17 February 2025

Stopping mid-ascent on the stairs yesterday, I spied through the northwest window a small hawk having Sunday brunch at the expense of a fellow feathered creature, whose scattered plumage scudded across snow sculpted smooth by the prevailing wind.  Not until I dug out the front entrance and made my way to inspect the latest damage inflicted on my mailbox and bright blue newspaper receptacle, for the second consecutive day knocked off its support by passing plows, did this diminutive raptor take up the bulk of its prey in his talons and make for the woods.

Once I got back inside, I recalled that it was from just that same spot on the staircase that on the morning of 1 June 2019 I had looked right rather than left and seen through the fanlight an Eastern phoebe perched on the flagpole that spans our front entrance, her beak filled with breakfast for the three hatchlings in the nest she’d built on the molding in the southwest corner above the front door.  Just after 6 am on that so-green spring morning, the two representatives of the Cremation Society had driven away with the mortal remains of my darling husband David.  And once again, though the transition is less stark and painful, I feel a bird sighting has marked a transition in my life.  Today is the first anniversary of my sister Jane’s passing, and the 23^rd birthday of our granddaughters Isabel and Olivia.  And I am feeling my age.

From first light early this morning, the wind has gusted around Gnawwood with such ferocity that the change of air pressure rattles interior doors, sporadically interrupting electricity so that oven and microwave protest with random beeps.  Winter’s been late arriving this year, but it’s definitely here now.  The substantial snowfall is gorgeous and brilliant, but challenging.  Twice now, the garage doors have frozen shut; getting out takes some substantial effort and time, and already I am weary of ever-changing footwear requirements.  Snowshoeing remains a delight, but attention must be paid, as I learned last week when I stepped on a stick invisible under last week’s deep powder, which, wedged between the outer rim of my right snowshoe and the binding, tripped me so that I dropped the poles that immediately completely disappeared beneath the deep, slippery snow, leaving no trace of their whereabouts.  I wasn’t hurt, and I DID finally recover the poles necessary to right myself.  But still:  a cautionary tale. 

For I am no longer young.  My quads tire, and my right hand grows more arthritic.  I’m still braving Boston traffic, but can be baffled by QR codes that don’t work to allow pedestrian entrance to parking garages whose doors only admit cars; in the confused exchange with a parking lot attendant over this situation, I managed to leave my car locked, but with the passenger window down.  Happily, again, no harm done.  But slippage.

My struggles to get a new printer to connect with my laptop lasted two weeks, entailing a collective 9.5 hours on the phone with Dell technicians (Anthony, Mohit, Rajendra, Chandon, Mohammed, and Kaveri), an appointment at Best Buy, and visits to both the Durham Public Library and Dimond Library at UNH, before help arrived in the person of Jason Wall from Lenharth Systems and sprung me from printer purgatory.  (Jason’s take:  some aberrant upgrade from Microsoft might well be the culprit).  And while my Will to Live book talk last week at the handsome Portsmouth Public Library went very well, I’ve never before had such disconcerting, near-debilitating pre-performance anxiety, or needed so much time to recover.

Here on this President’s Day, the distance between the on-going coup orchestrated by our Felon-in-Chief (ceding all responsibility to a mad, unelected oligarch so that he has time to schmooze with the murderous Putin) and the selfless republican civic virtues of Washington and Lincoln staggers.  The negotiated Medicare pharmaceutical prices that Biden put in place for 2026 have already been undone, presumably to further enhance Big Pharma’s profits, so my Eliquis prescription will continue to strain the budget.  On the heels of the worst U.S. commercial crash in 16 years, the Felon-in-Chief has now begun firing FAA air traffic controllers.  My financial advisor predicts economic trouble ahead:  throwing thousands of Federal employees out of work will create even more unemployment for workers depending on Federal investment, and as tariffs raise prices, inflation will creep up.  More locally, the new chair of the UNH English department, the only Americanist left on the faculty, reports that both of UNH’s Shakespeareans are retiring, and there’s even discussion of dropping freshman English as a requirement.  The world’s in “a terrible state of chassis,” as Capt. Boyle opines in O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock.

So.  What to do.  I feed the birds.  Lots of bluebirds of late—a good sign? I Get Outside.  I stream horrific crime dramas with flawed female British DCIs investigating the worst that humans can do (Marcella is my latest jam).  I bake and I cook:  most current winners, Junior’s Cheesecake and shrimp and grits, both recent recipes from the New York Times.

I write.  I read.  I practice tai chi and yoga.  I connect with Good Organizations:  the Madbury Public Library, the National Archives, and the Seacoast Village Project.  I plan a return to New Orleans to visit dear friends of these past 50 years.

And I take great pleasure in the talent so generously shared by the likes of pianist Conrad Tao and tap dancer Caleb Teicher, whose performance of “Counterpoint” at the Boston Arts Academy last 7 February completely obliterated the shame I’ve been feeling as a human being, replacing it with pure joy as I recognized the best of which our species is capable.

Bach, Schoenberg, Brahms, Ravel, Gershwin:  Tao plays them all, from memory, always clearly, sometimes heartbreakingly lyrically, and spectacularly con brio, and Teicher matches him delight for delight.  If you want a lift, Google Tao and Teicher Tiny Desk for a sampling of what these two prodigiously talented young men had to offer, or follow this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61q6JoGLTc0 .

Well.  There goes the power out.  Back on.  Now out.  Gives new meaning to “only connect.”  What’s to come is still unsure:  we’re all in transition.  Dear Readers, be careful out there.