Today I went with a very good friend, who is turning 77 this year, to the Morgan Library. I've been feeling like I haven't really had any quality time with her for a while, and I needed to be with her long enough to collect my thoughts, rather than just exchange surface comments. I had a nice time hearing tidbits of her sojourn here in the city (around fifty years?) -- funny memories of odd jobs and odd people. She reads everything and knows every BBC/PBS actor. She has the entire Manhattan bus system memorized. She has skills; she's an enjoyable companion.
At the Morgan, aside from the regular collection (How I want all those beautiful old books! How I love reading the letters, like the one where John Steinbeck doubts the quality of the "g-d- book" that wasn't coming together -- The Grapes of Wrath!), right now there is an exhibit on Degas. Which was, of course, of interest to me because of our recent visits to the Met... Apparently Degas became interested in the "artificial" aspects of life that came with modernity -- or "unnatural realism." A social form of entertainment that was crazy popular in France at the time, and that reflected such artifice, was the circus. Degas attended and became quite intrigued with a trapeze performer -- Miss La La -- a woman who had the ability to not just hang 70 feet in the air by her teeth, but also to hold a 150-pound canon with her teeth (suspended by a chain) when it blew... Skills. Many of the sketches and preliminary paintings for Degas's painting Miss La La, and the Cirque Fernando are on display, and it sparked my curiosity to walk through and wonder why he made the revisions that he did. What it was that he learned from each practice; how each shrewd calculation, or inspired experiment got him closer to capturing what he felt and saw and understood. Skills.
This evening The Dad tried to get home early so we could go to a public garden and have a bit of a picnic (he jogged past it this morning and came home excited to share his dinner plan). Unfortunately, just as we were unswaddling our sandwiches that we bought at Milano Market we were told that the garden was being closed for the night. It was disappointing, for the lights just coming on as the gloaming waned were creating the perfect atmosphere for the tulips and other blossoms.
Happy May Day. As kids, Big Sister and I used to decorate those green plastic strawberry containers and then leave the basket of flowers on our neighbor's doorstep (the dear lady was very gracious about the fact that we picked from her yard in order to properly fill out the arrangement). The delivery was always quite mysterious -- we would knock on the door and then tuck along the side of the house, not daring to breathe until the basket was brought in with an audible: "How nice! Who could these be from?" and the door was snugly shut.
As it turns out, The Boy and The Girl aren't the most savvy doorbell ditchers in the history of doorbell ditching. It makes me worried: by not being raised in suburbia are they not learning vital life skills? Have I been naive in assuming that if there was ever a need, they would be able to hold their own toilet-papering a house...?
For art today we put together the May Day "baskets" for our two favorite neighbors. For Physical Education The Boy and The Girl sprinted past one neighbor's door just as she unexpectedly opened it for the second time -- The Boy tried to look casual (like he had in fact NOT been the one to just ring the doorbell, and just HAPPENED to be passing by at a sprint) and said, "Oh. Hey." Somehow, for all their stealth, the kids became key suspects, and this evening I received one really sweet text, and one fun email:
Dear --:
I just found a beautiful present on my door. Such lovely flowers, wrapped so creatively and imaginatively. I wonder where it could have come from. Any ideas? I want to thank the thoughtful people who left me such a special gift.
A picture is below, in case you think of a way to identify the suspects.
