On the water

 “Wow, that feels very unstable!” I quaver, as the kayak rocks gently side to side, the cool dark water inches away. “You’ll get used to it,” I’m assured. I’m not so sure, but there are 20 people, 2 friends and 1 sister who will be annoyed or at any rate discommoded if I back out now. So I paddle gingerly into the gentle current of the Combahee River. The tide is going out and we’re paddling downstream, so time and tide are on my side.

LL, E and and I left Beaufort at 8 am, early for me but just fine for them.E’s friend L had invited us on a kayaking trip down the Combahee River with ERCK (Edisto River Canoe and Kayak club).The logistics were all out of my hands, which I love. We met up with the tour at Public Landing Ln near Yemassee (home of the monkey escapees). It’s a dirt parking area, surrounded by swamp, live oaks, Spanish Moss and palmettos. A sagging covered pavilion with a lopsided picnic table sits in the middle. A dirt and grass sward and the dock and ramp front the river, with more woods on the other side. LL tells me the last time she was here there were stuffed chairs and sofas in the party pavilion, and a TV showing the Superbowl. There’s a locked structure to the front of the pavilion, and I wonder if the TV is in there.

We stand around, talking in a desultory fashion as people arrive and two trailers of kayaks are driven in. The kayaks are lined up along the sward, orange, green, yellow, white, red, olive green, neon green. And there’s one canoe, to keep the organization’s name honest. J measures me for a paddle, “you’re about my height, so this paddle should work.”  Later W measures me again, using my wing span:  “that’s too long.” He stands other paddles upright until we find one I can curl my fingers over.  “Okay, but it’s missing a splashguard.” We cannibalize  one from another paddle. I have no idea what it does for me; I get splashed plenty during the next 5 hours on the water.

After the kayaks are unloaded, most of the cars and both of the trailers drive the 15 miles down to Sugar Creek Landing. The rest of us wait. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything in the car. I’ve already changed my clothes, removing the light sweater and the leggings, which I won’t need on this sunny mid-70s day. A Cliff bar sits in one of my rain pants’ pockets, glasses wipe in another, phone in a baggie, sunglasses secured by one of L’s bands, floppy hat on head. I forget about sunblock, which turns out to be a mistake. As we stand, I realize I’m in a swamp. That means no-see-ums. I put on the organic bug repellent: no Deet, no citronella. Cinnamon, cloves, cedar oil, and a few other ingredients I can’t recall.  I can’t look it up, because at some point it disappears from my pants pocket.

“That’s a lovely smell,” says a nearby woman. I share my repellent, glad to do something useful. I learn that another woman and her son are also non-members. She’s a local nurse, her son a mechanical engineer in Charleston. Her silver-gray French braid is meticulous and gorgeous. She looks trim and fit, with her strong tanned legs and sporty sunglasses. Newbie though she is, I’m convinced she’ll be instantly competent on the water. Since most of the folks there are club members or guides or National Park assistants, I’m probably going to be the only person to need caretaking. While humiliating, it’s also comforting to know.

LL and I take a few pix while we wait

.

The shuttle returns with the rest of the group. We gather around W, and he does a head count and shares the safety briefing.  It’s short and simple: if a leader holds a paddle up vertically, it means come to him. If a leader blows 3 blasts on the whistle, go to the shore. “Everyone has a whistle?”  I don’t, and he searches around for a spare. It’s brand new, in a small plastic bag, a small rectangle of plastic. Somehow, the ring attacher has become rusted. I shove it in the lifevest pocket.

It takes awhile to get everyone in the water.  I paddle around, up river and in circles, figuring out how to maneuver. L stays near, giving slow careful instructions. She constitutes herself my guide and teacher for most of the trip, for which I’m equally guilty and profoundly grateful. I call her my nanny. 

Finally we set off, W in the lead, two guides in the middle, a Park ranger in the rear.  I paddle shallowly, The water drips down the paddle onto my arms and pants. L has loaned me a cushion which feels comfortable, but I discover after the half way break on the sandbar that it’s one of the reason my balance feels so precarious: it puts me 6 inches higher in the kayak, and I don’t have contact with the bottom.

I learn to back paddle to turn myself when current or wind fight my forward strokes. I learn to lean forward and paddle deeper. On the occasion when I tip dangerously to port, I learn to not lean side to side. I learn to not put the paddle in behind me or let it drag there. I don’t have to learn how to stop paddling and drift with the current.

“Boat!” “Boat on the left!” L tells me to paddle to the right and then face into the wake. I surf the waves. “Isn’t that fun?!” she says. “A little scary” I think, but don’t say.  “If you tip over, just stand up,” she says.  The river is very shallow there. Later on, she comments, “you can’t stand up here.”  Alrighty then.

On the right bank a huge white winged shape rises, wheels, and resettles, a still upright silhouette in the marsh grasses. “Heron,” says L.  The group strings along down the river, sometimes in a line, sometimes in little clumps. From a distance, the yellow paddles look like parade flags lining the route, kayaks lined up between the dots of bright yellow. More motor boats come by. I’m off to the side. L and LL are paddling nearby, talking. Another boat passes slowly and, without prompting, I turn my kayak and surf the wake. “Did you see me?” I ask L triumphantly.  She says, “Yes!’, proud of her pupil “You’re a quick learner.”

The folks ahead of us are circling and floating by a small boathouse. The creek it guards has a metal gate blocking access. This is the dock for Auldbrass, the mansion that Frank Lloyd Wright designed and a Hollywood director purchased. I pause, thinking about the camera phone Velcro-ed securely into my shirt pocket under the life-vest. But the current is pulling me past and I don’t want to maneuver in the crowd of boats. The boathouse doesn’t look particularly interesting, although supposedly all structures have angles that are neither 45 nor 90 degrees. The walls are supposed to mimic live oaks. I don’t see it though, so I float past. The next few minutes are fraught as I try to avoid running into other boats. “Don’t worry,” L tells me, “you can’t hurt anyone and we’re always bashing into each other.” I discover this is true when I bump gently against the elegant nurse’s kayak. No harm done.

I’m in the center of the river, floating, a lazy paddle dipped now and then to correct my course. A thin streak moves swiftly upstream on my right. Something is swimming there, but when it reaches me, close enough to touch, all I see is a brown blob. “It’s just a branch,” I tell LL. “No, it was moving against the current.” We debate.  Muskrat? Turtle? I still think it was a small log.

My shoulders are tired, and the webbing between thumbs and palm are sore. I drift more and more. There are opportunities to float while the leaders investigate side creeks and more adventurous club members ponder the options. But most of the side channels and creeks are filled with branches, and we continue along the main channel. J and W confer about a rest stop. J paddles towards the right bank…no it’s just swamp, no firm sand. Finally, along the big island he spots a tiny sandbar, and we turn left and run up on it. “Don’t go over to the island,” he warns everyone. Pluff mud and sharp mussel shells are the danger, not poisonous snakes or alligators. Not this early at any rate. Despite the warning, some people wade over to find a place to pee in semi-private.

Considering then difficulty I had getting in and out of the kayak at the beginning (I needed several helping hands), I stay in my kayak, but unbuckle the life jacket and move the cushion. This is when I discover I don’t need it. L takes it off my hands. E puts in and pulls out her Cliff bar. I realize that my stomach is grumbling (not audibly), and I check my pockets for my own Cliff bar.

It’s not there. I check again, then call over to E:  “Do you have a Cliff bar?” Just the one she’s eating: she handed me mine back at the car when we were getting ready. Yeah, but I can’t find it. She shrugs. L offers me some PEAcans. I take some pix.

J says, the tide is going out. His kayak is now totally beached, whereas when we first landed it only had a nose on the sandbar. This is the signal to move on down the river; we’re only halfway and we don’t want to be paddling against an incoming tide. E and L and LL are going to wait while the rest of us move on, and then pee on the sanbdbar. This is apparently river etiquette when it’s not safe to go into the woods. I suddenly discover my Cliff bar: it had burrowed deep in my pants pocket and to the side, so my previous quests didn’t find it when I reached the bottom of the pocket.  Hurriedly I open it up and eat half and feel much better.

I’m at the front of the pack for awhile, but soon the others catch us up. The river is so calm, and I feel so much more stable now that the cushion is gone, that I decide I really need to get a pic of E on the water.  Carefully I set the paddle perpendicular to the kayak, resting in front of me. I pull out the phone in its baggie. I unseal the baggie. All the time the current is pulling me towards the bank, and E is paddling away from me. I set the phone carefully in my lap and paddle slowly; I don’t want to drip on the phone, unsealed in its baggie, or drop the phone in the bottom of the kayak. I call to E: “Turn your head!” She doesn’t hear me, so I take a pic and then shout again, as I set the phone down and maneuver the wayward kayak away from the bank. She’s too far away now and can’t turn her head enough even for a profile shot. I give up and put away the phone, panting a little with the effort and thankful to have my phone secured.  I have an underwater pouch for the phone, but it’s back in Tijeras, doing me no good at all.

We see more motor boats. We see drowned trees, poking small sticks out of the water to show where the danger lies. The pontoon boat that passed us on the sandbar is floating lazily ahead of us, while one of the party casts a fishing line. Over to the right in a backwater we see three more fishermen standing upright in a barely-moving boat. As long as they don’t make wakes, I’m fine. 

The river is widening, creating islands and sandbars as it meanders oceanward. This is the ACE Basin. We’re passing old rice plantations now, with their trunk gates and levees. The gates were used to regulate water in the fields.  L says they are called trunks because that’s what they are made of. Makes sense to me.

Around a bend I see a large wooden boathouse, with an arch over the water.  This is the landing to Cherokee Plantation, they tell me. Although the wind has freshened and the paddling is harder, I decide I want a picture. Another struggle with pocket and baggie and a wandering kayak, and I take two quick pix.  And that’s it for pix on the water. 

My arms are tired, but I can no longer just float with the current, because the tide is coming in and the wind is blowing across me and I have to paddle continuously. I lean forward, digging in with the paddle. Suddenly my arms no longer hurt. I have a rhythm. I feel secure. I feel like I’m flying. I watch the banks glide past, and I look ahead to the rest of the kayaks, colorful against the steely water. I look for E’s red ballcap, but she is long gone, far ahead of us. I stop paddling, watching buzzards circling ahead, and listening to the call of tinier birds in the grasses.  

More boats pass, and as I face into the wake, my companions draw ahead. I’m now the last in line. I catch up and ask J how much further.  He says, not too far, and I tell him I’ve been on too many hikes when “not too far” meant 2 more hours. He laughs and says, no, really, it’s not too far and then a short paddle up the creek.  Hmm, I say skeptically.

L waves to me. She’s close to the right bank. I angle towards it and she calls, “Come to me!” So I switch my direction straight to her. When I reach her she explains that this is the lee of the bank, and the wind is blocked, which makes for easier paddling. Turning another bend, I see the group of kayaks, strung across the river, huddling around another boat dock. This isn’t our landing, though, J says: the creek is up to the right. 

By the time we reach the creek, the others have disappeared.  Even though we’re paddling against the current, it’s not too hard, and soon it’s glassy and still. I tell J that I now believe it’s an easy paddle. Ahead I see E’s red ballcap.  “Are you waiting for us?” I call across the water. She explains that she’d been told to not go under the bridge, so she stayed to warn us.  Off to the left was a short wooden bridge with minimal clearance and a forbidding NO TRESPASSING sign.  I don’t think I would have taken that branch, but never mind.

We reach the landing. There are still trucks and cars and boat trailers, but half the group has moved on. I run in my kayak and J pulls me in further. And then I look at him and E and shake my head. My body is welded to the narrow boat, legs sticking straight into it.  Can I bend them? Can I get enough leverage to stand up? My thigh muscles, never robust, are noodles. E gives me a hand while J sits on the nose of the kayak and I use my hands to pull my left leg up and out of the kayak and over the side. Then I’m kneeling on my right leg anbd finally, somehow, I scramble out onto my feet in the shallow water. I look at J: do we carry the kayak up?  He tells me to walk around a bit and get my land legs.

We stand around. I change into my leggings and T-shirt and pee behind the Subaru, which is my only shield. No one looks, because that’s river etiquette, and I wouldn’t care anyway. As E says, plenty of people have seen my butt. We eat more pecans, and I put on more bug repellent. Sadly, I’ve mislaid the clove/cinnamon solution. This stuff is oily and smells of noxious chemicals. But better that than bug bites, I guess. Then I return to the boats and J & I carry mine up to the grassy verge at the side of the ramp. E comes over and we carry hers and J’s and then help L bring her kayak to her truck.

L slowly and methodically ties down her kayak and pulls apart the paddle. E says, “I love to watch L at work.” I agree. There’s a Zen quality to it; there is no haste, no apparent effort, and no waste motion. It’s hard to leave, but eventually we hug and wave and thank the guides again and get into the car. I’ve asked to be driven past Auldbrass. Reportedly there was a menagerie. I hoped to see a glimpse of the house and maybe an escaped zebra. One of the kayakers had seen zebras on a previous driveby.

Sadly, all I saw was a crooked fence and gate, and lots of trees hiding some out buildings.

When we got home and finished unpacking the car, I made straight for the shower. I discovered that, despite my hat, my face was glowing with the sun, and my forearms and the tops of my hands were also burned. I sent a selfie to P, saying, “Guess who got sunburnt!” Her reply: “Oh no, look at that bright face!”

On the barrier islands

We are walking towards the sun, into a strong wind, waves tumbling to the left, groyne ahead. Silhouetted darkly in the distance, coming closer, is a small herd of horses-and-riders They turn inland, walking along the groyne until it sinks into sand. The wind blows sand in a smoky waterfall over the groyne, the tails and manes swirl the same direction.

Further up the beach two more horses and their riders come towards me, wading in the surf. I take a long distance picture and another as they pass me, trying to show the white tumble of surf against the legs. The woman in the cowboy hat lifts a hand and smiles.

We continue to walk into the wind. The goal is to reach the great windfall of sun-bleached, wave-scoured trees lying flat with flat walls of roots entwining vertically at the end of the fallen trunk.  Snags reach upward, providing perches for the sea birds. It’s a graveyard of wood and water and wind.  But today it is cold and windy (Why did I wear shorts? Why didn’t I bring a hat?) We turn around after 30 minutes and make our way back. With the wind at our back now, the way seems shorter, walking easier.  

Towards the end of the walk, we meet the pair of riders coming back.  “Can you send me the pix you took? I have plenty of her, but none of me.” I get her number and text a picture then and there…”I’ll have horses available tomorrow if you want to ride.” If only L or N were here: they’d like that. 

I like horses in the abstract, and sometimes I can even stroke their noses, but I’ve only ridden them a few times. Once when I was in grade school we went to a riding stable. I was led out and left in a field. My horse promptly turned around. L came jogging past on her horse, saying “You’re going where I’m going.” “Where’s that?” “Back to the stable.” Right, so I had no authority.

Fast forward several years: I was working in the Library HR office, and T, head of Children’s Services, had an office behind me. She owned a show horse named Showtime, and one weekend we drove out to the stable where she did some training. I was put on Showtime for the cooldown walk around the training ground. He was a very large, very tall horse. I was not comfortable.

As we drove back towards home from Hunting Island, E asked if this would be a good time to look at the Praise Houses. There are three on St Helena Island, leftovers from the days when slaves were not allowed to congregate in large groups or attend the white man’s churches. They are tended and maybe even used? At any rate, they are opened for special events. 

It was a pretty afternoon, albeit a bit late by the time we turned down Coffin Point Rd (we’d waited to sign for a wine delivery so didn’t reach the beach until almost 3:30). Still the slanting light was pretty. We missed the Praise House on the drive in and continued down the Avenue of the Oaks until it dead-ended at the plantation house. Sometime I’ll have to come back and check out the beaches to right or left. But meanwhile we drove back through the tunnel of live oaks, the hanging Spanish Moss glowing golden in the late afternoon light.

This time we saw a tiny little white house on the right side of the road, fairly close to the main highway we’d turned off. The praise house sat quietly in a small plot of trodden dirt which was covered in thick live oak leaves. Plot and house were enclosed by a half-circle of woods. The area was small, the building itself no bigger than a tool shed.

The door at the top of the 3 shallow steps was padlocked, but we could look into the windows. There were four windows, one on each side of the door, one in each side wall, 2/3 of the way to the back wall, which was blank and empty of adornment.  Blended into the iron bars of the side windows we could see openwork iron crosses, the only real sign that this was a religious place. A podium on a shallow platform faced the door and 6 wooden benches, 3 to a side. Narrow waist-high shelves stood against each wall. There was no altar, but what appeared to be a Bible was propped open in a cubby behind the podium. A sign on the front of the podium said “Welcome!”  I thought of how noisy it would have been when it was in use, people crowded into the tiny house, singing praises. Now all was still.

Where in the World...

 A friend checked in the other month:  "where are you, what are you doing?" I've stopped blogging and posting to Facebook and that's how most people keep track of me.  So I thought about it.  Why am I not communicating, why am I not connecting?  I glanced through some of my draft blogs (the whiny/sad/exhausted/introspective ones that I did not want to share), and I thought....hmmm.  But, for the sake of people who are wondering.....

I stopped blogging in spring of 2020, and previously had not done much in 2019.  I'm not sure what made me stop.  I had plenty of time and most people were documenting the hell out of Life in the Time of Covid.  But, I didn't want to think about The Former Guy's daily assault on democracy, and I didn't want to think about how circumscribed my life was.  I told people that my 3 years of being a nomad had prepared me for this, and that is sort of true.  While I traveled, my connections were mainly virtual, and my activities solitary.  But, of course, my activities were not pursued in solitude while I was petsitting.  I visited museums, attended performances, checked out towns and countrysides, shopped for food, chatted with neighbors.  Although most of my time was spent reading and knitting and writing, I did get out.  I had something to write home about.

2020 was something else.  I had no housemate and no pets to keep me company.  I visited M once a week when I picked up my veggie share.   Once I was vaccinated in 2021, I played some duets and trios, masked and sitting under the trees, but for a year my music was totally solitary.  I learned some fiddle tunes and attempted some of the Bach unaccompanied sonatas and partitas.  I practised my mini-piano.  And of course I did other things.  I folded 1000 cranes in solidarity with my nephew who was undergoing chemo.  I tried to write, walk, and draw.  I learned a bit of Norwegian on Duolingo.  I did weekly virtual yoga with my Portland friends.  I re-did The Artist's Way and started doing daily Morning Pages while I sipped my coffee.  I also did Tai Chi Chih while I made the coffee and did the dishes.  I posted a daily pic to Blipfoto. I set up a clay studio in the garage and made a LOT of pots.  (They all got fired in the autumn, when Coyote Clay reopened.)  I knitted and listened to books and podcasts.  Mom called me every day.  I lost 50 pounds.  And these routines sufficed and continue to suffice in 2021.  But they are nothing to write home about.

Eventually, things opened up a bit.  In August, 2020, I drove to TX to bring back my housemate and her pets.  In September, 2020, M died from a recurrence of cancer.  I still can't write about it.  In October, 2020, I went to Portland because my aunt had been calling me several times a week; she was not dealing well with isolation.  She had technical problems with her computer and phone and emotional problems that led to medical problems.  So, I car-camped across the West and ended up at B's house in SE Portland.  She had just lost her husband and welcomed me into her guest room for as long as I needed it.  I kept postponing my departure:  I was helping my aunt, driving her to appointments, keeping her company, clearing up technical issues.  I walked with S several days a week and saw several other friends and family, totally masked. I was reveling in B's company; it had been too long. I celebrated my aunt's birthday, Solstice, Christmas, New Year's.  I made wreaths.  I sewed a coffee cozy.  I made jewelry.  I watched spring return.

In March, I returned to NM, via a road trip with V through CA wine countries and various wild-flower spots.  I arrived home in a freak snow storm.  And here I am now.  I've been pet-sitting for pay (a mere $25/day) at the co-op and in Santa Fe, but that's the only scheduled and gainful employment I have had.  In the fall I went back to Portland to catsit for friends, and then to IL to join a sister for a roadtrip through TN to VA, where I met my nephew's fiancee.  Last month I returned to IL for a trip to Branson MO;  it was the sort-of annual Spider Reunion, but C had to bail.  On these trips I saw some family, including two of my grandnieces.

It's all good, but somehow it's not enough. And the horrible politics that I tried to escape in 2017 are still there.  It's been such a relief to have Biden in office:  no more daily news bulletins about crazy and vicious behaviors.  But, on my recent travels, I became sharply aware that the civil war is still in place:  TRUMP WON  and Fuck Biden signs were scattered throughout the Heartland.  I don't know if we'll ever recover, and it makes me sad and anxious.  And  I miss the regular travel and the distraction it provides, although I hate flying in the time of COVID.  I miss having gainful employment, although I don't want to be under someone's scrutiny and I don't want to be living under someone's schedule.  I miss being productive, although I cannot define what I mean by productivity.  None of what I'm feeling now is new, nor is the supportive feedback I'm getting.  And that's why I'm not writing about it.  It's small and boring.

My friend suggests that I look into reframing my inner monolog, which, again, is not new advice.  But how?  I want to run and hide again, instead.  But that won't happen while the pandemic rages and the borders remain closed.  So for now, I'm here in NM.  I take pix, I read, I craft, I make music.  Surely that's enough.  I'll write again when I have something to say.

Toi toi toi Operaman

From my Facebook post for October 30, 2017:

A fabulous evening with the Barber and my charming host in the over-the-top and delightful Coliseum. Wonderful music, sprightly physical comedy, great company. Thanks, Stephen!

I'd spent most of the day at my cousin's house, pottering and tutoring, but got to the Charing Cross tube station in time to stop by the National Portrait Gallery (one of my favorite places in London) before meeting Stephen at the bistro by the English National Opera house.  The bistro was a brightly lit narrow room, with a long bar along the left-hand wall and small tables for two lined along a banquette to the right.  I snaked through the crowded aisle between these two points and found my companion for the evening, a tall smiling aquiline-nosed man in his late 70’s, dapper and genial.  We ordered a hummus plate and good champagne and commenced with the catching up.  His bubbling, now somewhat creaking, tenor voice talked of his fiancée, his recent years in Ipswich, the opera we were about to watch (The Barber of Seville), his relationship with the English music world, and news of old friends from Portland (where we met so many years ago.)  I talked of my recent 6 months as a nomad and my upcoming book plans.  It had been many years since our respective moves away from Portland, years which included the death of his mother and the death of my marriage.  But, his warmth and interest in the world around him made those years inconsequential:  we talked delightedly. 

Afterwards we walked down Piss Alley, a dark narrow cobbled affair with door niches at intervals. It was a connector between two major thoroughfares and a place for drunks and drug deals. Our destination was the stage door for the ENO, where he dropped off a bottle of champagne for the tenor, to whom we were indebted for our tickets.  Then back up the alley to the ENO’s Coliseum, a rococo structure, inside and out.  Here’s Stephen’s take on it:

It so happened that an old friend, KH was in town and this provided a perfect opportunity to get together. K is a violinist and although she has played as an orchestral musician in the Overture to the Barber, had never seen it and knew next-to-nothing about it. From the moment we went into the auditorium K was oo-ing and aaaah-ing over its splendor of the venue. We had excellent seats in the stalls and settled in for some fun. From the opening notes of the overture, K was smiling. Over the course of the next 3 hours and 10 minutes, I would glance at her from time to time and that smile never left her face! Not once did I catch her without that happy grin. And that made two of jus ‘cos I was doing a lot of smiling myself.

Afterwards, we shared a taxi to Waterloo Station where he caught a train back to Ipswich and I caught the Tube to Leyton.  It was the last time I would see him.

We met over 20 years ago when he visited my friends H and E, current caretakers for my cat Simone.   He was living in Marin County at that point, with an ex-wife and pre-teen daughter nearby. I never got his trajectory clear.  He was an English choir boy whose father flew planes in WWII.  I think he sang under the baton of Benjamin Britten. At any rate, he was involved with the Aldeburgh Festival and was invited to sing in the 50^th anniversary of The Building of the House:  he was one of 2 people who sang in the original performance for the Queen.  He was a Cambridge scholar. He was a fabulous cook. He was a solicitor, complete with wig, in Hong Kong. He hung around with Steve Miller and the band. But I knew him as H and E’s  LeBoyfriend, a charming and funny and erudite man who loved all things opera and was a kind and delightful friend.  Eventually he moved to Portland.  He worked for the Portland Opera a bit and wrote the opera’s blog under the moniker of OperaMan, even after he left the Opera itself in 2007.  At one point, when I first contemplated living with D, he became my housemate/catsitter for the duration of that experiment (the conclusion of which should have warned me but didn’t.)  We were witnesses and signatories to the marriage certificate when H and E joined the throng of gay couples getting married at the Keller Auditorium that giddy and joyous March 3, 2004.  (The Multnomah County ruling was overturned, and it would be 10 years before such marriages would legally stick in Oregon.) I was his guest at many an opera dress rehearsal at the same venue; as OperaMan he was comped for most of the operas.  The following email exchange is representative of this time:

To me:

See you at Jake's!

H and I will be the couple sitting doing today's NYT crossword and drinking many gallons of beer (she's a real toper when she puts her mind to it as you can imagine - sometimes she will even have a second pint!)

Love,

S.

To Stephen:

I'll be the person in the short tight black dress with the bright cover-up that is failing to cover-up sufficiently.

In 2009, Stephen initiated one of the grandest gestures in a life filled with kind gestures. The story involves Twitter and a Washington DC music teacher named Priscilla Barrow.  Stephen entered the Twitter-based OperaPlot contest (the idea was to summarize an opera plot within the 140 character-limit of a Twitter post.) He won the Grand Prize, 2 tickets to the Washington National Opera’s production of Turandot followed by attendance at the social event of the year, the Opera Ball.  Stephen decided to give the tickets away.  H suggested he choose a music teacher in DC.  At the end of the story, which involved such luminaries as Placido Domingo and Aretha Franklin, Priscilla was the belle of the ball, bedecked in jewels and beautifully wearing a dress donated by the Opera.  Stephen delightedly stage-managed from afar. The link to Stephen’s inimitable blog entry about it seems to have disappeared, but here are links to two other stories:

Shortly thereafter, Stephen moved back to England to care for the Aged Parent and delight his Facebook friends with her trenchant comments and his loving stories and political commentary.  His girlfriend was a frequent visitor, and I watched their long-distance love affair from afar, rejoicing in the happiness which glowed from the pictures he posted.  (My favorite was from their visit to Ascot.)  I visited England several times during his final years there, but I never met her and only saw him on that fabulous evening in 2017. 

A year into my nomadic lifestyle, I logged the following journal entry from Norway:

April 14, 2018

There is one cloud to my content, however. My friend Stephen Llewellyn, who took me to the English National Opera last year, fell and broke his neck. He's alive, but obviously in a serious condition. His fiancée posted the news on FB, and I just read about it. Reportedly, he is in good spirits and wiggling his toes, but Jesus. He's had enough health crap, with various cancer episodes.
 

The next 2 years would be full of setbacks and jumps forward.  But the love story continued, and his plans moved onward. In January of this year he was set to move into a house in Ipswich, to be joined later by his fiancée, who is currently working in the States as a visiting professor of music.  Sadly, he developed septicemia and by March he was in hospital. He died on May 8, of complications from COVID 19.  He was a smart, principled, kind, talented, and generous friend, and the world is much poorer without him in it.  I asked H if he died alone and she said that, because of COVID, his only contact with loved ones was a tablet, given to him by one of his many friends.  However, she wrote, knowing Stephen, by the end of his stay the staff were all dear friends.

I guess that is a reasonable epitaph for any life.

The Five Senses

As I sit at the brightly colored batik table cloth,
the scents of sweet, pungent spices permeate the air;
I can almost feel them, prickly and penetrating.
(The cinnamon predominates.)

And I can almost feel the gentle plucking of the lute,
today's choice in the daily experiment,
finding a new compoer, A to Z
(Today's is Luys de Narva'ez.)

The mug I made from speckled buff cradles the warm brown of the coffee.
I savor the sip of acrid richness;
it craves a complementary sweetness.
(Is the bread pudding ready?)

Tasting touching, seeing, smelling, hearing:
all present and accounted for, not one missing.
But I float in a sensory deprivation chamber.
(If a tree falls in the wood and no one is there....?)

Not so long ago I sat at a friend's table.
We clinked glasses, we shared smiles.
I can almost feel our voices, rising and falling softly.
(I am comforted.)

Invasion of personal space

The hummingbird showed up at the feeder today.  I'm so relieved.  There was only one day of snow, but it was a long day of solid wind and fall.  The snow piled on the roof and fell with a thump that sometimes shook the house.  I bundled in my sweater, enjoying the soft snowy light, but wondered where the birds were sheltering, how the little hummers with their high metabolism could manage.  I still wonder, but it seems they are fine.  There is comfort in that.  Maybe I cannot travel during this pandemic, but they can.  And they are visiting me in my solitary confinement.  It's nice.

They are not the only travelers.  I hear the constant whoosh and hum of I-40, down below my hilltop home.  Who is out there on a Saturday?  Why are they not sheltering in place?  It's not all trucks by any means.  Clearly, people are out and about.  Not me, though.  I find myself flinching from the very idea of it, rather the way I flinch when I turn the corner to my PO Box and see a person fewer than 6' away.  I have become a recluse, and other people are a source of fear and discomfort, an invasion. 

The crowded and crazy world has been leading me up to this point.  A year ago, I sat in the top row of the Saddle Dome in Calgary, Alberta.  I felt both acrophobic and claustrophobic.  I thought about random shooters and the long crowded hike back down the beer-sticky cement stairs.  Then I thought, no, I'm in Canada, I don't need to worry about gun violence in public places.  I breathed carefully and watched the Flames fall to the Avalanche.  At the end of the game, I followed the crowds into the rain and walked slowly back to the hotel, sympathizing with the low-spirited silence of my fellow walkers, such a contrast to the pre-game exuberance walking in.  The wet streets reflected white and yellow headlights and bright red tail-lights and neon blue streetlights.  People passed me, without a glance.  As I turned away from the crowds, my nighttime caution kicked in, and I watched doorways and approaching pedestrians for signs of danger, walking briskly and attentively in the way the self-defense people taught me:  don't look like a victim, don't look hesitant.  If your spidey sense tingles, cross the street. 

I remember another spring in Portland, 30+ years ago.   A workmate and I were walking down 10th street after a quick Safeway run on my lunch break.  We were talking animatedly when an unkempt man accosted us, asking for money.  I looked at him and said, "Sir, you are invading my personal space."  I was irritated, because he had panhandled us on the way in and I thought that once was enough for one day.  The trees were budding, the sky was blue, the street was clear of litter and this person was an affront to my pleasant day.

Now personal space has a whole new meaning, and the invasion of it is more than an affront:  it is an assault.  But it's an invisible assault, not overt like the guns in the mass shootings or the muggings on the empty streets in the bad neighborhoods.  One doesn't know how to defend from it.  My mom calls me after her food is delivered, panicking because the delivery people aren't wearing masks or gloves or standing 6 ft away.  "They are breathing on my food!"  I tell her that even if she did her own shopping, she could not guarantee that no one has touched or breathed on her food, and she would have even more people standing too close.  "Just wash the items and wash your hands," I say.  You can't live in fear, I think.  The world has always been dangerous.

Meanwhile, I watch the birds, envying their freedom, and flinch away from people at the post office. 

Astro/Carto chart

As per usual, an innocent query turns into a bit of sibling rivalry and apocryphal story-telling.

I start the ball rolling:
Any of you ever know what time I was born? Mom thinks after noon, M thought around midnight, either side. My copy of the certificate doesn’t have a time, but I have a visual memory of a previous one that has 12:42 as the time...but a.m? p.m.? And is it an accurate memory? Inquiring minds (an astrologer friend) want to know!

Oldest sister replies:
I was going to suggest birth certificate. I think M is correct dad woke L up to tell him he had two new little sisters and he said girls! disgustedly and went back to sleep.

Brother replies: I actually knew this at one time. Seems to me Dad told us in the morning that the event had happened - i.e. it had probably happened during the early morning, but that would imply Dad was in St. Peter when Mom delivered and you were born in the Twin Cities. It would make more
sense that Dad was with Mom and someone else was watching us - I do have this probably false memory of Dad being with us. I am almost certain you were (appropriately) born in the Twin Cities. And I believe the two of you were 6 minutes apart.
Mom really should know, it was kind of an important event - she was there.

Me again:
You would think Mom would know, but she has forgotten many details of my childhood. I think you guys wore her out.
I do know that they didn’t record the names until late June. I wish I hadn't lost my previous copy of the certificate. The new one is very laconic. M is going to look for her copy when she returns to Monmouth. But yes, 6 minutes difference, born in St Paul.

Brother:
Yes, you came home with your name labels - "H- baby #1" and H-
baby #2". Maybe a presage of Thing 1 and Thing 2.
E only punched Dad so I don't see how we could have worn Mom out.


E finally checks in, in defense of Mom's memory:
I remember being upset with Mom when I was a teenager and she couldn't tell me which childhood illnesses I had had. Fast forward 40 years. I was trying to remember which vaccinations and illnesses J had--I was uncertain. I only had one to remember; she had 6. I immediately forgave her.

Me:
Exactly! That’s why I was hoping you guys could augment/correct her memories. But since you can’t remember your own son’s deets....



My twin also writes about memory loss:
I vaguely remember some question of what day we might be born on, so I'm thinking it was after midnight, but I'm not sure where that memory is from and if I just made it up.


Somehow Mom gets in on the thread and comes through with some details:
I do remember this much. I was staying in a hotel in St Paul and was supposed to go into the hospital to be induced on the 28th. I got up in the morning and called a cab to take me to the hospital. The driver was very nervous, asking if I were getting close and I reassured him. When I got to the delivery room shortly after, I presume about noon, they discovered I was already in labor. I had been in labor for some time, but didn't have the muscle tone to deliver. They gave me induction pills and before long M arrived. They said, Mrs. H you have twins and the second is a breach so we're going to put you under.



I am satisfied, but can't help waving another flag at my dueling older siblings:
Perfect! Clearly I was nothing but trouble from the get-go, and as I suspected, there are many apocryphal twin stories out there. Thanks for the memories, Mom! Was Dad there?

My twin capitulates gracefully: 
Thanks K! I had forgotten about you being breach delivered. But I did remember we were born six minutes apart. And I thought I was born first, because I always claimed to be older than you. Don't know where I got the midnight scenario from. I never heard about the rest of the story-- the cabdriver, etc.




My bro takes up the challenge:
Not to interject in front of Mom, but if L's story and my memory are
correct, Dad was with us. Of course I am not sure how L would have
known what my tone was when Dad gave me the news. I don't believe she
was right at the scene.

L defends:
I did not hear dad tell you. Dad simply reported that's what occurred.
 
My brother ripostes:
I have trouble believing Dad had that to say about my tone.



L delivers the coup de grace:
I didn't hear it directly so cannot verify its truth. Am just reporting what dad said and we can't ask him. He was rather amused by it.

The point of all this sibling discussion was to find the accurate time of birth for my astrologer friend C, who was pledged to give me a reading.  Since my recent catastrophic trip (broken ankle, lost/stolen wallet, bronchitis), I had been pondering my choices and my nomadic lifestyle, and she is an intuitive astrologer who has known me for some time (she was the backup caregiver when I was living with E.)  She also could use the work, so it was a win-win.  We settled on a birth time of 12:48 p.m. and video-conferenced a few days later.


She thinks that my writing will be the exciting part of the upcoming year.  However, the influence of Capricorn is a strong grounding one, which is not conducive to the nomadic life.  The overall story is that I should be looking for a stable place, a domestic sort of thing.  The ankle break also indicates that.  However, since I'm booked to travel for at least another 6 months, I'll have to get my stability from having a pied-a-terre with P in Tijeras, and from traveling in a way that settles me into a community and home environment.  Trusted Housesitters will be my stability, I guess.

Still, in order to provide me some guidance for future homes or travel locales, C checked on some Astro-Carto lines, picking the largest cities nearby.  The Jupiter lines lead to my happy place, where I'm confident and relaxed (but need to watch out for culinary temptations.)  The closest cities are Anchorage, WInnipeg, and Dallas.  I immediately tossed Dallas out of the mix (no Texas heat, bugs, or politics for this chick), but found a house-sit in Winnipeg during the folk festival this coming July.  L (Mom's partner) is from that area, and he says it's quite nice.  I'm less sure:  while it has an international population, it's also basically Canada's Midwest.   And no ocean?  No mountains?  Anchorage would be better, geologically speaking, but I have yet to find a housesit there.

My home area of Santa Fe and Albuquerque has the influence of Mars (so does El Paso, but...Texas.)  Mars' influence is exciting, but difficult, and would be a testing ground for independence and romantic relationships.  I think I've already had this experience.  Next!

West of Phoenix, Venus holds sway.  C describes this as a place for the creative and uncomplicated life.  While this attracts, I would apparently feel lost without a partner.  And....Arizona.  Next!

Mercury is in charge, east of Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Apparently, it would be a positive place to explore my roots, my psyche, my plans.  That makes sense:  it's my birthplace and home of much of my family, past and present.  However, it's also cold.  Then again, that seems to be a theme for the places C has found for me, and I do like the colder climes.  I wouldn't say no, although it's not really calling to me at this point. 

East of Green Bay, Wisconson, is where I confront my polarities, my relationships with my parents, and my past.  The Sun, Moon, Chiron, and Uranus converge here, and it's a great place for passionate relationships and procreation.  Ummm...Next!

If I give rein to Neptune's complexity and power, I'll probably end up changing my goals.  If I want to be reclusive and spiritual and work with gurus, creative illusions, or entertainment, I could move to San Diego or..... Boise?  I don't see myself as spiritual or mystic, although I wish I did have that sort of passion.  It would be nice to think there is an underlying power, but I'm skeptical (and too interested in comfort and community.)  And neither place appeals, although there are other towns in the area, of course:  these are just the largest communities near the lines.

It appears that the Pacific Northwest is not the place for me:  while fostering creativity and filled with family and friends-who-are-family, it holds negative energies.  I had come to that conclusion already and asked her astrological opinion out of curiosity, so I'm not overly chagrined.  However, I do wish she had found some places outside the US for me to consider.  I don't see the upcoming civil war as conducive to finding my happy place.  But the only international place she suggested was Budapest, and it has never called to me. And, while I love Norway, it doesn't fit in any line.  Besides, my correspondents from last year seem to think I was miserable for my 3 months there.  Just because the snow came up past my chin, I had to shovel the deck and roof and keep the wood fire burning, and I had to walk a mile one way to the store....

Actually, I do like to hunker down in the winter, and I do like the northern climes, but, thinking it over, I was a bit lonely, even though I had the downstairs neighbor/friend, the Gjovik symphony, and P's visit.  So, in the final analysis, I do need to find a lifestyle and home that provide a community of like-minded individuals as well as comfort and beauty. 

I know it's out there.