Vacation Vagaries

   Back in the late 60's or 70's when people were leaving the cities or rat race as it was sometimes called and moving to the country, we left the country to move to the cities. This past week when Joe and I and Farley were trying to go to the city for a vacation, packing twice for the Big Apple, for various reasons we felt we had to change our minds to return to nature. To be so different, both Joe and I are vascillators. We hate to plan ahead and to be bound. We like caprice, whimsy, turning on a dime. We oscillate, fluctuate and shilly-shally; and that is what this journal quilt is about and it shows a lack of planning but that is part of the story. Also, I am determined to post one once a week and I am a day late, hence an even greater than usual lack of perfection. We did a little museuming at the MFA to purchase catalogs for the NYC show we would miss, but got to the ocean, the river and walked the ponds. I hope the diary sketch expresses this.

Mutts and Magic Movies

       Vacation this week centered on Farley and Flip, movie making and mailing. We wanted to go to NYC to see, this time, the Matisse show at MOMA and Durer at the Morgan. But given the heat and imagined complications, we stayed home with Farley, day tripping to Ogunquit, Maine and Exeter, New Hampshire. At the same time, I was trying to understand the nuances of clipping video with my Flip Mino, making "Magic Movies" with  appropriate music and mailing to friends. My actions were reminiscent of a cat with a mouse he is proud of presenting it to his owner. So I spammed my friends with my creations, proud as I could be.

       I also finished a good book, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, by Gail Caldwell (originally from Amarillo, now Cambridge) who wrote of her close friend, another writer, their dogs and deep friendship."It's an old story," Caldwell began. "I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that.'' I was sad to finish the book. It prompted me to return to walking Fresh Pond, where those friends walked and I walked Molly, our Bearded Collie, years ago. I made two of my little Magic Movies at Fresh Pond, scene of our first picnic in Boston, and Ogunquit, the first beach we visited after moving to Massachusetts.

         [note: These two still photos of Farley were clipped from Flip videos I took of him.]