gritty city

 There is a strange but familiar feel to New York right now. The tall, empty luxury apartments and  ubiquitous masks are of the moment, but the bands of homeless people on the street are of the 1970s, when I first arrived here. The rich people have fled (as I'm about to), and there will be room for the young and the artists to take over. I hope that happens. But all seems to be in limbo everywhere right now.
   I will be on the road tomorrow, but will try to check in here as I head west on my latest pandemic road trip.

nose in a book

 The complaint I heard about my behavior as a child was most often that I always had  my nose in a book. This caused me to read secretly late into the night under the covers with a flashlight. So it delights me when I see other kids who love books, especially if they are my grandkids. Camilla reads them herself. Isaac refuses to read himself but demands to be read to. Sometimes Camilla obliges, but she likes different books than he does (he likes sci-fi series, creepy books, mysteries), and finds reading out loud too slow.
     Donna's grandson Ryan, 6, like Isaac, loves Legos, but he is also gripped by circle the word games.

Ryan finds the word.

Milla lost to the word.

painting the present

Some of you may recollect the painting of Katie's I posted maybe a week ago in Painting the Past. Well, the above homage represents the present, and the painting in its present location. By Camilla, 9. I like it a lot, and I hope that Katie will too.

i'm baaack!

 And so I returned to the Apartment of No Regrets. And apparently no memories either. I had totally forgotten the coral chairs in the hall, the sheets on the bed, the new coffee filter in the chemex and the other things I had prepped for what I believed would be a procession of guests while I was in Hawaii. I never dreamt that I would be gone for almost four months. But here we are. The things that were meant to go to Block Island fill a closet, and the things meant to go to Missouri fill another. Plus the coral chairs Barb found on the street. And the clock has stopped.

building a better mousetrap

the calm before the storm

The calm

The storm. Arriving in an hour.

distancing notsomuch

The Block Island ferry on Saturday morning

A revival service across from the Goose on Sunday

Local officials everywhere attribute the casting off of face masks and forgoing gatherings to "fatigue." And I totally know what they are saying. I feel it myself. On the scale of 1 Careless to Five Paranoid, I'm about a 2 now. However, the ferry on Saturday monrning gave me pause. I was not on it (tnx goddess) and had I been I would have been sequestered in my truck, but lots of other people were, and they were coming on an outin g to BI as they always have, thinking that reality isn't here and rules don't apply on vacation, drinking and carousing and careening around drunk. Payne's Dock was apparently a mega zoo.
   And on the other hand, across the street from the Goose, was the religious crowd, who believe if it's god's will, they will live. And vice versa, I suppose. Carly's son was gripped by the spectacle, and Carly herself (who took the picture) said she learned that anxiety was caused by a person stopping the flow of god. At high volume.
   Is nowhere safe? Answer: No.
   And the internet is terribly sluggish now on Block island.

one down

The first renters arrive at Hannah's Hideaway today, in about two hours. My friends Ana and Jose polished and prepped until the place shone. They even did windows. I am booked out now until mid September and could have rented twice over this summer. People are sick of being cooped up and want to get out of town. Everyone I know trying to sell a million dollar house in the suburbs has sold in days.
    Next week Hannah and family arrive at Claudia's Surf City. I will then leave for the town everyone is longing to get out of, the one so nice they named it twice, and see friends and head for the Ozark hills. For how long? Who knows. It depends on viral spikes.

amazing skies

 I really can't add anything here, except to say that these photos were not shopped in any way.

white people step up

 This island is about as white as it gets. The town beach is named for Fred Benson, a local official who for years was the only black person on the island. We do have a black CEO who summers here now, and there are a handful of former Jamaicans who have settled.  But basically the place is WASPy white bread. So were almost all of the hundred marchers who stepped out in support of people of color yesterday.
   Thank you to Madison Porter for the photos. And for marching.

painting the past

Many years ago, Kate Knapp started painting a bouquet in my kitchen annually. You can pretty much tell the time of year by the flowers that always appeared: tiger lilies, hydrangeas, sweet peas, Queen Ann's lace. July.
   This was the last bouquet, because after that I converted Claudia's Surf City into a house and started renting, so I was never here in July. The picture was made during a brief period when my living room/kitchen was upstairs, where the master bedroom is now. It had no plumbing—I ran a hose up through the window into a sink with buckets under the drain holes and had an electric toilet that burned the shit up.
   Yesterday Katie gave me this painting she said she had been working on for 20 years, and now it hangs in the living room of today.

a murder of crows

There is a young robin that keeps me company while I am gardening. I guess it hopes I will turn up something good to eat, as often I do. It doesn't seem afraid of me.
    The other morning I heard a redwing blackbird screaming alarm. I thought it was the hawks or egrets after their nest again, and started outside to scare them away. The redwing blackbirds are pretty good at it on their own—a single brave little bird or sometimes a team gives chase. But instead I chased off a murder of crows on the back porch that were tearing apart a little bird.
     I could hardly look at the poor thing. That robin was too trusting, I thought.
     But it wasn't "my" robin, because later, when I went out to dig, there it was, hopping around.

distanced learning

bucolic scenes

The back yard

 Bucolic, while the rest of the world is chaotic. As a journalist, I usually ran toward trouble. But when the virus struck, I ran away. And now this. Cities in tumult. It's so disheartening to be fighting the same battles we did in the '60s and to think there has been so little change. Except now we have Russian bots, the true outside agitators.
    I am afraid that what with the virus and the violence, the cities are once again down the tubes. I remember what New York was like when I moved there in 1973. Zeroland. Cars stolen on my doorstep. Needles in the parks. Muggings common. Doors barred and triple locked in my building. I am afraid that it will be like that again.
    Even before Covid-19, retail was dying, and Broadway was lined with empty storefronts. The only street life has been around restaurants, and many of them are now finished. And while I was cool with living on a dystopian frontier when I was in my 20s, I wouldn't care for it now. The good news is that when the millionaires move out, New York City may have room for artists once again.
    But I have always felt that I needed a bolt hole. Block Island could serve, except that I have no heat here, and the ocean is threatening to wash over me. So I got the Goose, which has heat (and AC!). Yes, we have a bit of a flooding and tornado problem, but, as on Block Island, we have fish and a place to grow a garden and good neighbors who are used to being self-sufficient.
     I have options. I fear for those who don't.

More back yard

The side yard