Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 4

Call Your Representatives

It's easy and makes a big difference. Here's how.
 
People have been asking me what they can do. Here’s one of the most effective things: call your U.S. Senators and Representatives. It makes a significant impact, even if they are Republicans. As the website linked below explains:

Other kinds of messages take longer. Emails have to be manually read and sorted. Faxes have to be digitized and emailed. Letters and postcards take time to arrive and get processed. By contrast, congressional staffers tally phone calls right away.

5Calls makes it easy for you to call your Senators and Congress People. You first enter your location. 5 Calls shows you the phone numbers of your delegation, and takes you through a very easy process in order. Prior to dialing, you will be asked to choose an issue, and then given a short script which you can read or adapt as you wish when your call is connected. You may speak to a real person or be asked to leave your message via voicemail. In my case, calling my three Vermont representatives, I talked to two real people, and got voicemail for Bernie Sanders. My message today was about Trump’s aggression against Gaza, and his threats against Canada, making it clear that I was a dual citizen. One of the call-takers said that my congresswoman especially appreciated personal stories, such as my witness to the anxiety of my Canadian neighbors and friends.

I will call again in a few days and choose another issue to speak about.

If you need more convincing, watch the video of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) in this post on Chop Wood, Carry Water. She explains why calling is one of the most important things you need to be doing, EVEN IF you have Republican representatives, and why Republicans are so much more consistent and committed to doing this than Democrats — a behavior that has to change.

If you’ve never done this sort of thing, it can feel intimidating, but it really isn’t. The script helps you from hemming and hawing; it’s a short, effective way of registering your complaint or outrage. And I guarantee you — once you’ve done it, you’ll feel better, and making the next call will be much easier. Bravo to you!

The Changing Landscape

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View from my studio. 2.4.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)

This week, looking closely at the view from my studio window, and trying to capture it in a series of loose watercolor sketches, has helped me maintain my sanity. During the time I’m painting, I’m not thinking about anything else. There’s the perspective of parallel, gridded streets and rooftops receding into the north; the softness of bare deciduous trees with the occasional conifer; the urban buildings of northern Montreal and Laval in the distance; and most of all, the changing weather and what it does to the light, the colors, and the sky.

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View from my studio in a snowstorm. 2.6.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)

And change it does. In a week, we’ve had bright sunny days, overcast ones, and a blustery snowstorm. Yesterday was sort of in-between: warmer, partly overcast, slightly dulling the colors, with wetter pavement from the melting snow.

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View from my studio. 2.8.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)

I’ve been drawing and painting this view ever since we moved here two and a half years ago. It’s not gorgeous. But it’s interesting to me, it’s complicated, and it’s a challenge to make something of it.

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When I wrote the essay for my book of winter drawings, Snowy Fields, back in 2023-24, I spoke about why I sometimes work in series. It’s exploratory, I wrote, but often it’s not until later that I’m able to see deeper reasons why I was doing a particular body of work.

The initial reason I began these watercolors this week was actually quite mundane. We are going to Mexico City in a week, and I was considering taking a new watercolor sketchbook, in a more rectangular format than an older, landscape sketchbook by the same manufacturer that I used on a previous trip, more than five years ago. I wanted to test the paper remaining in the old sketchbook to see if it still suited my technique, so I started the painting at the top of this post.

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That one painting showed me what I wanted to know; the paper would be OK. But a day or two later, when it snowed, I decided to make another sketch. And yesterday afternoon, I did another.

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When I stepped back from the absorbing time spent painting, I realized that I’ve been thinking about how the familiar landscape of my life, of all our lives, has suddenly and radically changed. We’re facing realities and potential outcomes that shake the foundations of everything we’ve taken for granted. It’s frightening, consuming, and unpredictable. Instead of running away from that, I want to see it clearly. I want to go deeper into it and know what we’re facing — not in order to be paralyzed with dread; or to cower despairingly while praying for some savior, human or divine, to fix it; or, worst of all, capitulating in advance — but so that I can make choices and act responsibly and with integrity, whether as an individual, a friend to others, or a member of society.

In order to do that, I need to take care of myself — therefore the establishment and continuation of self-preserving, self-healing practices. I need to be well- and selectively-informed about what is actually happening: governmental actions and the motives behind them, and the various forms of push-back and resistance that are now gathering momentum. And I must discover and decide upon concrete actions to take, because clawing this thing back in the U.S. and preserving democracy in Canada are going to require ALL of us to stand up for what we believe.

The good personal news is that I feel considerably better and stronger. The shock-and-awe tactics the administration has used are clear to me now, and I’m no longer feeling as buffeted by them. The dangers and the sadistic, evil intent are absolutely real, but if we look closely, we can see what we’re facing and exactly who these people are. That is a huge step forward, because it’s the opposite of what they want. Creating confusion and keeping people overwhelmed and emotional are the name of their game. Effective opposition, instead, is going to require awareness, steely-eyed steadiness, and the patience to stay in there through the long haul. It’s a changed landscape, but one that’s coming into focus — and that’s a positive development.

What is Home?

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The last week has been…horrific. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve had trouble sleeping and controlling my worst fears as I’ve watched a coup unfold in my country of birth, and heard the threats and completely unfair accusations against the country where I now live — the staunchest friend and ally America has ever had. Yesterday, in particular, was very difficult as we waited to see if tariffs would be levelled against Canada or not, starting a trade war that would be extremely damaging to both economies. At the last minute, they were averted for a month, but I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this.

Rough times teach us things. I’ve discovered that I truly love Canada, and feel grateful and protective of what we have here. By contrast to the U.S., we aren’t particularly nationalistic or patriotic (although Quebec has its own reasons for hanging together as a society), and have been pretty complacent about what we have here, but this period of time has shown that we will pull together strongly if threatened, and that we do appreciate and understand what makes us different.

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I also love the U.S., where I was born and lived for the first 50 years of my life. Watching the rapidity of this attempt to tear apart the government and seize control for the executive branch; the power and access given to unelected oligarchs; the vicious attacks on some of the most vulnerable groups of people; the bullying of allies; and insistence on “respect” by a would-be dictator have appalled me. Even if we knew much of this was coming, seeing it unfold is terrible. As a dual citizen who knows history and understands the fragility of democracy, the pain I feel is tremendous.

In the past few days, though, I’ve also come to a clearer place in my head. For me, “home” isn’t a country, but the internal place where my heart resides; I carry this with me wherever I am. In terms of the public sphere, I know where right and wrong lie, and what needs to be protected — and I will put my heart and soul into doing that. But in the private sphere, I recognize what I need, and what many of us need: places of rest and beauty where we can restore ourselves, and friends of like minds with whom we can talk, mourn, and build strong community. For me, music, art, reading, and nature are essential, and I plan to delve into them every day. We need to eat well and get enough sleep. Exercise is also important; swimming has been especially good for me lately. This is self-preservation. We can’t help anyone else, or any larger cause, if we ourselves are a wreck. We need, first of all, to do this work of making an indestructible home inside ourselves.

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Part of the great difficulty we all face is our perceived powerlessness in the face of the forces currently at work. And yet, we are never without the power that comes from a strong inner life and the conscious decisions that flow from it. While that power may not be able to stop injustice today, it gives us the strength to endure and to help the people around us, and be ready when opportunities arise.

Here are some concrete actions I’m taking:

Practicing the piano or my flute every day.

Keeping up my sketching and art practice, and making work to share with you.

Working on building supportive and committed community here in Montreal and within my online circles of friends.

I’m getting off Facebook permanently, and encouraging the organizations and groups I belong to to do likewise. (I’ve never been on X, and would find it unjustifiable.)

Limiting my intake of news, and reading only what is most reliable. I read The Guardian, The New York Times (in which I’ve been deeply disappointed for a long time, but it’s still important), Al Jazeera, and the CBC. ProPublica and various Substack authors (see my feed for recommendations) round out my main sources. Here, for instance, is Robert Hubbell’s Substack - a legal scholar/observer and self-described optimist who writes about politics “through a lens of hope.”

Becoming more involved in the Canadian electoral process to help ensure that we don’t elect a conservative government here.

Insisting that my Democratic representatives (I vote in Vermont as well as in Canada) do everything they can to block, obstruct, and resist the administration’s unconstitutional attempts to dismantle democracy, and to be far more visible and active opposition leaders than they have been up until now. (Bernie Sanders is an exception, and I’m proud he’s one of our senators.)

Asking you, the readers, how you’re doing, what you need, and what’s helping. Let’s talk to each other.

A New York City Diary: Days 4-6

 






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At The Museum of Modern Art with one of my favorite paintings in their collection, “Ladybug” by Joan Mitchell. (And no, I didn’t intentionally dress to match it!)

1/11/2025 Saturday

Finally caught up on sleep. I woke with a headache again, maybe sinus, but it lifted after a long hot shower and some breakfast in the room. Our plan was to meet B. at MoMA in the afternoon. We made sandwiches in the room for an early lunch and then walked up Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Outside Macy's, fervent Korean evangelists with bullhorns and banners proclaimed “Jesus is Lord”. Onward to Times Square, where we stopped to take photographs. It's hard to know whether to photograph the incredible digital advertising displays, which seem to have multiplied every time we're here, or the people taking selfies with Times Square behind them. And in this center of capitalism stands a large cube, covered with a glowing neon flag, and a sign saying “US Armed Forces Recruiting Center”.

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We turned right on 46th and noticed the facade of an Episcopal Church tucked between the office buildings - St Mary the Virgin. Do you want to go in, J asked and I said yes, even if it's just to warm up. A large interior, very beautiful and old, and a noontime Mass just finishing. Clouds of incense, Rite 1 from the old prayer book, four robed priests at the high altar, perhaps a dozen communicants seated beyond the altar rail, and someone playing what sounded like a very good organ.

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Anglo-Catholic, I decided, but not conservative in mission. The current prayer book lay on a prie-dieu in one of the chapels, and the literature at the back of the church indicated welcome to all, an open door policy and a lot of social ministry for immigrants. Several homeless people slept in the pews with their belongings piled nearby. The list of upcoming organ recitals included David Hurd, whose name I recognized - we’ve sung some of his music at the cathedral – and he was listed as the organist and music director there. Wikipedia later confirmed that it's Anglo-Catholic, and considered one of the best neo-Gothic structures of the late 19th century. Its nickname is "Smoky Mary's" because of the copious amounts of incense they use.

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Paul Cézanne. Still Life with Apples. 1895–98. Oil on canvas.

At MoMA, we visited an exhibition of paintings from the Lillie Bliss collection, where crowds stood predictably taking selfies in front of “Starry Night,” while a gorgeous, glowing Cezanne still life next to it had no viewers at all except me. Bliss had valued that still life so much that, unusually, she stipulated that once given to the museum, it could never be sold. (note: What I especially liked about this painting was that, instead of the primary colors that often dominate Cezanne’s still lives, this one uses a lot of beige and greyed blues in the beautiful background curtain and the tablecloth, which set off the brilliant fruit even more. The effect is both peaceful and harmonious — and can’t have been simple to achieve.) I also appreciated the chance to study Picasso's early portrait of a woman in white.

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My sketch of Picasso’s “Woman in White.”

We sat for a while near the new installation of a floor-to-ceiling tapestry, ceramic and rope hangings, floor rocks and sound recording by Otobong Nkanga, and then went to the cafe to have a coffee and wait for B., who arrived soon after a morning of struggling with cancelled trains on his way up to Harlem and back down to the Village to leave off his instruments.

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Otobong Nkanga, Cadence. “An all-encompassing environment of tapestry, sculpture, sound, and text that explores the turbulent rhythms of nature and society.”

We wandered through the fourth floor galleries, which present works from the 1950s through the 1970s. Unlike us, B. knew many of the performance artists whose videos were displayed so we had a personal guide. When the museum closed at 5:30 we had made it to the Thomas Schutte exhibition on 6th floor and were sorry not to have time for more than a fast walkthrough.

Back down to LaGuardia Place, pizza takeout dinner from the Italian restaurant downstairs. B. turns down the lights and the three of us hold hands in silence before we eat. At 75 he still has ten irons in the fire and is busy all the time, as well as composing and recording folk tales with other world musicians. Having the pandemic come so soon after J.'s death must have made everything so much harder, especially with their children far away on the west coast, but he’s done amazingly well. The apartment is a little like a shrine, but it's comforting too, with B.'s huge library and desk and all the figurines and carvings and instruments from Africa, Latin America, the Pacific in the heart of it. That's what happens when you never move.

1/12/2025. Sunday

A late brunch with B. at the Noortwyck on Bleeker Street, then back to his place to talk some more and wait with him until his friend C. came to practice some songs for a concert of B.’s songs, planned in the spring. The two of them had tickets to a concert of Middle Eastern music in a club that had sounded too crowded to us. But C. hadn't arrived before we left at 4:00; the trains from the Upper East Side were still all screwed up.

1/13/2025. Monday
Weather chilly but a lot warmer than home, and today was above 40 F.

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Ambroglio Lorenzetti, The Annunciation, 1344, tempera on panel.

letter to a friend: “Today we saw the Siena exhibition at the Met, with T. who had come down to go to it with us. They've assembled treasures from all over the world, including the eight panels of Duccio's back predella of the Maesta. The panels are in various states of restoration, depending on the wealth and inclinations of the lending institutions, but Duccio's narrative power is clear in all of them. And the colors! I was especially struck by the panel where Jesus calls Peter and Andrew who are in a boat with a net full of fish by its side, in the water – ‘I will teach you to be fishers of men’ and ‘The Raising of Lazarus,’ which I've loved for years but never seen in person (it's in Houston). There were also some astonishing ivory carvings. (How were they made? Where and how did they procure such large pieces of ivory?) and many works by the Lorenzetti brothers and Simone Martini. The installation is extremely thoughtful and well-done down to the last detail — black walls, black columns mimicking a cathedral, and widely-spaced objects lit like jewels — and of course they are jewel-like, with all the gilding. A triumph of curation, to assemble these works, and I feel so fortunate to have seen them.”

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Duccio. The two right-most panels of the back predella of the Maesta, about 1308-11.

In retrospect, I keep thinking about those eight panels by Duccio, separated for centuries, and together now, briefly, for this exhibition here and in London. Paintings aren’t living beings, but I can’t help but think of them that way, as if they are siblings reunited for this brief time, with some awareness of that fact. You stand before them and sense Duccio’s hand and his mind as well, making so many decisions that broke with the iconographic past. He told the story in such a human way, with a cohesive vision from panel to panel, carried out not only through color and composition, but with emotional content. When the panels are separated, most of this original intent cannot be seen or felt. As I look at the reproductions in the catalog, beautifully printed in Italy, even there you cannot see or feel half of what it is like to stand in front of the real works themselves. So perhaps that was what moved me so much: this brief moment of coherence when Duccio’s idea, and his brilliant execution of it, could again be appreciated by those of us who were privileged to be there in person.

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A sketch of “The Raising of Lazarus”, done from my photograph after coming back, in order to study Duccio’s composition.

We also saw an exhibition of works by Jesse Krimes, who was incarcerated for six years and conceived several very large installations during that time, using materials that were issued to him or available at low cost in the prison commissary. It’s hard to describe these powerful works; you can see more about them in the video linked above. One installation was a whole wall of tiny pebbles, wrapped with different colors of string, and suspended from sewing needles stuck in cloth-covered panels. There are 10,000 pebbles in the artwork, collected by inmates and sent to Krimes at his request for “the ideal pebble from your prison yard.” I was stunned when I realized what I was looking at, and what this piece says about the vastness and anonymity of incarceration in the U.S.

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Detail of installation by Jesse Krimes

—to be continued

A New York City Diary: Days 1-3

 
1/8/2025 Wednesday

9:00 am. The snow is very light, so the bare areas are ok. Just need to be careful. After the border it's supposed to be clear.

10:15. We’re through. Grateful for our NEXUS cards. Hello America.

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Adirondack Mountains, from I-87.

2:45. Just boarded the train in Albany. It leaves in 5 minutes. A porter came around and asked if we'd like some help boarding early...I guess we looked old, or else he needed something to do...so we said sure, and he took our bags and escorted us down to the platform and into the first car, and hoisted our bags up onto the rack. So he got a nice tip and we got good forward-facing seats on the side next to the Hudson.

On our way down, we had eaten lunch at a diner. The menu indicated Greek owners...gyros, souvlaki...finally a man came out of the kitchen, in a blue T-shirt and khaki shorts, looking like he could be the owner. He stood in back of the counter surveying the room, nodded at us. A waitress brought him a coffee and I saw him take a tall glass bottle out from under the counter and pour some into his mug. Retsina, probably. The food was good - clam chowder, generous sandwiches, bottomless cups of hot coffee. "Are you going to talk to him?" J. asked. I shook my head and smiled. "Maybe.” When we were finished and paying our check I turned back, smiled at the owner, and said," Efcharisto!" (Thank you.)

"Parakalo!" he answered automatically, and then said, "Wait a minute, I have to talk to you! Do you speak Greek?"
"Ligo," I said. "A little. I can read better than I can speak."
"My kids are the opposite, they can speak but they can't read it."
"It's because of the way I'm learning, on Duolingo. You don't get practice speaking."
He nodded, grinned and looked at my husband, "When I saw you, I thought you might be Greek…?"
Jonathan shook his head. "He's Armenian-Syrian," I answered.

"Aha!" he said. "Then we can complain in common about the Turks!"

We ended up having a fast, wide-ranging conversation about our connection to his country. When we mentioned how much we liked Thessaloniki, he gestured toward the counter where two older men were seated. "That's where those guys are from! We were just speaking together."

His grandfather had lived in Montreal, near Park X, and he still has family in the city. " Next time," he said as we left, "I expect to hear lots more Greek from you!"
"Antio!" I said, giving him a big grin.
"Antio!" he repeated, correcting my pronunciation and waving back at me.

10:00 p.m. In our hotel room at 26th and Broadway. We arrived at Penn Station around 5:30, and walked the six blocks to the hotel; it's cold and windy here but not nearly as bitter as at home. The room on the fourth floor is fine, with a small kitchen, a good bed and bath, large windows that look out on Louis Sullivan-era buildings as well as a new slightly-angled skyscraper of blue glass that towers over these earlier structures. This is a tech hotel; there's almost no staff and you navigate everything using your phone. It feels more like an Air BnB inside a hotel structure. We unpacked and headed out to Trader Joe's to buy food, and came back and ate.

I'm tired now, and a bit cold. The neighbors have their tv on and the wall is very thin, so it's going to be an earplug night. My bedside table has a white noise machine on it, with six settings: things like “ocean” “rain” and “summer night,” which is crickets. C. called about an hour ago to thank me for the calendar. She was amazed to hear we were in Manhattan, where she lived for so long, though she grew up in Montreal and California. She said she was glued to the screen, watching her old neighborhood of Pacific Palisades burn in the forest fires. "My old high school is in flames," she exclaimed. "My friend Mary has had to evacuate her house and she may lose it. It's horrific!"

Ah, the neighbors are finally quiet.

1/9/25 Thursday

Early to the camera store, where J. bought the components for my new computer setup. An unexpected thing happened: after helping us and entering the complicated transaction for our invoices, the salesman turned to us: "May I ask a personal question?" Because he'd learned we were Canadian, he wanted to apologize for the recent remarks by the president-elect about annexing the country, and he wanted to know how this had been received in Canada. He ended up speaking for at least half an hour about how upset and worried he is about his teenage daughters and what he fears will happen. He just stood there and said how he felt and how astonished he was at some of his colleagues who had voted for the man; I was worried they would overhear the conversation. I doubt that we made him feel any better, unless it simply did him some good to talk to some Canadians and fantasize about moving there if things get really bad. We didn't tell him how difficult that would be for him; he seemed to think he could just bundle his family into the car and drive across the border into a new life.

Then J. went upstairs to look at lenses and I walked up to Mood Fabrics after stopping to get a yogurt. Later on, I took a nap, and did some drawing, watching the late afternoon light on the beautiful old and ultramodern buildings we see from our window. In the evening, took the subway uptown to the 70s to have dinner at an Italian restaurant with good friends.

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1/10/25 Friday

Slow start to the day; we slept late because we desperately needed to, and didn't leave the room until 11 or so. We took the subway to Houston St and walked to Greene and the Patagonia store, where I replaced my venerable black jacket, which must be 30 years old.

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Trendy shops and fancy car on Greene Street in SoHo

Then we walked up to B.'s on LaGuardia Place. He made lunch for us while we sat around in the kitchen. (His daughter) R. called while we were there and we both talked to her - she had to evacuate her house in L.A. because of the fires; it seems to be OK but she's gone out to stay with a friend in the desert because the air quality in the city is so terrible.

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I've wanted to do a drawing of some of J.'s ceramics for a long time, so today I managed to do a quick one while Jonathan was sitting in front of the windows where many of them are displayed. It's not good of him but it captures the ambience well enough. The apartment is still so full of her, even so many years later. B. showed us a video of a recent concert he did, and at 6:00 we all went to a nearby cinema to see Almodovar's The Room Next Door. Sushi afterwards at the Japanese place on LaGuardia, then we walked the 20 blocks back uptown on Broadway. Warmer tonight, and the wind has finally died down.

—to be continued

NYC in January

 



 










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A personal methodology...

Between January 8 and 16th, my husband and I were in New York for a week of visiting friends, going to museums, walking a lot, and hanging out in one of our favorite cities in the world. To save on hotel bills, we’ve often stayed in Brooklyn or even across the river in New Jersey, and sometimes we’ve stayed with friends, but the last several times we’ve rented hotel rooms in Manhattan, and really enjoyed it. The thing is, you have to go when the prices are low — which means the dead of winter, after the holidays, or at other low-peak times of the year.

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The view from our window.

This time we were in the Flatiron District, on 26th between Broadway and Sixth -- a good location for transport, services, and walking easily to both lower Manhattan and midtown. While the streets were cold and windy, it was nothing like the temperatures or weather we’ve had in Montreal, so it felt like a break for us. A couple of days even got up into the 40s! We had a room in a high-tech hotel with little staff, where you do everything with your phone. It had a kitchenette with a fridge and microwave, so we were able to prepare our own breakfast and make sandwiches or simple dinners when we weren’t planning to eat out. We easily made up the extra price for those amenities by not spending as much in restaurants. Even slices of pizza, that staple food of New York, have gone up a lot in price!

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Sketching in bed.

I thought I’d share some notes on packing, in case any of these ideas are useful. We had traveled (by car to Albany, then by train, but it would be the same by air) as we always do, with just carry-on bags and a tote bag (for me) and camera bag (for him). Winter travel requires more thought and potential weight than going in warm weather. Over the years I’ve developed a simple formula for my clothes, making sure to wear the heaviest things on the plane or train. For this January trip, that included just two pairs of pants, no skirts: for me that’s one pair of jeans and a pair of slim black washable slacks. Several washable/dryable layers for tops (I like Uniqlo Heattech camisoles and turtlenecks in two weights and neutral colors), a light nightshirt and a small quantity of easily-washable underwear and socks, plus a pair of cotton-blend tights to layer for cold days; a black fleece zip-neck sweater, two cashmere sweaters (dark blue and greyish-purple), and a dressier black turtleneck sweater.

For this trip I took two scarves: one a bright wool-blend jacquard, the other an abstract silk print. All the clothes go into my rolling suitcase in zippered packing cubes, which then keep everything organized in the hotel’s dresser drawers or shelves. Outerwear is an ultra-lightweight down jacket layer, and a high-quality rain shell with hood, a knitted hat and gloves. A couple of pairs of my vintage silver Mexican earrings and one necklace, plus a pair of gold hoops, are the only jewelry I take. This time I wore my low hiking shoes (Merrell) most of the time, and packed a pair of medium-weight black leather ankle boots for dressier occasions. I take my phone and a small tablet that has a keyboard, and scrupulously avoid taking or buying books. The rest of the weight is taken up with toiletries and medication, in the tiniest packages I can manage. I empty, flatten, and pack my cross-body Baggallini purse in the suitcase, and during travel keep all my essentials (wallet, passport, small sketchbook and watercolor palette, etc) in my carry-on tote, which fits over the handle of the rolling suitcase. Not having to lug or pull heavy bags makes a big difference in how much I enjoy travelling, so I’m completely sold on this method.

We generally walk or take the subway (we love the NY subway) and don’t use cabs, but obviously that requires pretty good mobility and some knowledge of the system. This time we called an Uber only to take us from the hotel to Penn Station/Amtrak when we were leaving the city to go home, but it arrived almost immediately.

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On the subway.

I’ll write more about what we did in a subsequent post. It was a great trip!

How to Survive

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Ambroglo Lorenzetti, Madonna del Latte (Nursing Virgin), tempera and gold leaf on panel, c. 1325

On the bus today, I watched a little boy in a stroller, whose mother was ruffling his abundant black hair. He turned his head and looked up at her with such a beatific smile, and she looked down at him the same way — a sort of Madonna and child moment — and I thought of what was going on in Washington and how little it had to do with that, with these most basic ways in which we are human. And of course, it has everything to do with it, if you are one of the unlucky ones caught in the crosshairs, like countless mothers and children in the world’s war zones, or those who fear deportation or persecution.

I’m not watching the news or reading it today. That’s a choice. We can actually limit the extent to which we allow ourselves to be invaded by negativity, threats and pronouncements that may or may not be acted upon, and the resulting stress and spiraling worry they create. I am not advocating putting one’s head in the sand, or failing to name, protest, and resist all the wrongs that we can. However, the period we’re entering is going to be rough and invasive, and our first responsibility is to ourselves and those around us: to be as strong mentally and physically as possible, and to remember and celebrate our own humanity in the face of a darkness in which it’s so easy to become lost.

My primary job, as I see it, is to be a person who carries, communicates, and encourages hope, joy, creativity, and a positive lifeforce — in spite of everything. And this IS a job - it takes work. What helps? Using my senses to pay attention, because there is almost always something life-giving to notice, like the mother and child on the bus today. There is color. There is music. There are words. There’s the smell of food being prepared, or flowers in a supermarket display. There is the cold of winter on my cheeks, and the warmth of the distant sun which can still be felt even in sub-zero temperatures. There’s the taste of coffee, salt, lemons, chocolate. We miss so much when we’re wrapped up in ourselves and our worries — and our screens — and we have to train ourselves to turn back to the actual world, which is right there, existing, waiting to be noticed — full of sorrows, yes, but also full of beauty, joy, and simplicity.

Last week I had the privilege of being in New York City and visiting the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-1350.” The detail at the top of this post is from one of the pieces I saw there. Here is the full painting:

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Just look, for a moment, at those colors.

And then at the harmony of the composition, and the gaze of the mother.

The exhibition traces a remarkable period in art history, when a small group of painters in Siena, Italy, began to break from the rigid tradition of Byzantine iconography to paint narrative scenes filled with human emotions. Instead of stereotypical depictions of apostles and saints, in prescribed poses, the people they painted looked like individuals who were completely human, doing human things. Their faces show fear, awe, sorrow, confusion, joy, serenity.

This flowering of new art only lasted in Siena for fifty years: not one of these painters survived the Plague of 1350.

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Duccio di Buoninsegna, sections of two panels from the Maesta altarpiece. The Transfiguration of Christ (left) and The Raising of Lazarus (right).

But just look at the colors, the gold, the vibrancy of the work they left behind, which influenced so much that came afterwards and still has the power to move us today.

Noticing is the first step. Moving from noticing to inspiration, and from inspiration to creativity and growth -- which can be planting some seeds, baking a loaf of bread, playing an instrument, studying a language we’ve always wanted to learn, finally sewing those squares of calico into a simple quilt, or innumerable other pursuits -- brings us closer to our own humanity, and to a more positive sense of self that we can then share with others.

The key, I think, is distinguishing between the things we can change, and those we cannot. Just as the Siena painters couldn’t have predicted the plague, there are things which are unfortunately out of our hands, but we don’t have to be paralyzed by the thought of them. Most of us have a choice every single day of how we are going to live it, of what kind of attitude we’re going to bring to it and to our encounters with others. Do I do this perfectly? Of course not! I’m human, I have my eyes open, I see what is happening, and therefore I feel depressed and even despairing at times. But I do recognize the pattern and I do not want to succumb to it — because that powerlessness is exactly what allows the darkness to flourish and robs us of our most precious humanity.

The photographer Ralph Steiner (1899-1986), a wonderful man who I met several times and my husband knew well, curated an exhibition of prints by many photographers at the very end of his long life. The pictures showed children, old people, impoverished and well-dressed; dancers, lovers, animals, trees, mountains, quiet interiors, still lives, ice formations, clouds. The title of the catalog/accompanying book was In Spite of Everything, Yes.

I’d like to leave you with two quotes from that book. The first comes partway through:

Some of these photographs give out their YES easily, even eagerly. Some ask a bit more thinking and opening up of the feeling-valves. We get used to moving so fast that we miss yes-saying things. If we get used to missing instead of feeling, the openings of the heart shrink down. —Ralph Steiner

And the final words of the book are these:

Hope is a risk that must be run. —George Bernanos

Prophets in their Own Land...are seldom believed

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Last night we spontaneously decided to go see A Complete Unknown, the new Bob Dylan biopic, and ended up at a cinema-plex in the Montreal suburb of Cote-St-Luc. The parking lot was empty, the shops in the dimly lit mall already shuttered; fake plants, vibrating recliners and plastic carnival horses on springs had been pushed into the center of the atrium to accommodate the brooms and mops of the late night cleaners.

There’s a particular weirdness about suburban movie theaters, especially when they’re deserted. Our showtime was at 9:30 pm, and there were no ticket-takers or snack vendors in sight; instead we were confronted with an automatic machine saying “buy ticket here” on its digital screen, and no one ever checked the tickets — resembling a grocery store cash register receipt — that it regurgitated.

When we pushed open the doors of the large theater, final credits scrolled on the screen while three grey-haired people wrestled themselves into their heavy winter coats. One woman, gave me a knowing smile as she passed us on her way out. “Why is everyone so old?” we asked each other, and laughed. The enormous, comfortably squishy seats reclined with the push of a blue-lit button to whatever position you wanted.

I couldn’t help wondering what the young Bob Dylan, shown in an early part of the film in a Greenwich Village movie theater with his girlfriend, would have thought of such a place. The Bleeker Street of those days looked pretty familiar, though; I remember it as it was in the 1970s, and how it’s changed since.

The film, which covers Dylan’s early career up to the time he left the pure acoustic folk tradition and went electric, is excellent. I was glad to see it on a big screen: it’s completely immersive, the acting is brilliant, and the film took me right back to my own adolescence. I was only nine or ten when Dylan first came east, hoping to meet his hero Woody Guthrie who was dying in a New Jersey hospital, but I was already conscious of the resurgence of folk music and began trying to play my father’s guitar by the time I was in junior high school. By the mid- to late-60s, he became the poet-prophet of my generation. When Jonathan and I got together, in the late 1970s, we realized that we owned nearly all of Dylan’s records up to that date between the two of us. We’ve only seen him once in concert, here in Montreal about ten years ago, but that was a definite Moment.

—
We left the theater at midnight, and came out into a deserted parking lot covered with light snow. Once home, we hurried to get into bed, but after turning the lights out we couldn’t fall asleep. The film had just been too vivid and too personal, somehow, to allow our minds to rest, and when we finally did sleep, it was a fitful night disturbed by mixed-up dreams.

While A Complete Unknown does an masterful job of depicting Dylan’s life as well as those of the other artists and music industry people around him (most notably, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, and Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman), and touches on the politics of the time, I felt that it didn’t show how terrible those politics really were. The moves away from the 1950’s revival of traditional folk music, toward contemporary folk ballads with overtly political themes, and then later toward a much harder-edged, angry, electric music, were entirely motivated by hatred of the rightwing government, which had first viciously pursued anyone suspected of being sympathetic to communism, then fought the Civil Rights movement, then pursued the Vietnam War and attacked students protesting the war and the draft on campuses all over America.

I couldn’t sleep last night because reliving those times, in the context of what I’ve learned and observed about human behavior throughout my life, is visceral. Greying people of my age, who listened to Dylan and felt he was speaking for them, will experience that film very differently from people born in later decades. For me, it brought back not only the forces of evil, violence, and oppression we were fighting against, but also the enormous hope we had during the brief years when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke stirringly of his dream of equality and freedom, when people became outraged by the assassinations, through the time when the Vietnam War was stopped, largely through public outcry led by the young. It seemed like a new era of equality, peace and justice might actually be dawning.

The film focuses on Dylan’s musical and career trajectory, his romantic relationships, and the growing rift between him and folk music purists like Pete Seeger. It vividly depicts the culture of the time, and touches on the overarching political situation, but it doesn’t fully convey the magnitude of Dylan’s motivation or the country’s political reality at the time.

I think that’s both a shame, and a missed opportunity, considering the place we find ourselves right now. People who wonder how the recent election could have happened should look back at American history. The fascists and capitalists have been there all along, waiting for the people to be sufficiently distracted by and addicted to consumerism, glitz and media, or worried enough to be seduced by fear-mongering and lies. I wish that a fine film like this one, which will be seen by so many, had made those connections more clear.

Books of 2024

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Time for another year's book list - how can we be here already? It was another year of long reads, book-ended by Don Quixote in the first part of the year, and The Magic Mountain this past fall, both read with my book group.

I did a deep dive into two renowned poets, reading the complete works of Louise Glück, and much of W.S. Merwin, and read a number of short stories as well as other novels. Of these, I was especially struck by the power of Ernest Hemingway's short fiction, most of which I'd read long ago; by Thomas Mann's short stories; and by "The Pole" by J. M. Coetzee.

At the end of 2024, what remains most vividly in my reader's mind? The Magic Mountain, without a doubt. This was my second time reading the book, and -- fittingly perhaps -- happened while I was recovering from COVID. As I wrote in a blog post earlier, "Mann’s book shows us human beings as primarily short-sighted and self-interested, drawn to the pursuit of pleasure and superficialities, and prone to ignoring and forgetting the lessons of recent experience — but also looks at other possibilities of how to live one’s life." My understanding of this book, surely one of the greatest novels ever written, was enhanced by Colm Toíbín's fictionalized biography of Mann, The Magician. By contrast, I found Don Quixote repetitive and tedious, and I'd be hard put to recommend it to anyone! 

I've never particularly liked Mark Twain, which is probably why I'd never read Huckleberry Finn before. It's certainly a seminal book of American fiction, but reading it in 2025, one can't help but be put off by the language and stereotyping of "Negroes", even though it was typical of that time. Reading it now is shocking, and disturbed me because -- even as expressed by sympathetic anti-slavery whites like Twain -- these superior and, yes, racist attitudes have persisted down to today in much of American society. Unfortunately, we saw that played out as a major factor in the 2024 election. James, a retelling of Twain's book from the point of view of the runaway slave, Jim, is a contemporary corrective, and worth reading.

On the other hand, Kukum, by Michel Jean, is a fictionalized account of the life of the author's grandmother, a French Canadian woman who married an indigenous man and went to live a nomadic life with the Pekuakami Innu community in the Canadian woods. Her life with him spanned the era of the residential schools and the coming of lumber and paper companies to the north, who appropriated the land and destroyed huge swaths of territory that had been sacred to the native peoples. The writing is simple and unremarkable, but the story is compelling. I think every Canadian should read this book.

In the "good reads" category, I enjoyed Abraham Vergese's The Covenant of Water, Zadie Smith's The Fraud, and Marianne Wiggins' The Properties of Thirst, all of which taught me about particular places and periods of history, but I doubt any of them will last as major works of literature. 

The most creative book I encountered last year was Teju Cole's Pharmakon, a work of photographs and short fictional texts that pushes the boundaries of both "photobook" and fiction. Pharmakon (a Greek word that means both "cure" and "poison") uses images and visceral texts to evoke displacement, absence, and violence in response to the world in which we find ourselves, and from which so many human beings cannot escape or find refuge. It is also one of the most beautifully-designed and produced books I've ever seen (from MACK).

I'm also happy to recommend The Picture Not Taken, by my friend, the photographer and writer Benjamin Swett and published by New York Review Books. Photography is sometimes the specific subject, but more often an entry-point for these deeply-thoughtful essays about family relationships, creativity, and self.

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Reading is a way to understand my own humanity through the experience of others, all the way to the beginning of writing. It's a solitary pursuit, but I love talking about books with fellow readers, and am immensely grateful for my book group friends and our weekly discussions, as well as other literary-minded friends in my life.

My choices of books have become more deliberate as I've gotten older, because setting priorities feels ever more important. I'm a fast reader, but even so, I don't read primarily for "escape" or entertainment, but to learn and think, and to absorb exceptional craft in writing and literary conception which I hope make my own efforts better. I can see why I often prefer to read older books, trying to fill in the gaps in my reading history rather than picking up whatever is new and getting a buzz, and I've also found it very rewarding to deeply immerse myself in a particular author's entire work. But the new and experimental also appeals to me - it's just becoming more rare. I do think the highly competitive, financially-driven publishing atmosphere, as well the extreme influence of the media, tend to push many authors toward what will sell and generate "buzz". It's a loss for us, and, frankly, a loss for the writers as well.

What did you read this year? What stayed with you? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

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Book List, 2024

The Pole and other stories, J.M. Coetzee

The Picture Not Taken, Benjamin Swett (essays)

The Properties of Thirst, Marianne Wiggins #

The Short Stories, Ernest Hemingway (selections)

The Complete Poems, Louise Glück

Human Acts, Han Kang (in progress)

Death in Venice and Other Stories, Thomas Mann

La pentre de batailles, Arturo Perez-Riverte (translated from Spanish to French)

The Essential W.S. Merwin, W.S. Merwin

Kukum, Michel Jean

The Magic Mountain, Thoman Mann #

The Magician, Colm Toíbín

James, Percival Everett #

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain #

This Strange Eventful History, Claire Messud (DNF)

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Vergese # 

Don Quixote, Cervantes #

Pharmakon, Teju Cole

Violets, Kyung Sook Shin  MY REVIEW in CHA: an Asian Literary Journal

The Fraud, Zadie Smith #

Why Christianity Must Change or Die, John Shelby Spong

Once in Europa, John Berger # 

The Abyss, Marguerite Yourcenar

# indicates a book read with my book group.

Winter Solstice

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The last pale light of the shortest day of the year came barely through the mid-afternoon today. In the summer, the sun sets beyond the right edge of this picture. I’ll be glad to see it begin its course back in the other direction.

Here in the north, we feel these short days in our bodies as well as in our spirits. The brightness of the holidays pushes us through December, but it’s January and early February that are the hardest for those who are most affected by the lack of sunlight. I am not, particularly, but we’ll be leaving our tree and star up for several weeks, grateful for their beauty and sparkle in the dim, short afternoons and dark evenings.

Lately I’ve been buoyed by music: the cathedral’s joyful Sing-along Messiah last weekend; a wonderful recital by my close friend Catherine St-Arnaud and the pianist Julien LeBlanc at a Montreal gallery yesterday evening; and watching a live performance by the Berlin Philharmonic this afternoon, on their Digital Concert Hall platform, of Mozart’s D-minor piano concerto and Bruckner’s 9th symphony, conducted by the astonishing Herbert Blomstedt, who is 96 years old.

Today was also a day of baking, package-wrapping, and conversing with friends.

Wherever you are, I wish you a happy solstice and safe passage through this darkest time of the year.

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