OLD PEOPLE SMELL

OLD PEOPLE SMELL

A gigantic nose guards the entrance to the Monell Chemical Research
Center on Market Street in Philadelphia. Researchers there examined
sweat-stained pads from the armpits of a cross-section of ages, and
were able to tell by smelling them which had belonged to the old.

"It confirms what we all know but were hesitant to say: old people smell."
Writing in the May 8, 2014 "London Review of Books," Jenny Diski
thinks this may be one way to tell people are old because now it's a
little hard to say who's old and who isn't. Diski is reviewing a "Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Aging," a memoir by Lynne Segal (Verso, 2013) which is a "personally informed discussion of the politics and sociology of her own aging and that of her generation (she was born in 1944) and the attitudes people now have towards it."

"The idea of being invisible," says Joan Bakewell in a review of the Segal book for the "Independent," "comes as a shock to a generation who as feisty young women had liberated their bodies and celebrated their open sexuality. Now they looked in the mirror and say their mothers' faces reflected back at them."

At 80, I certainly do see my mother's face looking back at me and our culture has taught me to feel shame and disgust at this.  I know
I am old and often call myself an "old lady." People tend to deflect this
by offering infuriating words like, "you are as old as you feel," or
"80 is the new 70," or something equally awful. I know I'm invisible and sometimes the old ego rails at this. I know time is getting short. I wish I could make more of it; make it count more. If there is a war between generations -- and Segal says there is -- I haven't felt it because maybe I'm too busy thinking about being old.

I know I am lucky and say a prayer of thanks every morning when I put my feet on the ground. I have enough money to live on without working. I have family nearby and a community of people who love and support
each other. I walk downtown. I still can drive.

Writing in the "Guardian," Bronwen Clune, almost 39, talks of herself
as "edging toward a worthlessness that society has constructed around my age." Good heavens! Poor girl! But, as Diski points out, people are going to be cross with you for declaring agedness too soon as too late. Not easy, as she says, to"define the right moment." This may be where Monell comes in.

SECRETS! SECRETS! SECRETS!

SECRETS! SECRETS! SECRETS!

Don't ask what came over me but I've just read two borderline

chicklit novels, both recent best sellers. I thought I was done

with popular fiction after I survived "The Goldfinch," but maybe not.

"You Should Have Known," by Jean Hanff Korelitz (NY:Grand Central, 2014.) is one of those novels about Manhattan rich girls -- the skinny

moms with their $9,000 Birkins and everyday Choos, waiting for their children outside whichever private school they somehow got their child into.  Korelitz is smart about this Upper East Side milieu. She knows all the signs and symbols. You get the feeling she is in them but not necessarily of them.

Grace, forty-something, is a couples therapist, married to Jonathan, a

pediatric oncologist, mother of Henry, a 13-year old student at

a Dalton-like school where Grace also went. Grace is about to publish

a book central to this story. Her theory is we marry or commit to a person

we really know nothing about. Courtship has dulled our senses and we

refuse to look beyond the glow. We don't question, we don't probe, we

leap ahead blindly, trusting in love. "If a woman chose the wrong person,

he was always going to be the wrong person," Grace says.

Grace's own marriage is seamless, a fine balancing of professions, polite

and equitable. Jonathan is immersed in his work which, of course, is

always going to be more urgent and important than Grace's. You simply cannot argue with pediatric cancer.

Grace goes to fund-raising meetings for the school and sees her patients. She manages family life in the 3-bedroom flat she grew up in on East 81st Street. Her wonderful boy and her god-like husband leave her with little to wish for. Naturally, this is a set-up for disaster.  Just when you are wondering where all this is going, Grace's world falls apart.

Jonathan, it turns out, is a psychopathic liar, a person who completely

fooled Grace and everyone else. Nothing, nothing he ever said or did,

was true. Grace and Henry flee 81st Street to restart their lives in

an unheated lake house in Connecticut which also happens to

belong to Grace. It looks like there may be a happy ending --

wandering into "Bridges of Madison County" country.

I didn't like Grace much. Jonathan, who never appears in person, is intriguing. Henry is a solid character, a fine, decent boy. Even if I didn't love the book, I see that Grace's theory has a lot going for it. Do we ever know the truth about somebody else? Isn't it a gigantic crap shoot to link our destinies to someone we barely know?

"The Husband's Secret" by Liane Moriarty (NY:Putnam's, 2013) is about three Melbourne women whose lives intersect. The level of their comings and goings doesn't compare to the hedge-fund stratosphere in the Korelttz novel but it is comfortable enough.

A marriage splits and the wife goes home to mother, a 29-year-old mystery surfaces and a perfectionist housewife (and super Tupperware specialist!) (WHAT?) cracks up. A husband and his mother keep an awful secret. Family life continues with descriptions of pirate birthday parties and soy decaf cappuccino in the Australian suburbs.

The reader doesn't give a rip what happens to any of these people and

wonders why she downloaded the book in the first place. The writing is

excessively fluent. Admittedly, there are a few insights into marriage

and parenting and the question is raised to what lengths would you go to preserve family life.

You're on your own here. It is too exhausting to say more.

CRUMBS

CRUMBS

In an act of sublime stupidity, this morning I put halves of a fat, flaky biscuit in the toaster. After trying to fish it out with the handle of
a wooden spoon, the thing disintegrated among the wires. This did
seem a bit of a fire hazard so I unplugged and for the first time in
years, cleaned out the toaster.

Crumbs, ancient remnants of bygone breakfasts, went everywhere. The
little clean-out drawer didn't pull easily and then it did. I prodded and
dug again with the wooden handle. I upturned and pounded the sides
setting up a metallic rattling and a shower of crumbs.

I cleaned up the mess around the kitchen sink but didn't do the floor.
(She can get down, but she can't get up!) I re-plugged the toaster
but didn't use. I wonder if I can remember not to do such a dumbo thing again.

The above is a kind of stalling from getting back to reading. Lately, I've been reading romances -- can't-put-down novels with plucky heroines and happy endings. I read authors who include a lot of humor and not too much sex, whose writing is as good and more entertaining as much found in more exalted genres.

In a departure from the above, yesterday, I began "The Poisoned Island," the second novel by Lloyd Shepherd (Washington Square Press. 2013) which begins in Tahiti in 1769 and continues in 1812 Georgian London.  The Solander, a ship commissioned by Sir Joseph Banks and others, has just arrived at Kew from Tahiti with a cargo of precious plant specimens. Among the fashionable crowd to celebrate the event are the Prince Regent, Banks, the adventurer/botanist, and his Scots assistant, Robert Brown. Not far away down the river are John Harriott of the Thames River Police, and his constable, Charles Horton.

Soon after, a seaman just off the Solander, is found with his throat cut and a smile on his face. Horton, who has newfangled theories about police work that consider evidence and motive, finds the body and the investigation begins.

There is a lot to like about this novel, especially the excellent writing. It has a little too much of the paranormal for me, but I'm trying to get beyond that. Some chapters are narrated in the present tense, a tricky device that works here. I haven't read "The English Monster" Shepherd's first novel where the Herrriott/Horton team solve a mystery but not without making important enemies.

Readers will be reminded of the recent "The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert that not only details a strong interest in botany but follows the trail of specimens to Tahiti and then on to Kew. I wonder what the authors make of this coincidence?

TWO BY J. K. ROWLING

TWO BY J. K. ROWLING

In a recent New York Times column several writers gave themselves
pseudonyms and wrote a short description of their supposed most recent book. This bagatelle was sparked by "The Cuckoo's Calling," a decidedly un-Harry Potter (thank God) novel, written by Rowling under a pen name
that someone in her agent's? publisher's? attorney's? office revealed. She had not meant that to happen but stepped up and confessed: Robert Galbraith is J. K. Rowling.

"Cuckoo's Calling" is a mystery set in London. Cuckoo, a fabulous model
falls or is thrown from a balcony at her flat on an upmarket Kensington square. Her death, while an apparently straightforward suicide, prompts her rich half-brother to hire Strike, an ex-military cop now fledgling private eye.

Strike is one of those huge men with a war injury, a former athlete
now with one leg. He fights pain and a broken heart. He is the smart bastard son of a rock star, in debt and looking to the new case to bail himself out.  Strike hires a clever temp assistant whose instincts make
her a useful sidekick. In these two -- the shambling detective and the young temp -- Rowling has created characters you must meet again.

Surely, this novel will make the screen in one form or another: film, TV
series, something. Book sales were slow: a first novel by an unknown.
After the real author became known, the publisher (Hachette) has cranked out hundreds of thousands of hardcover and Kindle copies and the book is now a number one best seller. Rowling simply can't help herself.

A previous Rowling novel, "The Casual Vacancy," (Hachette, 2012) might have used a better title. This is the first Rowling departure from Harry Potter, in a setting away from London, a suffocating small town somewhere in the West Country.

It, too, begins with a sudden death, this one of a youngish local council member, of a brain aneurism. His shocking departure has left the council with a vacancy, the casual vacancy of the title. The major characters include young and old. All of them are often repellent and out of control. Everyone has secrets and the harm they do one another fairly makes your hair curl.

The writing wants to flow along, but the stories with so many characters, not one of them very sympathetic, involve keeping a lot of plates spinning. Do we care? I kept reading because of the moments, the occasional look into other lives, among them the best description of a heroin addict and her habitat I have ever come across. Much is bleak, there is little redemption and so the reader is relieved to be done.

Rowling is one of those people who just won't be stopped from writing. Her output is staggering. We know she has finished a sequel to the Strike
novel. If this is what it takes to divorce from Harry Potter, good for her. Wonder if the third ex-Harry book will begin with an unexpected death.

COSTMARY

COSTMARY


Beside the wooden back steps at my grandmother's house in
Ellisburg, PA, was a big, leafy plant with a pleasant, minty scent.
"Rosemary," they told me and I believed that until I was a young adult.

I remembered the scent and Rosemary with its piney, oily smell was not it. Whenever I was near an herb garden, I'd look closely at anything vaguely resembling the plant of my memory. It was always one of those niggling loose ends, like trying to recall the name of the child who sat across from you in second grade.

Then, one summer afternoon, on a visit to Philipsburg Manor, a Historic Hudson Valley site at Sleepy Hollow, New York, I found it. In a quiet setting above the Hudson River and apart from a busy thoroughfare, was a mill, barns and gardens. One of the gardens was devoted to old species: herbs and flowers from colonial times. Among the thriving green beds, was a healthy-looking bush with frilled leaves. I nipped one and there it was! I was transported across time and space to my grandmother's back steps, where I saw my own child self, pinching the leaves.

"Costmary" the tag read. No wonder they called it "rosemary," close enough! I took a leaf and kept it until it finally disintegrated.
Now I knew what I'd been searching for but I was a long way from having any of my own.

Years passed. I moved from a country place with plenty of room for gardens to a city apartment with a large terrace. Here I keep a seasonal garden planted in pots of various sizes. I carry water out there daily because the sun and wind quickly dry the soil.

Like everyone else who has ordered anything online, I get catalogs, tons of them. "The Growers Exchange" of Charles City, Virginia, sent one and as I paged through it, I came across costmary, its picture and description: "Valued medicinally for its antiseptic properties - fresh leaves ease insect stings and bites. The sweet-scented leaves that are reminiscent of men's cologne are often used in tonic teas." Chrysanthemum balsamita. Tanacetum balsamita. Also known as "Bible Leaf." $5.95 a plant. I ordered three.

Then I waited. I checked often to see if the order had been sent. I waited some more then went away for a couple of weeks. While I was gone, I asked family members to watch the mail. Finally, long after I had given up, a well-padded parcel appeared in the mailbox. I carefully unwrapped three small plants looking road-weary and in need of a drink. I potted them together and left them on the kitchen counter for a few days, watering lightly and letting the sun shine on them a little. After a couple of weeks, I put the pot outside on the terrace in a shaded spot and out of the wind.

There they are, not looking anything like the picture in the catalog or in that Sleepy Hollow garden or by my grandmother's back steps. I will take them to Martha's Vineyard where I have a few herbs growing in a raised bed and tuck them in there, wishing them good luck and hoping for the best. I feel as if I finally solved a mystery and brought the solution home. 

CUTTINGS

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CUTTINGS (I just gave Sam a rhubarb plant for his
47th Birthday)

The comfrey from Martha Dana

Thrives below the back stone wall.

Bees love the modest flowers

And the lavish greenery has

Many healing abilities.

                 Cousin Tom gave me creeping violet

From his rock garden and now it is

Among the stones, above the comfrey.

Lady's mantle swapped with Charlotte

for Hosta Elegans  fights for space

With silvery artemesia

From Stella, a constant gardener,

And the mother of my husband.

Years ago, walking with Virginia,

Before she lost her mind,

I pulled up some nice ivy

From a vacant lot

And trained it to climb.

Yellow iris from Susie's place in Fly Summit

Has survived, unhappy where it is.

Bishop's Weed from Loomis Street

Has taken over by the shed.

I've carried a shovel in the trunk of my car

And dug daylilies and asters from ditches.

Betty Ann and Helen poached

My white jonquils by moonlight

From somebody's front yard.

Rhubarb from Julia French is going crazy

Out on the compost

And Julia herself, well over 90,

Is in a nursing home over near Corning.

I treasure all these cuttings.

And watch for them every Spring,

Knowing exactly where each originated

And when it was planted.

When I'm gone, there'll be no remembering.

The next people

Will never understand rhubarb

And the comfrey will be

Just another weed.

Elinore Standard

From Uptown Dogtown

(written before we moved to Vermont where
there seems to be a healthy rhubarb culture)

THE BEGUINES

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THE BEGUINES

The late 12^th Century was the time of the Crusades and the monastic movement. Greek and Roman writings – science, philosophy, literature - had been translated into Latin.  Scholarship and urban culture throughout western Europe paved a way to an early Renaissance.

For upper class women there were two choices: marriage or the cloister and even the cloister was an expensive proposition. There were few         havens for women and those that existed became more and more under the authority of the male religious hierarchy. The mendicant orders, of which the Beguines were one, came under increasing scrutiny

as their ways of vita apostolica challenged ecclesiastical authority.

The Beguines were a spontaneous women’s movement, not adjunct to any male figure or group. There was no founder, no rule, no one to supervise or regulate the Beguine houses scattered throughout northern Europe. It is hard to describe the history of the movement and nobody is sure how the name came about. They probably began in Liege, but maybe not. Around 1175,  Lambert le Begue, who was a priest of Liege, encouraged women with whom he was associated to “live religiously.” The first prominent woman to be identified as a Beguine was Mary of Oignes (d. 1213) who was a “conversa” of a male Augustinian priory near Nivelles.

The Beguine communities proliferated and some became cities-within-cities with walls and moats, houses and hospitals, churches, streets, and public squares.  A grand mistress and council presided over each group and as time went along, they turned mainly to nursing the sick. The stance of Rome was mixed toward the Beguines. Sometimes their property was confiscated and sometimes they were permitted to pursue their way of life. The Napoleonic Wars and the Reformation took their toll. By 1969, there remained about 13 Beguinages in Belgium and Holland.

The goals of the Beguines were simplicity and freedom. They valued manual labor and promoted the use of the vernacular. Although they lived simply, they did not obligate their members to poverty. They had intense devotion to the Eucharist. They stressed love as a way to divine union. Although scandalized by its greed and corruption, the Beguines did not reject the Church or its teaching.  The Spanish Inquisition had a good, close look at the Beguines who were seen as inflammatory and heretical.

1. The Beguines demonstrated that it was possible for a woman to be dedicated to God without having to join a convent.  Because the Beguines didn’t have any organizational support structure, they were sitting ducks for persecution and co-optation.

Source: Elizabeth T. Knuth “The Beguines”  1992.

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There is an American Beguine Community consisting of married, widowed, and single women who follow various Christian traditions. Some live together in a “beguinage” some live separately. They say in their incarnation of the original Beguines, they aren’t something you join; they’re something you do. Their work is directed mainly toward the needs of women in the workplace. Located in the Bay area, another of their activities has been to introduce individuals, groups and churches to the meditative music and liturgy of Taize.

www.beguine.org