Mausoleums open to reveal stained glass and statues within.
Statues of angels and humans everywhere reflected pensively on human mortality.
After wandering dizzily in the cemetery for a while, we were as lost as Hansel and Gretel in the great forest, all our bread crumbs eaten by the birds. Even Dan, with his near-infallible sense of direction, had no idea which way was out. And this view (downloaded from the Internet) may explain how this could happen.
One last note, just in case you were wondering: We did eventually get out. 🙂