Rome April 7, 2015

One of the readings for my Architecture and the Environment course was written by three women who, as architecture students, spent a year traveling and drawing in Europe.  I was so taken by their shared experience and individual renderings that an idea started to percolate: someday I might do that, if only for a few weeks.  So, when a recent CCA email popped into my inbox to announce their three-week summer abroad programs, I immediately zeroed in on an architectural drawing course in Rome.  How perfect!

Rome.  I had spent a week there with my first husband so many years ago – thirty?  I’ve lost count.  Both of us still recall our meal of fava beans and fried squash blossoms in the Jewish quarter.  We visited the settings for the three acts of Tosca: the Church of the Sant’Andrea della Valle, where Cavaradossi paints the Madonna; the Palazzo Farnese where Tosca stabs Scarpia and sings E Avanti a lui, tremava tutta Roma!; and the Caste Sant’Angelo where Cavaradossi is shot and Tosca flings herself off the parapet.  Happy memories of a happier time.

I quickly enquired about the trip, an extra space was found for me, but I soon balked at the reality of leaving in late May.  Annie.  How could I be that far away when she was struggling so hard?  Not now. Rome has been around for a long time; it will be there next year.

The Kitchen at Seder April 5, 2015

I met my late husband Roy in 1990, and for these past 25 years, more or less, I have enjoyed spending the Seder with his closest friends and their families.  Seder happens at Howard and Carol’s home, on Euclid Avenue in the Berkeley hills.  We arrive between 5 and 5:30, Earl and Beverly from Mill Valley, Jeff and Julie from Davis, me from San Francisco, and Sheldon and Nikki now transplanted to Bethesda MD.  The next generation, and even the next-next generation, come too.  

Roy has been dead almost 18 years, Annie is asunder, and this year I arrive alone.  All the other marriages and children are intact, as is the bond I feel for all of them.

Sitting around an enormous ring of beautifully set tables, we make it through the Haggadah, followed by a feast that Carol has prepared, each year’s matzo ball soup smoother and more delectable than the last.  Each of us has contributed a dish of spring bounty – perfectly cooked asparagus with a lemony sauce, salads with edible flowers, rhubarb crumble.  The sung Dayenu is so off-key that I tear up in laughter.  Every year, it is the same.

I slip into the kitchen to help keep up with the rounds of dirty dishes, and that’s where the real conversation happens, especially with Carol, Nikki, and Julie, whom I rarely see.  I don’t realize my loneliness until I am home again, and it makes being with them all the sweeter. Until next year…

The Song Unit March 25, 2015

A few years ago, while still actively employed at UCSF, I read a letter of recommendation for a job candidate whose first name was Song.  The referee noted that the applicant worked in 3- or 4-hour time blocks that her co-workers had come to call “Song Units”.  Since I was then working on a book project, mainly at home, I adopted the Song Unit to discipline myself.  I took on a schedule of arising early to accommodate one Song Unit in the morning, a three-hour break over midday, and another Song Unit ending by 6:30 pm.  The intensive periods of concentration, when I staved off any impulse to pay a few bills, weed, wash the dishes, or check my email, heightened my work.  But an unintended consequence was the beauty of the in-between time, when I forced myself not to work, not even to think about work, but rather to run my errands, walk with friends, take in an art exhibit or movie, or go to yoga.  Evenings were freed up too, for reading, dining out, ballet, symphony, or opera.  Each aspect of the day became more fulfilling, focused, and joyful. 

Once my sabbatical ended, I went back to my office, and I lost sight of the Song Unit until recently, when my friend Gail, a retired interior designer and now painter, told me that she was having trouble carving out blocks of time for her artwork.  I told her about the Song Unit, and I think she is trying to figure out how to make it work for her.  I’m reestablishing the Song Unit for myself, too.  And now, part of my Song Unit is indeed… singing!