Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, Habana, Cuba. February, 2012

There are lots of monuments in Havana’s main cemetery. Lots of stories, too. Tombs that remain empty until the owners who fled the revolution are allowed to return to Cuba. Beautifully designed mausoleums to local heroes. The stone domino erected by the guilt-ridden children whose mother got so excited during one of their games that she had a stroke and died. The tomb of La Milagrosa, a woman who died in childbirth buried with her dead son at her feet; when the tomb was opened years later, the baby was reportedly in his mother’s arms. In addition to plaques and memorials decorated with flowers, birds, weapons and other symbols carved into marble with a Latin sensibility that reminds us that nothing succeeds like excess. So it was with a certain relief and, frankly, shock to come across this monument in the graveyard’s center to students killed in the 1957 attack on Batista’s presidential palace. Look how the Cuban flag’s five stripes and single star are indicated through positive and negative space. How the lack of color adds to the stark impression. 

Niles Beach, Gloucester, MA. June 23, 2012

When mi amiga Evelyn suggested we re-enact our Noche de San Juan ritual again this year, how could I decline? Two years earlier, it had been three puertorriqueñas and me. This time, eight guys and Evelyn. It sounds as if she’d stacked the odds in her favor, but with these guys...not really. There’s Jay on one end and Pablo on the other, lending the event the tiniest smidgen of seriousness and respectability. Flowers (for love), fruit (for health) and coins (for prosperity) in hand, here we are waiting for the midnight hour when all these things (including ourselves) are tossed backwards into the sea with much screaming. Desafortunadamente our riotous good time attracted the Gloucester police. But afortunadamente they didn’t arrive until after we’d completed our ritual. All this and the Schaeffer beer commercial sung in Spanish? A glorious noche.

Boston. May, 2012

It’s so easy to walk by beautiful sights, lovely locations, and not notice them. Especially if they’re places you pass by every day. An “internet friend” from Turkey, whom I’ve never met, once asked me to send him some pictures of where I live, the places I frequent. For the next few days, I saw my home, my neighborhood in a completely different way, the way a stranger might. Everything was much more interesting. Carrying a camera with me does somewhat the same thing. It urges me to see the beautiful. Coming out of a restaurant where we’d dined for my friend Marin’s belated birthday, we looked up and saw this. Extraordinary, no. But beautiful.

Freedom Trail, Boston. Autumn, 1987

I’m often pleasantly amazed when looking through old print photographs, by coming across shots of friends I haven’t seen in decades, haven’t heard from in a long, long time. Like my friend Bambi, seen here. Bambi moved to Boston in the 1980s from New Orleans where, if the stories are true, her wild life was remarkable even in that town. When I met her, she had calmed down some, was finally learning to drive (in Boston?) and told me, in her tough Tennessee Williams drawl, “Boston is a mean and nasty town. Birthplace of democracy? I don’t get it.” Still, she received not only her driver’s license but, soon after, her longed-for acceptance into the ranks of National Park Service rangers. Then she disappeared as mysteriously as she’d arrived. Ranger Bambi was a real hoot and I hope our paths cross again someday.

Morse Fish, Boston. May, 2012

Meet my Cousin Bobby. We hadn’t seen each other or been in touch for some 30 years when he found this blog online and contacted me. And shortly thereafter, here he was, visiting me from his San Diego home, catching up. Actually, it was almost as if no time at all had passed, so easily did we click again. Among his few requests: to have a local fish dinner. Jeez. Where? I’m so used to Jay’s grilling fish at home in Gloucester. Wait...Morse Fish! Off we went to reputedly the oldest existing fish market in Boston and a genuine original in a crowded South End sea of daily-sprouting fusion bistros and such. And you can see how pleased he is. After our casual meal, a leisurely walk to the Museum of Fine Arts where we went our separate ways, checking in each hour. Then, after terrifying him with my jaywalking, a visit to Jordan Hall for an evening concert of Beethoven string quartets. A long day, a good day, a great visit.

Jaimanitas, Habana, Cuba. February, 2012

While visiting the famed home and neighborhood of ceramic artist José Fuster (who has persuaded all his neighbors for blocks around to decorate the outsides of their homes with mosaics), Patti and I decided to break away from the group and explore on our own. We came across this man, standing at the doorway to his home, and Patti asked me how to tell him in Spanish that we liked his house. She told him, he beamed a smile and graciously invited us inside to see the rest, including his backyard (shown here) that featured avocado and mango trees. Such a sweet and generous man. A little shy when I asked to take his picture (he couldn’t understand why I would want to), he happily agreed and wished us a good stay in his homeland. 

Springfield, NJ. January, 1958

“August is the beginning of winter.” So said Nick’s grandmother, and I think of her and her optimistic seasonal wisdom each August 1. (Though it’s hard to imagine winter, stuck as we are in serial heat waves here in New England this summer.) Seen above, some snows of yesteryear, which somehow I remember as being deeper and more intense. (Maybe because I was shorter then?) Earmuffs, hat and hood, I’m ready to pick up that Flexible Flyer, head to the sledding hill near our suburban home and fly until sundown. Just Rosebud and me.