Tom Weiner
Today I used the time I am afforded by sheltering in place to take a stroll - down Memory Lane.
I went through a night table drawer I haven’t visited in a good 20 years and found so many treasures including many old birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day cards expressing warmth and love from my wife, children and friends. I came upon tributes from former students and their parents. I remembered many and felt their appreciation for the role that was for 40 years my life’s work.
Another treat was photos of my children when they were….children, since they are now all grown up and 2 of the 4 with children of their own.
Some I lingered over - rereading old letters, some from friends who are no longer part of my life, but who once were central - another reminder of life’s transiency as well as the capacity we each have to love and be loved by so many folks.
Then there was this article from the Amherst Bulletin of May, 1984, which I had completely forgotten about and which I have just sent to Russell Vernon-Jones with whom I shared the spotlight as fathers who were determined to be nurturing.
Having the freedom to take these journeys back to who we once were is a very strange gift of this time of social separation…
I went through a night table drawer I haven’t visited in a good 20 years and found so many treasures including many old birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day cards expressing warmth and love from my wife, children and friends. I came upon tributes from former students and their parents. I remembered many and felt their appreciation for the role that was for 40 years my life’s work.
Another treat was photos of my children when they were….children, since they are now all grown up and 2 of the 4 with children of their own.
Some I lingered over - rereading old letters, some from friends who are no longer part of my life, but who once were central - another reminder of life’s transiency as well as the capacity we each have to love and be loved by so many folks.
Then there was this article from the Amherst Bulletin of May, 1984, which I had completely forgotten about and which I have just sent to Russell Vernon-Jones with whom I shared the spotlight as fathers who were determined to be nurturing.
Having the freedom to take these journeys back to who we once were is a very strange gift of this time of social separation…
Candace Drimmer
Everything I ever learned during my 20 years living abroad…has prepared me for this moment of time.
(At least, I hope so.)
First, there will be shortages.
In Guayaquil, Ecuador the big, air-conditioned grocery store had one freezer section, about the size of the average convenience store’s two-door refrigerated drink cooler. Despite not having any frozen food for sale, the freezer was always plugged in. As for the variety of fresh produce, it ranged from potatoes to onions, no green vegetable in sight.
In Willemstad, Curacao not-too-fresh broccoli was prominently displayed at the large grocer I frequented. By the time I heard there was broccoli, it was brown. To play the vegetable lottery, I went to Rudy’s next door. Hit and miss, it mostly was a miss. On a trip to Houston for my elementary school daughter and I to see an allergy doctor (there were no allergy doctors on the island), I saw fresh sweet corn. Buying a dozen, I indulged in microwaved corn for breakfast for the next 3 days. Heaven.
Second, it will feel scary outside of home.
In Guayaquil, there was dengue, pinworms, rabies or the potential of rabies when a pet monkey bit our 7-year-old, a monkey that the owners swore had its rabies inoculations. Also there was impetigo, gastroenteritis and head lice (body lice I’d already experienced sleeping at a relative’s home in Vermont).
Snakes and rats frolicked in our jungle-like garden, iguanas longer than I am tall, chilled out at the bottom of our rented home’s leaking pool. Even more rats ran about in the streets day and night, coming out of the toilets at our kids school and our toilet at home.
As for medical care, it was always a crap shoot…In Guayaquil, the best pediatric clinic in the city was BYON (bring your own needles), that is if you wanted to ensure it was unused. The day the nurse overdosed our daughter by 10X the dosage of her allergy shot was the day learned how to give her allergy shots.
Third, there will be rumors and propaganda.
Ignore the B.S., listen to reliable sources and make friends with those who know the difference. Good advice on the day that the President of Ecuador was kidnapped by the head of the Air Force.
…
Fifth, have friends who are there for you.
Like Sylvia, who taught me how to keep the rat that came into our home via the toilet to not do that again….And then there was my skinny dipping Kiwi RN who talked me through our daughter’s cosh to her head when she slipped on tile in Asuncion, Paraguay.
Today in the days of coronavirus, Village Hill in Northampton has my back. One neighbor offered me eggs to make my husband’s birthday cheesecake when our grocery delivery hadn’t come leaving the cupboard bare. Another pair of neighbors shared their homemade masks for us, and our son’s wife and son in Brooklyn.
So is there any wonder why I share my Katherine Hepburn brownies with my neighbors?
(Recipe available on the New York Times cooking site.)
Judy Denison
…a little children’s book, which I’d like to be shared freely. It’s for children who are being isolated right now due to coronavirus.
“Little Jean” is about my mother, Jean Johnston Snow, during the 1910-1918 period including WWI & Spanish Flu. She went to Smith College (’31) and taught in Williamsburg ~1955-1965. Her son Stephen Snow still lives in Williamsburg.
Click here for full download.
Throughout this page and others, we will be posting haiku submitted to the Montview Neighborhood Listserv.
down in basement depths
that long dreamt of art project
may emerge at last
-Mac Everett
that long dreamt of art project
may emerge at last
-Mac Everett