Habana Vieja, Cuba. February, 2012

One of the things I noticed everywhere I went in Cuba: the resourcefulness of the people. Whether they are making their own car parts to replace necessary items in those old American cars from the 1950s. Or refilling butane cigarette lighters for resale. Or fashioning handmade musical instruments from local woods and gourds. Or weaving palm fronds into amazingly detailed images of animals and birds and insects. So many have found ways to make so much out of so little. Here, a woman on a main street in Old Havana wheels her cart filled with homemade meringues, selling them by the piece, by the bag, to neighbors and tourists alike.

Stonehenge, Salisbury, England. June, 1969

This memory from back in the days when you could walk up and touch Stonehenge. Actually move among the huge stones and sit upon them for photos. No longer, alas, as prohibitive fencing now keeps the rabble far afield of the monuments. I remember riding the public bus from our in-town digs, across the Salisbury Plain, and coming upon a rise -- wow! -- there was Stonehenge in front of us! My friends Debbye and Sarah and I made a beeline to the site and reveled in the accumulated centuries of spiritual energy. Nowadays, sadly, with the stones kept at a distance, like zoo animals, one can admire but not approach. Still, the wonder.

Deptford, NJ. June, 1973

I have the greatest friends in the world, none greater than my friend Miles. He avoided having a telephone for SO long, and he and I could only communicate by snail mail for decades. (Now that he’s got a phone, we connect almost weekly and “cover the waterfront,” laughing and screaming all the while.) Miles has always been a huge movie fan and continues to update his personal collection, complaining each time a new technology is introduced, forcing him to purchase once again. From videotape to DVD to Blu-Ray...he is concerned that another new format is looming on the horizon, threatening. The phone-free Miles was never shy about approaching the authorities (via US Mail) with questions he might have about gaps in his film or soundtrack library. Witness this generous reply from Rex Reed to Miles’s inquiry about why he was unable to find any soundtrack album for the film Myra Breckingridge. Do you suppose anyone else in the world was interested in this soundtrack?

Watertown, MA. August, 2011

What a blessing to have friends who love gardening. Especially vegetable gardening. Especially this time of year. My friend James has had a community garden at nearby Lincoln, MA’s Codman Estate for many years now, steadily producing impressive crops of onions, cabbage, parsnips, cantaloupes, watermelon, various herbs and, of course, tomatoes. His generosity continues to be remarkable. These beautiful green beans are a gift from my friend Donna, another generous friend who shows up regularly with beets, tomatoes and other treats. (Donna was an art major. Do you agree with me that the colander pattern here suggests Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’?) My neighbor Toni is a canner, putting up tomatoes, pears, peaches (in non-sugared liquids) that miraculously appear at Christmastime. And my neighbor Alice opens her fabled garden to me and others when she and her husband leave for three weeks in Maine each year around (yes!) harvest time. Thank you. I am grateful to you all. Talk about friends with benefits!

Bologna, Italy. May, 1988

In Bologna, food rules. So it came as no surprise that the pastry shops there would be remarkable. And none more so that this one, Atti. Even they call their sugar-dusted ciambella “a marvel.” Blackberry tarts. Old-fashioned individual custards. Almond-covered mountains of sweets. And the fabled Torta Bolognese, a rich, almond-flavored cake that incorporates layers of sweetened pasta (tagliatelle) among its ingredients. The recipes for many of these (and more) made their way into my friend Nick’s Great Italian Desserts, the research for which prompted this visit to Bologna. Sweet research, indeed.

Casa Fuster, Habana, Cuba. February, 2012

I remember when I was learning French in high school, all the students wanted to learn how to say the “dirty words.” And while there are plenty of them in French, none were taught in class, not even by our shifty and somewhat questionable teacher, M. Chevance. When I went to Czechoslovakia in 1972, I knew three different ways to say “drunk,” all of which proved useful in a country where tumblers of vodka were offered at breakfast. I can say two things in Swiss German -- one means hello, the other means something less cordial and I have to control myself from saying it while changing planes in Zurich Airport. So imagine my delight upon finding among the ceramic decorations in this collectively ornamented community a tile that boldly announced ¡Coño! I assume it was put there by a teenager. But maybe not.

Tucson. November, 2006

Feeding the coyotes a Ritz cracker? Seems like it’s probably “none of your business” to do that. Do kids still say this, taunting one another with it from an early age? I think maybe it should change with the coming of adulthood into “None of my business.” A confirmed TV news addict, I stopped watching all such stuff on the morning after Election Day 2000, when the presidential “winner” was still being questioned because of some idiosyncrasies in the Florida ballots. Remember that? Then, some ten months later, I stopped listening to NPR news when I heard the name of one of my former students in a story about people killed in the World Trade towers. I don’t miss the news at all. Every six months or so, I ask Jay what the current top stories are, and they all sound like the same ones time after time. Terrorism. Oil. Political chicanery. Basta. When I sign out of my Hotmail account and am presented with a list of headlines on the msn.com homepage (“Bee Gee to leave hospital,” “Mom, son die in two crashes,” “Jessica Simpson gives birth”), I more often than not say to myself, “None of my business.” Life is simpler that way.