The Midwest, the plains

But the roads along the corn fields led to relatives: brothers, nieces, nephews, grand nieces, in-laws...relations defined by genetics, culture, law. The landscape intertwined with kinship. One relative in South Bend lives in an apartment in the former Central High that had been converted into flats. She occupies the space of the former swimming pool, but it is now tiled and carpeted...her studio is in the deep end. A ladder leads through the ceiling into the master bedroom. She, Adrienne Werge, has an installation that recently opened at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport...we stopped there on our trek west. Her meditation of self, Vietnam, the war was moving. And the museum was itself a generous work of space and light, overlooking the Mississippi River whose waters seemed to be riding high.



The museum was almost the last one of this trip (the last was the Danish Museum in Elkhorn where we loaded up on Danish Christmas goods (and some Norwegian fiskeboller). When we arrived back in Fort Collins, we had driven some 4500 miles...it's a far piece, Maryland from Colorado. On the way out I was having problems figuring out why it was going to take so long, but then I had forgotten that you had to cross Ohio in addition to Illinois and Indiana and the rest. But each mile had given us time to observe, to talk, to listen to the radio or i-pod, and just to be...a kind of suspended animation across the eastern broadside of the land.

The Road

We traveled different roads on this trip: the interstate highway system (originally built to speed troops from one side of the continent to the other quickly in case of attack)still rocks in its way. The clarity of the grid, except in major cities, provides a logic for moving east-west, north-south, or on a diagonal. But coming from Fort Collins, the scale of its lanes and the rush of its vehicles in the cities is daunting. And then the back roads...trying to respectfully pass the Amish farmer riding in the same rain that our roof shielded us from. The older highways form a kind of intermediary...slowing down through the towns that funnel cars and trucks through their main streets. Any one day had these different types...at least until we hit Iowa. Then it was just mile after mile of I-80, spread like a black belt across the rolling hills and level corn fields.

The Bay

Our house was on Selby Bay, a cove off the South River, an estuary of the Chesapeake. So it's about water, a resource in short supply in Colorado. I spent as much time as temperature would permit on the dock and on the shoreline in early morning. The sun's rays would reflect off the clouds onto the water...leaving the waters not underneath the clouds to their natural blue/grey. Looking east across the cove, the sun had left a narrow band of unreflecting waters...stunning blue in contrast to the clouds pinks. The bands of color played against the benches on the dock. A good beginning to the day ahead.

Hanging Out

So the main idea of Thanksgiving is hanging out and eating. These are sequential in most cases...the big meal, then hanging out...but sometimes there are variations. Such as wine on the deck looking across the bay. Such as playing cards with friends who flew in from Brussels for the holiday.
Such as checking to see if some of apple pie is still available. Such as having a long, intense discussion about Kant (not). Being anthropologists, Charlotte and I have both had long years of training in hanging out...and then writing it up. Hmmmm....like this blog.

Thanksgiving

Of course before the turkey and mashed potatoes and squash and gravy and asparagus and pies, there is the table setting. Itself a work of art and artifice. The tables were set at Margaret and Tony's house, deep in the woods by the Severn River in Annapolis. We had our full families at the meal plus some friends. When we lived in Maryland, we would exchange Thanksgiving and Christmas/Hanukkah holiday meals. Such occasions were filled with good food, laughter, love. They still are.

Bolton Hill

We came back up to Baltimore on Tuesday to have dinner with Elwin Guild, a friend whom we had not seen for some 15 years. Elwin, Charlotte and I worked together and, more important, helped one another get jobs over the course of several years. I got Elwin a job at the Peace Corps where he then went on to be a country director and now does consulting around the world, forming small trade associations, mainly in eastern Europe. Next week, Kosovo. And Elwin got me a job at USDA when I left the Peace Corps, a move that allowed us eventually to relocate to Colorado. And Charlotte had originally hired Elwin when she worked at USDA.

So the connections are old and significant. And now the connections are rewired. Elwin lives in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore...an intact neighborhood of town houses and churches built in the 1880s. Elwin and Joan's house is of that era, but he has added decks, gardens, and a rich and eclectic set of art works, rugs, furniture for the light-filled, high ceilinged rooms. We'll be back.

Marita

On Monday and Tuesday, I was back with Rink and Marita. Marita is beginning to shut down, eating less, less able to communicate, hearing and sight going. The home hospice folks are excellent, especially Sherry, the nurse, who brings a sense of love, focus, humor, activity along with her knowledge of palliative medicines. Rink is the moral compass he always was when we lived down the street in University Park. He is caring, loving, strong, ready to learn what to do in the next step of care.



Also he maintains such an open and welcoming household for the tens of friends, neighbors, co-workers, soccer team members, and family who come to help, to visit, to bring food (check out the refrigerator), to say hello, to say goodbye. Dan came on Tuesday, his regular day, and so I left earlier than usual. But people come all day long...which you can see on http://maketheladyhappy.blogspot.com.


Rink's openness is a gift...Marita's presence in the community is a gift...they have always been so much a part of our family's life. And now they have given us so much more.