Millie

At 5:00 in the evening on Sunday two weeks ago, my phone rang. It was Maria next door, distraught. She and Brad had been walking the dogs in the woods near the middle school when the smallest and most fearless of them, Millie, had been grabbed by a coyote and taken off into the woods. Maria had hurriedly brought the other dogs home; could I drive her back to the middle school where it had happened and where Brad was still searching the woods?

It was dark when we got there. Brad said that he had seen the shadows of the coyotes, heard Millie scream, then silence. We blundered around in the woods, shining our flashlights around us and calling into the night. Taken by a pack of coyotes, there was no way she was alive, no chance that we could even find her body. Every now and then we sat down and wept. Finally I drove Brad and Maria home. Their house was heavy with grief. I made them some dinner, fed the other dogs, told Brad and Maria I'd call later, and went home. Amy and I both woke at 5:00 the next morning, thinking of Millie and feeling sad.

Around noon that next day, my cell phone rang. "Millie's alive," Maria said. "A guy found her in the woods, all ripped up, when he was walking his dog. He took her to the vet hospital; they don't know if she'll live or not." But Millie has a strong spirit (Amy calls her "intrepid"). The vet sewed Millie up, gave her painkillers and antibiotics, and a few days later she went home.

Much of Millie's fur was shaved off so the vet could treat the puncture wounds on her back. Amy made Millie a fleece coat to keep her warm.

The picture above is of Michael, one of the other three dogs. Mike was bothered by all the changes involved in Millie's drama, but his main concern has remained whether he's going to get his evening bone.

Sometimes things work out better than we have any right to expect. A couple years ago, my car was hit almost head-on by a driver coming the other way; I was shaken but unhurt. A year or two before that, Amy had a tumor removed that was declared non-malignant. Two months ago a friend went into cardiac arrest; "I was dead for two minutes," he told me, "but I didn't suffer any permanent damage."

These "survivings" are gifts in more ways than one. They are pointed reminders of our fragility, of the reality of mortality, of the importance of paying attention to the loved ones and beauty around us.

Festival of Lights

Tonight is the last night of Chanukah. Even though the holiday came early this year, I was more conscious than usual of the warmth and light the candles bring in a time of gathering darkness. Perhaps it's the sharp cold we are already feeling, so early this year.

Chanukah is a holiday best celebrated in groups. We light the shamash ("attendant") candle first (one for each menorah) and then light the other candles from the shamash; in our family we take turns lighting candles in each menorah. While we light the candles, we sing the Chanukah candle-lighting prayers.

Once all the candles are lit, we always turn the electric lights off. We are quiet (as quiet as we get in our family); we watch the candle flames dance, and see the glow in each other's faces.

Last year, some weeks after Chanukah, Sarah and her friend Anna stood out in the snow with sparklers. They created their own circle of light in the immense darkness. Isn't that our best task in life?

Thanksgiving gathering

Great Thanksgiving food, and wonderful family gatherings. This fruit dish my brother Eric set out captures the spirit of the food, laden with layers of flavor, calories and family history. My brothers and I spent the days before Thanksgiving e-mailing our last-minute recollections about the Thanksgiving foods from our childhood, and then dividing up who would make what. The fruit plate above was an accurate recreation of our grandmother Irene's Thanksgiving centerpiece (and we then remembered our mother saying, "Don't pick at the grapes, you'll make them look like a skeleton!").

Eric prepared the turkey masterfully, despite the usual struggle over getting the dark meat cooked without the white meat drying out. (I have since seen the suggestion described in this link.)

The Hochheimer clan gathered for a photograph before dinner. (None of us are named Hochheimer anymore; we are descendants and cousins and in-laws. I recently heard a musing about what constitutes life and death; one view proposed was that we have a form of life as long as someone still speaks your name. By this measure, my grandparents (Larry and Irene Hochheimer) are alive and well!)

I made sticky buns using the same recipe our mother used (from the now-closed Woodbine Cottage in Sunapee, New Hampshire. Thank you David for your late-night help!). I also made my cousin Lynn's cranberry-strawberry jello mold (came out great) and my first-ever pecan pie (filling was tasty, crust was tough).

There was a sweet moment when everyone swarmed around the kitchen island of Eric's renovated house, and we all hungrily spooned and speared, oohed and ahhed, and then made our way to seats with full plates. The rest of the night saw us going from table to kitchen, back to another seat to eat and chat with other relatives. It was great Thanksgiving in which the food was a medium with which we both looked back and created forward, remembered and made new memories. Certainly a gathering to be thankful for! (And perhaps next year I will write about the next day’s gathering with Amy’s family, and how a very smelly cheese has become a Thanksgiving staple …)

Fishes

What is it that so completely captures our attention when we see the fish in the aquarium? I love to stand and watch the fish swim; I feel an odd affinity with them. Not that I would like to be a fish in a tank ... but the patterns of their movement, their unconscious beauty and their muscular power somehow embody an aspect of my dreams. Watching them is like a meditation (or more properly, perhaps: watching the fish is a meditation).

Part of me wonders whether it matters -- to them? to me? -- that the fish are trapped in the artificial environment. But of course one aspect of existence is to live within an environment, within a context, and to learn how to live most fully within those limits. The fish don't have to wax philosophical about it; they just are where and how they are. All their energy goes into swimming.

The fish are beautiful and strange. They ignore each other, and yet every movement communicates clear knowledge of where the others are.

I move from tank to tank, watching. Crisscrossing in the airy building from one viewing spot to the next, mingling with crowds then standing alone, I watch. The fish don't care that I am there. But there is something meaningful to me about the fact that they are there.

Sweet Peppers

Sweet peppers (also called Bell peppers) have beautiful shapes. Their sensual curves contain sweet, crunchy flesh. Inside are not only the seeds of the next generation, but also (often) surprising lumps of smaller pepper bits (I haven't been able to find a proper term for these "babies").


Green, yellow, orange and red peppers are all fruit of the same plant - Capsicum annuum. The green are the least ripe; the red are the ripest; the yellow and orange peppers fall in between. As the pepper ripens, its nutritional content changes -- red peppers have much more Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Beta Carotene than the green. (The yellow and orange, which taste the best to me, surprisingly have less Vitamin A and Beta Carotene than either the green or the red.)

The sweet peppers are related to all the various hot chili peppers -- but not to the plant that gives us peppercorns (white and black pepper, Piper nigrum). The fleshy peppers all originate in Central and South America, while the peppercorns come from India.

Botany not withstanding, sharp flavor seems connected to sharp flavor. When we look for heat in our food, where better to turn than a pepper? But give praise also to the sweet peppers, which put juicy flavor, beautiful shapes and vibrant color in our salads.

Pumpkin Birthday

Amy's birthday falls on Halloween (every year!). This year, in honor of her 50th, she wore the pumpkin costume her grandparents made for her when she was 8 years old. It was a perfect expression of Amy's incredible talent for bringing out the "inner child" in all of us.
We dressed up, although we didn't all look as cute as Charlotte with her cat ears and tail.

We played games. (Yes, that is a candy corn balanced on Maya's nose.)

We ate the beautifully decorated cake (marzipan skeleton courtesy of our niece Hannah, who told us that the umbrella was intended to keep the skeleton from getting sunburned).

The pinata, which of course was designed as a pumpkin, was attacked by costumed partyers of all ages
and, destroyed, deposited its contents of candy and toys on the ground, where they were equitably distributed to the youngest generation.

All in all, a very satisfying birthday for Amy and Halloween for us all !!

Late autumn color

On Saturday, I got on my bicycle for my first long ride since Amy and I rode from Boston to New York with a lot of wonderful people. It was a beautiful warm day; a lot of leaves had fallen, but many more still clung to the trees. It seemed that orange and yellow and reds were everywhere around me.

I rode past the Connecticut river, where the water reflected the clear blue sky.

Almost home (mile 49, and my legs were complaining!) I found this welcome excuse to stop -- a beautiful still pond reflecting the late autumn color.

It rained last night, and today many of the leaves had fallen to the ground. I love the seasons in part because they end -- you have to catch them while you can, and then wait for next year ...

Plant colors in autumn

Despite the cooler autumn weather flowing in, some of summer's color remains. Photographing this flower, I was captivated by the curve of the aging petals. Despite the spot of decaying tissue, the strong yellow calls with lingering urgency to the insect world.


My mother used to call these "British Soldiers;" they are the spore-producing reproductive structures of the Reindeer Moss, which turns out to be a lichen. (Yes, if you look at anything closely enough, it will appear quite strange!)


The cooler weather slows the energy-producing efforts of green plants. Chlorophyll requires constant replenishment to remain in leaves, so as the process slows, these ferns turn pale.


Some leaves have a weak orange or yellow pigment in them all summer long, masked by the strong green of summer's photosynthesis. When the chlorophyll leaches out, the orange emerges.


Other plants fill the void with new colors. As the cooler weather sets in, the sugar maple starts to increase the amount of sugar in its sap, and the result is a pigment called anthocyanin that colors the leaves red.


This blueberry leaf is turning red too (its shape and hue reminds me of my grandmother Irene gleefully talking about the "flaming euonymous," simply for the sound of the phrase). I like the shadow of the bare twig making its design on the leave below, like a hand in the projector's light.

As I read about and re-learn how the fall colors happen, I am thinking about the "reveals" (noun) that operate in our own lives. (I have heard the word "reveal" used in theater to describe a panel that opens to show what was hidden behind: "The production uses a reveal in Act III to show the audience that the protagonist was listening behind a wall.") After my grandfather died, my grandmother emerged from mourning as a stronger voice, perhaps more herself. I certainly have felt that my years of psychoanalysis helped quiet my anxiety so that my other qualities could emerge. And perhaps, like the sugar maple, I am able to produce new qualities in autumn that didn't exist in my younger self!

Kayaking at sunset

We went down to the Guilford town dock late this afternoon with our kayaks.
Paddling out into the harbor, we enjoyed the evening light.

The water lay flat and calm; after the storms of the last few days, there was now no wind. The pastel colors of the evening sky were reflected in the water everywhere we looked.

For many years, Guilford and the surrounding shoreline towns were vacation destinations for people living in New York City (there used to be a number of big hotels dotting the shoreline). We have to remind ourselves that we don't need to go away to have a vacation experience!


We met our friends Maya, Sheldon & Claire paddling in from a longer outing.

Eventually, reluctantly, we did head in to shore ... but noting the warmth remaining in the water and air, it seemed likely we will be back to the Guilford harbor in our little boats again before the autumn weather gets too nippy!