Patchwork of Jewels

 22 Oct 2024

A month ago I lay in bed and looked out the north window, as I do most mornings. All summer the window view is a mass of green maple leaves. But that day I saw a few tiny patches of blue among the green expanse. I realized that my beloved tree was slowly thinning.

By the time we returned from Netherlands, three weeks later, the window view was golden with many spots of blue. This morning it was a veritable patchwork of color: predominantly yellow but sprinkled with pale green splotches, gold trimmed with cinnamon, dark brown limbs and trunk, and brilliant sky beyond.

Toward evening, as Jim and I walked from his coachhouse office to our kitchen, we paused in the driveway with wonder. Our yard was a riot of gold in the late-afternoon sunlight.

I was afraid I would miss my New England autumn, planning a European river cruise for the first 10 days of October. But I’ve been home twelve days and am in the center of the glory. I don’t remember a more beautiful show, but I often say that. Driving to my psychiatric nurse practitioner’s office in Burlington today, the visual feast was intoxicating. Green, yellow, gold, orange, amber, wheat, butterscotch, bronze, cinnamon, and ginger. A hundred hues, tints, and shades. I live in a jewel-bedecked world.

Concertgebouw

 We boarded Viking ship Tuesday morning in Amsterdam. I went on a walking tour, with tour guide Anni, directly from the pier. It was neither historic nor charming: passenger ship terminal, commercial buildings, and train tracks. But she gave a good introduction to Amsterdam and gave me a crucial bit of information. We never would have made it to the Concertgebouw (a worldclass classical music venue) for the orchestra concert that evening without knowing how to walk to the Centraal Train Station AND that tram 2 and 5 go to Concertgebouw. CRITICAL! I enjoyed the mile walk, but did wonder if it would be safe at night on our return from the concert (It was).

After the walking tour, I stopped at an Albert Heijn supermarket (they own Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Food Lion, and Giant) and bought fresh herring and mild kwark (a northern European food like Greek yogurt but not sour), and a chicken sandwich for Jim. They didn't offer me a bag, but I managed to balance the three items for the remaining half-mile back.

That evening we walked to the Centraal Station, tapped our credit cards at entering and leaving, and rode Tram 5 along the west side of Amsterdam. In front of the Concertgebouw (literally: concert building) we join a stream of Koreans. They had come to hear the Korean National Symphony Orchestra perform. I wondered if they live in the Netherlands or were friends and family traveling with the musicians.

We heard Mozart's The Magic Flute Overture, Variations on a Rococco Theme in A Major by Tschaichovsky with 18-year-old cellist Joemin Han, and art songs in Italian and Korean by a flamboyant soprano, Sumi Jo. Her dress was one of a kind. Full-length colorful scarves at each shoulder and colorful fabric bunched up and hanging from the hips. Shumann's Fourth Symphony ended the program.

The Concertgebouw opened two years (1888) before Boston Symphony Hall. They are similar in design and have excellent acoustics. Both have composers' names lining the balcony ledges and walls. The walls and ceiling are creamy white and the seats plush red. We sat in the balcony nearest the stage and enjoyed the energy of the orchestra and the acoustics.

Afterwards, we followed the tram tracks and found a pizza shop for a late-night snack. He didn’t take credit cards, so I gave him a €20 to pay for €14 pizza. He handed me my change, carefully pointing out that it was three coins, two euros each. I felt he was watching over an inexperienced tourist.

Still Life with Books

Had a great European breakfast buffet at the hotel. I focused on protein: salami, cheese and eggs, with a side of potato cake.

Our walking tour guide was about our age: he studied in Amsterdam in the seventies. We walked along canals, went through a little alleyway that is gated in the evening, and learned about Amsterdam. For years Catholicism was illegal and there were ‘hidden churches.’ We went into one: it looked like a normal housefront but inside was a cavernous church that opened up like the Weasley’s camping tent.

Begijnhof, a peaceful oasis in central Amsterdam, was established in the Middle Ages as a lay religious community of Catholic women. The quiet courtyard is surrounded by houses and tucked away in the middle of the bustling city.

In the afternoon I headed off on my own to the Rijksmuseum.

When I was 16, I wanted to work on my uncle’s wheat farm in Montana. My three older brothers had all worked there and it was my turn. But my aunt replied to my inquiry with a gentle but firm no: the bunkhouse was no place for a girl. I was bitterly disappointed.

But my ever-resourceful mother had an idea. Why didn’t I write to her college friend, Paul, who worked for Nabisco and often travelled to Germany. I had studied German for five years. Paul knew a German family in northwestern Germany who were willing to take in an American teenager. I spent my savings on airfare and soon was on my way to six weeks in Deutschland.

It was a tremendous experience and more than compensated for my disappointment about Montana. My German parents were very accommodating and took me on day trips to see the sights of northwestern Germany, including medieval Celle, Lünenburger Heath, and an ancient Roman ruins at Xanten.

A year or so before my trip, my parents had hosted two ‘Dutch boys’ (as my mom always called them). They were in their mid-twenties and worked as interns at Merck with my dad. I contacted them and they picked me up for a visit to the Netherlands. We had supper and stayed overnight with Gertjan’s parents in The Hague.

I was in love with Rembrandt (still am) and my one wishlist item was to see Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

In the last few years, as an experienced mother, I’ve wondered about one aspect of this trip. When we got to the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch boys told me they wouldn’t park and that they would stay with the car while I ran in to see The Night Watch. Now I wonder, What would their mothers think of their behavior. To bring a visitor to a museum and say, Run in while we wait in the car? Having just been to the Rijksmuseum I now understand: there is no parking at the museum. I’m sure they explained that to me at the time.

I did what I was told, ran into the Rijksmuseum, quickly found The Night Watch, and gazed at it a few minutes. As I walked out I peaked into the side galleries and found a still life that took my breath away. It was more lifelike than a photograph. I found a postcard of it in the gift shop.

Over the years I’ve looked many times for that postcard, but I misplaced it long ago. But the memory of that still life is the most precious of my day in Amsterdam.

The only thing on my wishlist this week for Amsterdam was to go to the Rijksmuseum and track down that elusive still life. I wasn’t sure I’d even recognize it if I did find it. I looked online for any Rembrandt still life, but could find nothing. I fantasized about trying to engage someone at the museum information desk. How would it go?

My walk to the museum was wet and rainy. I forgot to pack an umbrella from home, so I bought a cheap one at a souvenir shop. Very cheap: it blew inside out at the slightest wind. A tiny bit better than nothing.

As I approached the information desk, the young man seemed eager to help. I explained to him, “I was here in 1973 and I saw a still life by Rembrandt that took my breath away. Do you know how I would find it?”

He pointed out that the museum had been extensively renovated since then, so nothing was in the same place. He looked in the museum catalog. When he found nothing, he suggested I go up to the gallery and look around. “You need to find this after all these years,” he said sympathetically. He recommended I be sure and see the  self-portrait of Rembrandt as a young man. ,It is quite small, 7 x 8 ½ inches, and easily missed. I was glad for the tip.

The Night Watch was behind a wall of glass and the view obstructed by scaffolding. They are removing old varnish to restore the color. Happily, I wasn’t there to see that masterwork. My experience five decades ago was sufficient.

I strolled from work to work, enjoying familiar pieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer. In one gallery I saw a large still life above an ornate cabinet. As I studied it, I realized that I had found my masterpiece. Still Life with Books by Jan Lievens, circa 1627. 

The web catalog image doesn’t do it justice. The reflection of the glass in the pewter pitcher. The roll fresh-baked and inviting. I can almost smell the old leather.

The description on the wall explains more that I realized.

“Appearances can be deceiving. What at first sight looks to be an overturned lute is just an old wooden case for the instrument. The books, too, are a disappointment; they are merely empty bindings, limp covers of leather or parchment meant to hold bills and other documents. These are all old objects – cast off, worthless and transitory.”

I learned in high school that excellent still life studies the transitory nature of life. The cut flowers and fruit will soon die; nothing lasts. I understand now that in Lievens’ painting, these things are already worthless. (Well, the roll was fresh that day. Does anyone have some softened butter?)

Amsterdam, Day One

29 Sep 2024 

We arrived at Logan Airport, Terminal E, three hours before our scheduled flight to Amsterdam. I felt relaxed and prepared with my backpack and carry-on-sized bag. (We had bought one checked bag each, but I have a goal to pack only a carry-on and be able to lift it above my head as needed.) As we stood in line at the automatic kiosk, Jim said, I don’t have my passport. It was very difficult for me to relax at that point. He went to the counter, but the agent assured him he couldn’t check in without a passport. (Back in the 80s he once flew to Mexico knowing he didn't have his passport. I sent it to him for his return trip.) So we called a friend who agreed to drive to the airport: it’s about a 35-minute drive at 4:30 p.m. on a Saturday.

I had decided that if it she were late, I would go through security alone and get on the plane and wait for Jim at the hotel in Amsterdam. That wasn’t necessary. Our friend made an uneventful and efficient drive; Jim met her at the curb. At security there were four people ahead of us: I’ve never seen such a short line.

Shiphol Airport is huge. We walked and walked to get to the passport checkpoint, then walked even further to our baggage claim. Our two lonely bags waited for us there.

At the Victoria Hotel (my son Matt makes a game of noticing the names of his niblings (my grandkids) around the world. Victoria wins by far.) we were told, at 9:20 a.m., that our king room wasn’t ready but that one with two twins was immediately available. At first we declined, but when hearing that our original room might not be ready until 3 p.m., we rethought it and took the twin room. It was definitely worth it to be able to lie down before 3 p.m. We didn't nap long enough to disturb our night sleep.

In the afternoon we walked south (our hotel was across the street from Centraal Station) to explore. We saw canals and tall Dutch gabled houses and lots of people and bicycles, in motion and parked. Our van driver had warned us of the bike paths, but Jim still stepped into one. The next day on our walking tour a man stepped into an active tram track, which was a closer call. Bicycles, along with large, sleek trams, and pedestrians share space in close quarters. The bike paths look like brick sidewalks, so every time I turned a corner I had to study the road carefully. A tour guide told me the bikes are much more dangerous than the cars: cars will stop for you: the bikes never do. "They think they own the road," she said. I came to dread the little tinkle of a bike bell. The tram tracks present their own challenge. They are recessed, so not a tripping hazard, but they don't stand out. There are no warning yellow lines or curbs.

In Spui Square we found the Athenaeum, a large bookstore: Jim’s shopping drug of choice. Roald Dahl and The Neverending Story were in the Dutch juvenile section (I could tell by the illustrations of the BFG and the Auryn). We then had a lovely supper at an Italian Trattoria next door. I’m still on the lookout for some traditional raw haring (herring). I’ve read that the best, Hollandse Nieuwe, is caught between mid-May and the end of June. Didn’t quite make that deadline.

Since it was Sunday and our Arlington Ward doesn’t meet until 2 p.m. Eastern Time, we were able to see sacrament meeting on Zoom. I kept dozing off, but I tried.

And then to sleep!

Kane, Pennsylvania

On our road trip last month, we stayed in Kane, Pennsylvania. Jim discovered Elizabeth Wood Kane. Her husband, General Thomas Kane, fought in the Civil War, including at Gettysburg. We are familiar with him because he was a great protector and friend of the Latter-day Saints when the federal government was hostile to them. Kane and Brigham Young became friends and Brigham Young invited Thomas and Elizabeth to Utah. They took a road trip (much rougher than any I’ve ever been on) through Utah from Salt Lake City to St. George in southern Utah. Elizabeth wrote a memoir of the journey, Twelve Mormon Homes (1874).

Besides publishing books, Elizabeth was one of the first female students at the Pennsylvania Medical School. She was also a photographer, specializing in the outdoors when most photographers were creating indoor portraits.

After her husband died, Elizabeth built a mansion in Kane, Pennsylvania. Jim learned that this building is now a bed and breakfast and made a reservation. The rambling house creates quite an impression from the street.

We strolled to the preservation society, housed in an old train depot, and were disappointed that it was locked. A young family were there at the locked door. Then a young man came down the street with keys in his hand. He was planning to do some work in the office but invited us in to look around. (The building is usually only open in the evening.)

The young man was a wealth of information. Forsaking his own plans, he spent two hours with us, sharing his great love for his small town and its history. The preservation society also owns the Memorial Chapel where General Kane is buried. A larger-than-life statue of General Kane is in the front lawn. An identical bronze statue stands before the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City.

 

We got a huge slice of a small-town charm nestled near the Allegheny National Forest.

 

The old Pennsylvania license plates stated, "You have a friend in Pennsylvania"  Now it is true for us.

Flight 93

 After South Carolina  we stopped in Maryland to see my brother and his wife. Knowing we were headed for Kane, Pennsylvania, she recommended a stop at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, PA. I found it deeply moving.

From the National Park Service brochure:

September 11, 2001, morning: Four commercial airliners are hijacked by al Queda terrorists in a planned attack against the United States. Two are flown into the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City. A third is flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 bound for San Francisco, California, from Newark, New Jersey, is delayed 25 minutes before takeoff.

After 46 minutes flying, when over eastern Ohio, hijackers in first class attack at 9:28 am, incapacitating the captain and first officer. Hijackers turn Flight 93 southeast, headed for Washington, DC, most likely the US Capitol.

Just before 10 am the plane is seen flying low and erratically over southwestern Pennsylvania. At 10:03 it crashes, upside-down, at 563 miles per hour into this Somerset County field. There are no survivors. All 33 passengers, seven crew members, and four hijackers are killed.

It’s a sobering story, told with TV news clips, photos, artifacts from the crash site, and even recorded voice messages by crew and passengers trying to send one last message of love to their families.

The courage of those forty people is awe-inspiring. They were just regular civilians, taking a routine cross-country plane trip. They hadn’t been trained for combat. The crew’s training against hijacking focused on negotiating and deescalating a tense situation. No one was prepared to deal with suicide pilots.

But these brave men and women, in a matter of minutes, responded to the unprecedented situation. Forced to the back of the plane, they made a plan and voted to storm the cockpit. Again, from the NPS brochure:

Recovered from the crash site, the cockpit voice recorder captured the shouts, thumps, crashes, and breaking of glass and plates. The 9/11 Commission reported that the hijackers, although remaining in control of the plane, must have judged that the passengers and crew were mere seconds from overcoming them. To continued sounds of the counterattack, Flight 93 crashed into this field.

The crash site is 18 minutes flying time from Washington, DC. The action of unarmed passengers and crew thwarted and defeated the terrorists’ plan.

May they rest in peace.

Honeybees

 Our niece keeps bees. It’s an admirable occupation. Sherlock Holmes kept bees in his retirement on a small farm upon the South Downs.

Our apiarist relative established a hive about three years ago, at the outside corner of her parents’ house in Charleston, South Carolina. She has about three pounds of honeybees, or 10,000 little winged creatures.

We recently visited Charleston and as I was lugging luggage to the front door, I heard an angry buzzing around my head. I walked all around the front yard to escape but the insect persisted in circling my head. I finally starting waving my arms around my head, beginning to feel crazed by the incessant buzzing. I felt my right hand hit something fuzzy and larger than a housefly and then that unique and familiar sharp pain that bee venom inflicts. A little whitish stinger was lodged in the proximal phalange of my right index finger. (Yeah, I had to look it up on Johns Hopkins’ anatomy chart. It’s the finger part nearest the wrist.)

Jim scrapped off the little stinger (remarkable pain from such a small puncture caused by a tiny bit of organic material) with a credit card. I knew enough not to try and pull it out: it has a sac that can release more venom if squeezed.

Over the next day. instead of improving, the swelling moved from my finger to the back of my hand towards my wrist until my knuckles and veins disappeared and my skin grew taut. The worst of it was the itching. I trained myself years ago never to scratch an injury, but I was sorely tempted. We saw Beethoven’s Third Symphony that night and I struggled to concentrate fully (we were in Charleston to enjoy the annual Spoleto Festival USA). The next day the swelling was even worse. I remembered that I had some steroid cream from a previous poison ivy rash. It took another day to take effect, but over a few more days the swelling subsided.

As I understand it, the symptoms we experience after an injury or illness are caused by our own immune system reacting to the invasion. I’m sure it would be worse if we had no defenses against microbes and poisons, but I wouldn’t mind a little downgrade tweak to my system.

The beehive, after three years of growing, is finally producing honey. Our niece gave us a little jar, which I will enjoy when we return home. My attacker will not enjoy home: when the stinger is lodged in the victim the bee suffers fatal internal injuries.