Boston. August, 2010

Because of the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts exhaustive digs in Egypt between 1905 and 1942, the museum is a vast repository of plundered treasures. Jewelry, coins, mummy cases, sculptures, columns, you name it. In one section, you are invited to enter a tomb-like chamber and soon you’re surrounded by limestone carvings from thousands of years ago. It’s hard not to feel a chill of relative unimportance standing there. Realizing that others stood encased by these same stones so long ago...and where are they now? Similar to the sensation I feel when I see photos of Earth taken from outer space. The irritation caused by someone’s parking in my favorite space greatly diminishes. The driver who cut me off that morning fades from memory. So I missed the sale on coffee at Stop&Shop...how important is it? Feeling right-sized. I recommend a visit.

Gloucester, MA. November, 2008

Why is autumn my favorite season? The colors? (Too easy an answer.) The schoolteacher in me? (The opposite should be true, no?) I think it may have to do with so many wonderful memories of things happening in this crisp, precise, no-nonsense season. When I was in high school and college, autumn would be the time that we’d go into Manhattan most often, making our student films, buying cheap sweaters, attending recent openings on and off Broadway, tracking museums and galleries. The extremes of summer and winter far off, the rains of spring forgotten. Most of the photos I have from those years were taken in the fall. There just seems to be more energy after summer’s laziness. Oh, and the colors, too, like those seen here in our front yard in Gloucester.

Lisbon. October, 2009

My friends Donna and Emilia recently returned from Lisbon where they stayed in a small hotel over a bridal shop. Breakfast included. But they never had breakfast in their hotel, they told me, because each day they toddled on down to this wonderful cafe and bakery, the Casa Brasileira on the Rua Augusta, to try yet another of their seemingly endless assortment of confections. Look at those spikey, sugary things on the lower left up there. You can almost imagine how they’d collapse in a brittle surprise the minute you bit into them. I loved each of my own visits here, slowly learning the names of the pastries, many of them named for different saints, many solely named for their shapes or ingredients or both. Over on the right, can you pick out the “apple snails” and the “fruit rocks”?

County Clare, Ireland. May, 1992

I grew up in New Jersey. When we went to the beach, there was no greenery nearby. No lawns, no plants, nothing. Just lots of sand and bungalows with pebbles in place of lawns. So when I came to Massachusetts and visited Cape Cod, I was amazed at having woods within sight of the beach. Lawns and gardens, even densely grassy dunes. But that was nothing compared to what I found in Ireland. Look at how lush this landscape is a stone’s throw from the sea’s edge. And so green, I couldn’t stop laughing. I always find it comic when things are as they’re portrayed in cartoons or clichés. When an owl says, “Who,” for example. Or when, as I found here, Ireland turns out to be really green, the Emerald Isle really emerald.

El Charro, Tucson. March, 2011

I maintain a tradition whenever I visit Tucson. I must purchase something to take back to New England with me that is big, breakable and very difficult to pack. I usually have no problem identifying several items that qualify during each trip. For example, these stars, seen at the excellent Mexican restaurant, El Charro. I love them. And I couldn’t help myself from buying an excessively large one several years ago when Jay and I ventured just south of the border to Nogales, Mexico. So large in fact that we could not find a box to contain it for the trip home to the East Coast and had to cobble one together from several cartons on hand. Getting it on the plane was another story as it was too big to fall within the acceptable dimensions. And then transporting it from the Boston airport to my house, well, it was a challenge from start to finish. But now it hangs proudly on my front porch, a little out of place in the Boston suburbs, but a nice reminder of our Nogales visit. It sure would look perfect accompanied by a pair of similar stars like the illuminated lineup here at El Charro. Next time.

Venice, Italy. September, 1986

There’s one thing you can count on in Venice...nothing. It’s a city that constantly surprises. From the very first minute you step out of the train station and find yourself confronted with the water and boats just a few steps away. Vincent Price once told me, “Venice isn’t really in Italy. It’s a planet all to itself.” Yes. It’s a place made for walking, for getting lost, for discoveries. Take this photo, for example. I was wandering alone through narrow alleyways, around corners, down deserted paths, and then this...a canal, a gondola, a wedding. Around another corner, the fabled Teatro La Fenice (itself a phoenix, having been rebuilt three times after hugely destructive fires, most recently in 1996) where I bought a ticket to a concert featuring a composer unknown to me, Ciakovsky. (It was only when the lights went down and the music began did I realize it was Tchaikovsky!) I’ve been here three times now, each more magical than the last. Ask around about Venice. Some people decry it as overrun with tourists and Disney-fied to an irritating degree. Others are enchanted by its quiet magic, its seductive shadows and reflections. I’m squarely in the latter camp.

Istanbul. June, 2007

Recently, a new Turkish restaurant has opened not far from my home outside Boston. Called Istanbul’lu, its breakfast menu features an item poetically described as “A Plate of Turkish Mornings.” Mmmmm. How could you not order something that sounds so wonderful, so evocative? Early-morning running in Istanbul along the Sea of Marmara. Walking down the steep steps toward the Galata Bridge to buy some breakfast simit. Sitting at the wide-open cafe in Tunel Square on my first morning in the City of the World’s Desire. Or, to take a more literal route, this man, carrying his tray of baked goods through the Sahaflar Carsisi, a tiny, leaf-shaded square lined with used-book shops in a quiet neighborhood of Istanbul between the Grand Bazaar and the Beyazid Mosque. (It’s one of the oldest markets in the city, built on the same site as the ancient book and paper market of the Byzantines; since the 18th century it’s been a place where intellectuals have met and books have been sold. Still is.) Looks like he’s got plenty of açme, a flaky, egg-enriched pastry, as well as some other sweet items. He just strolled casually through the courtyard, stopping each time a customer wanted to buy something, and before long, to the delight of those around him, his plate of Turkish mornings was empty.