Pleasure

I spent the day at home, nowhere I had to be, just me and our dog Coco. She whines at the kitchen door to be let out on the lagoon side of the house, where she likes to roll on the lawn scratching her ears and back on the stubbly grass. If there is a dog across the water on another dock barking, she runs right down to ours answering with gusto. Sometimes, like today, with no discernible activity but a lively breeze she sits on the dock at attention: watching, listening. Today I watch her and wonder what she's thinking.

The Olympics are on one more day closing ceremonies the twenty-first. I don't normally watch basketball but today our American women's team plays Spain. USA is the favorite to win. They've won gold for the last six Olympics, or so, today is no exception. I find myself really into the game delighting in their skill. Watch the medal presentations feeling very emotional when the American flag floats a bit above the others and our anthem plays.

Finally, early evening I dress. Coco and I drive to fill my car with gas. Standing with gas nozzle in hand I glance up. Part of Mt. Tamalpais is visible from where I stand, dark against the fading light of day. The sky turns magenta as a blazing sun sets behind Mt. Tam: sparks of orange are visible through the pine trees that block full view of the mountain. Four silent large birds flap and glide in the distance first in pairs, then together, then in pairs again. They are black against the sky. In those few minutes, as I stand, filling my car I'm overcome with the joy of being alive.   

Highlights of Europe 2016

6/5- 6/11
Still talking about our time in Provence. Relaxing and fun — the pure pleasure part of our trip: strolling through stalls on Market Day in Cotignac; long informal dinners on the veranda with friends (ours who invited us to stay at their home and other friends of theirs); exploring the area; special lunches at two Alain Ducasse restaurants; enjoying the quiet beauty around us. Then off to Germany.

Market in Cotignac

Berlin is a fabulous city. We love visiting with our friend Gunda who spends her summers in Berlin and the rest of the year in San Francisco. She becomes our tour guide. One of our first stops is the Jewish Museum. It was not open fifteen years ago when we first visited Berlin. The museum is a strange building. If I remember correctly, the design represents a broken Star of David. We see through photos, memorabilia, and maps, the unhappy history of Germany’s Jews. The Holocaust Tower is a large concrete room with a huge door that closes behind you. The dim light comes from a slit in the top of its pointed roof. I immediately think of those "showers."

We drive to Lake Wannsee and the villa where the Final Solution for European Jews was decided at the Wannsee Conference (see Blog, June 15). The Max Liebermann villa nearby offers respite. You may wander through the upstairs rooms filled with Herr Liebermann's work. Its café serves wonderful pastries, coffee, with a view down to the water. We stop at water’s edge, watch two white swans glide away. The next morning we wander in Berlin’s famous department store with a food floor even bigger than Harrod’s. Afternoon, we walk the lovely area around our Regent hotel before a good-bye dinner with Gunda in a nearby restaurant with Austrian schnitzel, delicious white asparagus, not to mention a fried goodie for dessert.

With Gunda at Max Liebermann Villa

White Asparagus

6/15-6/21
Our last country Poland: our first stop is Krakow. It's really picture perfect and very charming. The Nazi big wigs and their families headquartered here and so the city was spared. We visit the Schindler factory which is now a museum filled with history of Jewish persecution. In the old Jewish Quarter of the city the oldest synagogue built in the 1600s and an ancient Jewish graveyard stand side by side. A small Jewish community is alive and well. I have Shabbat dinner at the Krakow JCC. It is run by an American who spent time in Israel before coming to Krakow to teach Hebrew. Jonathan Ornstein is an amazing young Jew (42) enthusiastic about what is happening. He continues to be instrumental in helping this Jewish community grow. 

17th Century Graveyard

Krakow

My maternal grandfather left Warsaw a hundred years ago to settle in San Francisco. I think of him often during this trip. We take the express train from Krakow to Warsaw. Two hours of tranquil farm land, woods, and open spaces pass by. Warsaw dramatically different since my 1963 visit. No longer grim, it bustles with life. After the Soviets left in '89, the refurbishing and rebuilding has transformed most of the city.  (That being said, people we spoke to aren't happy about the populist Right Wing movement on the rise.) The year old Polin Jewish Museum is breathtaking and innovative in its varied ways of following the history of Polish Jews from the 10th centuryto today. (90% of the Jews who lived in and murdered in Europe during WWII were Polish).

Warsaw Jewish Museum

Warsaw

On the light side, a big surprise for us! The food in Poland is delicious and always beautifully arranged on the plate, not sausage and kraut, . Most people under 40 speak English. Everyone couldn't be more helpful.

6/21-6/22
Our last day and evening we spend at Clivedon, a Downton Abbey contender originally built in the 17th century. It is a first class hotel now. Large lovely rooms, great food, gorgeous grounds abundant with roses, and filled with British cheerio! Close to the airport, a wonderful way to end our trip. GLAD to be home, back with our dog and able to sleep in our own bed!!!

From Berlin...

The hateful  killings in Orlando hang heavily on me. A man next to us at breakfast is reading a sports newspaper with headlines of the German soccer win. Peter says, look, no mention of the murders. Overhearing us the man turns to a page in the middle of that paper and there in vivid color and huge black print is the article. He shows us his three other Berlin papers with headlines of Orlando. "Germans feel very close to the United States," he says. We talk about life that morning, there in our hotel dining room with a stranger, and how it is filled with the horrible, the sublime.

Our friend Gunda drives us to lake Wanssee. Max Liebermann built a summer villa there for his family with gardens and lawn stretching down to the lake. We walk the kitchen garden, the rose garden, then sit overlooking the flower terrace sipping coffee eating marzipan cake. We climb the stairs to see Herr Liebermann's paintings, the room where he worked. I cannot leave before walking down to the lake past mature birch trees to photograph a pair of swans.

We walk a few blocks away to visit another villa. There are photos of all that attended the documented conference held in its dining room on January 20, 1942. Participants including representatives of the SS, the Nazi party, and various Reich ministers meet for approximately ninety minutes to discuss the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Hitler in a prior authorization calls for the deportation of all European Jews to Eastern Europe which was to begin immediately. From the conference protocol one can conclude that a prior decision had been made at the highest level of state leadership to extend the process of mass murder, started in June 1941, to the systematic genocide of all European Jews.

         
Two villas on the banks of Lake Wannsee: the sublime, the horrible.

Roadrunner 2

The other night MSNBC featured conversations with the Presidential candidates. Couldn’t stomach anymore political rhetoric so we watched a program on the nature channel re-uniting grown wild animals, now back in the wilds, with those who acted as surrogate mothers after the orphaned animals were rescued. These animals were separated from their human surrogates anywhere from two to five years. The recognition and love displayed between animal and human was palpable. I know my blood pressure must have dropped 10 points after all my sighing and exclaiming. Breath calms the nerves. 

Roadrunner

On the way to Tucson last month I drove past Picacho Peak. A rocky spire just outside the city. The western most battle of the Civil War was fought there in 1862 (never learned about it in school) between a band of Confederate Rangers from Tucson and a Union Calvary patrol. The Union soldiers lost and for a while the Confederate flag flew. Carleton’s California Column took it back without firing a shot. I noted that two of the Union soldiers killed in the previous battle were buried at the National Cemetery in the Presidio, San Francisco.

I am at the age where I’m losing friends more and more often. It feels like the childhood game of musical chairs: when the music stops, someone’s seat is taken. 

I read an article about Sally Field interviewed at the new Whitney in NYC. It ends with her thoughts on sex. The star says, Sex is part of a package no matter where in life you are or who you’re with. Society sees as part of that package being very, very young and very, very thin. But I don’t think there is an expiration date, like on a carton of milk. Mother Theresa said, life is a song, sing it.

A trip to Tucson is never complete for me unless a roadrunner appears. My omen of good luck. One ran across the driveway today plume tail up, neck outstretched. I’ve never seen one fly, but they do.