Santa Fe, New Mexico
Year-end Letter December 2023
Only a person who knows the past has a future.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1757 - 1835
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Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
Iris Murdoch, Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature
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Love is….. a knot made of two intertwined freedoms
Octavio Paz, The Double Flame
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For me, the notion that our atoms were once part of other people and will again become part of other people after we die provides a meaningful connectedness between us and the rest of humanity, future and past. […] Our inescapable death may be the single most powerful fact of our brief existence in this strange cosmos where we find ourselves. Indeed, one could argue that much of our thinking, our view of the world, our artistic expression, and our religious beliefs involve coming to terms with this fundamental fact.
Alan Lightman, from The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in an Age of Science
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And now I began to understand what old age was – old age, which perhaps of all realities is the one of which we preserve for longest in our life a purely abstract conception, looking at calendars, dating our letters, seeing our friends marry and then in their turn the children of our friends, and yet, either from fear or from sloth, not understanding what all this means, until the day …. when a grandson of a woman we once knew, a young man whom instinctively we try to treat as an equal conception, smiles as though we were making fun of him because to him it seems that we are old enough to be his grandfather – and I began to understand too what death meant and love and the joys of the spiritual life, the usefulness of suffering, a vocation, etc. For if names had lost most of their individuality for me, words on the other hand now began to reveal their full significance. The beauty of images is situated in front of things, that of ideas behind them. So that the first sort of beauty ceases to astonish us as soon as we have reached the things themselves, the second is something that we understand only when we have passed beyond them.
Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured (Volume 7, In Search of Lost Time)
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Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man’s periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and to continue , all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for the monstrous mass of ill and defeats, of triumph and error. Peace will again establish itself between two periods of war; the words humanity, liberty and justice will here and there regain the meaning which we have tried to give them. Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and other pediments will arise from our domes and pediments; some few men will think and work and feel as we have done, and I venture to count upon such continuators, placed irregularly throughout the centuries, and upon this kind of intermittent immortality.
Margaret Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
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Once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme
Séamus Heaney, from The Cure of Troy
A NOTE ON THE QUOTATIONS ABOVE
For a number of years now I have begun my Year-end letter with several quotes from books, articles, blogs and newsletters I have read during the past year that particularly struck me. In recent years they have usually been about the nature of love and the impact of losing it, or observations concerning what it means to be human. Why am I including so many quotations? It has to do with the fact that the older I get, the more the wisdom of others reverberates with me and it becomes so special that I want to make it available to my friends. The sense of shared experience amongst all of us intensifies with the passage of time and my life is incredibly enriched by the reflections of others.
One quotation that I repeat each year since I first used it in my 2019 letter is the excerpt from a Séamus Heaney poem, The Cure of Troy. Why? Because with each passing year I am struck with what a rare thing it is to achieve any true justice in this world, so that in those infrequent instances when it occurs, we must savor it, as a most precious treasure. This has become such a fixture in my mind that I think it bears constant repeating. The comforting statement that in the end justice always triumphs is simply a fantasy, in my opinion.
BOB
My relationship with Bob – my marriage that is – continues to be a source of immeasurable happiness to me. Sometimes I can almost believe we were intentionally put on this planet and brought into proximity so that we could meet each other and pull off that rarest of life’s blessings – a perfect match in almost all ways. We know we are getting into the upper reaches of human longevity and are willing to accept that whenever our time comes – first one, then the other – we have already had had an incredibly beautiful experience sharing our lives together.
GOOD READS
I’ll start out going over highlights of what I have read in the past year that I found particularly memorable.
First off, this was a year of completion, as I finally finished the final novel (technically a “volume”) of Marcel Proust’s magnum opus, In Search of Lost Time. This was an 8-year effort, begun in 2016, reading one volume per year, which should have only required 7 years, but was 8 for me, because – and here you can smile and even snigger – unwittingly, I read one of the volumes a second time without realizing it! How is that possible? Well, Proust is so dense and there is so little narrative (or plot if you will) that you could pick up a volume a second time and not realize you had already read it.
Anyway, the final volume, Time Recaptured, was not fully finished by Proust before he died at a relatively young age, but he had drafted enough of it that it was completed by friends who knew his work very well. In many ways, it gets to the heart of what the whole thing is about. He discusses, in beautifully literary texts, the realization of how much he and all those around him are aging and fading away, of how unexpected, brief moments can bring back, with incredible fullness, an entire world from one’s past. It really was worth reading this epic undertaking right through to the end.
I will give myself a year off but am wondering if I am up to taking a stab at James Joyce’s Ulysses, the other “Everest” I’ve contemplated for a long time trying to conquer, if that is the right word. Meanwhile, I would like to re-read The Odyssey, this time in the new and very different translation by Emily Wilson, which has gotten a lot of attention, as it attempts to make it read as if it had just taken place, rather than 3,000 years ago. (Her translation of The Iliad has just appeared and is garnering much attention.). Once having re-read The Odyssey, I would then go on to read Daniel Mendelssohn’s An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic, which I think would be a perfect accompaniment. Daniel Mendelssohn is a brilliant classical scholar who writes prolifically and well. This particular book is about how he attempted to re-bond with his father (with whom he had a somewhat difficult relationship) by their going together on a cruise to the Aegean world of the ancient Odyssey epic to visit sites which figure in the great poem.
Over the past two years I have read three books each of which is both superbly well-written but also scientifically rigorous. Each explores different aspects of the unbelievably varied and miraculous forms of life that share our planet. Reading the three in relatively short order has expanded my sense of wonder at the richness of life forms and how powerful the life force is in finding ways to adapt to almost every challenge and inhabit the most forbidding environments. These books are:
· The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson
· An Immense World by Ed Wong (the fantastic variety of ways by which life forms sense their surroundings)
· Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (the remarkable world of fungi including mushrooms)
The net effect of all this is to realize that for me, at least, it is the miraculousness of life on Earth that induces my personal sense of spirituality, rather than organized religion, which I find simply unfulfilling and inadequate to the richness that surrounds me. Of course, with this deep appreciation for life in all its miraculous forms, is an immense sadness on how in such a short time we are recklessly destroying so much of it by our thoughtless behavior.
I am ending the year with reading How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. Smith, a young Black academic, visited 8 places, 7 in the U.S., all connected with slavery and/or Jim Crow, to understand how these sites dealt with the history and legacy of the Black experience. This is a fascinating account of how interpretations are changing but how far we yet have to go. In the course of these visits, one gets a broad and a deep portrait of the horrors of slavery and its child, Jim Crow. This is a powerful rejoinder to the current efforts to eliminate or whitewash the racial history of the U.S., a story that I have come to believe is the core story of this country. One comes away appalled by the general lack of historical understanding about this significant factor, if not the most significant factor, in American life. One realizes how much Germany has done, in comparison to us, to deal with its barbaric 1933-1945 years. And Germany has done it in much less time than we have with a horror going back 400 years.
There was lots of other good reading in the course of the year. I read two African-American authors who are getting overdue mainstream attention, and in each case, I chose their best known novel.. These were Kindred by Octavia Butler and The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, both of which, inevitably deal with the central role of slavery in the American story. While I read many books this year, one other one to note in particular was Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I read it shortly before he died. It is considered his finest novel but is incredibly violent. Nevertheless, his literary style is riveting and beautiful, regardless of what he is describing. It is yet one more reminder of our terribly violent history, which continues to play out in the present time.
LOCAL PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
Each year I continue to work on certain undertakings – this letter, which is a significant investment in time, the wall calendar I create each year based on my photographs (with some travel destination as the theme - for 2024 it is my adventure trip to Madagascar in late 2022), maintaining on my Web site what is probably the most comprehensive listing of museums and non-commercial galleries in New York City. I also update and expand my Web-based comprehensive outline on everything one needs to know concerning Aging and Dying. Each year I give numerous travel programs at El Castillo, at our local travel bookstore, and in early 2024, a program for the Friends of Folk Art at the Museum of International Folk Art. I am part of a national Web-based precipitation tracking program where daily rainfall and snow reports are entered..
The Crested Butte Wildflower Festival continued this year and I was asked back as a guide to lead wildflower hikes. Summer 2023 was exceptionally good as Crested Butte had abundant snow in the winter of 2022-2023. The Festival administration was happy to have Bob serve as my “sweep,” so he was able to come on all my official events and bring up the rear, where he was available to answer questions, so it all worked out well. All my hikes were filled to capacity. An added treat was that my brother and sister-in-law came out for the experience and signed up for 5 of my hikes. Friends from Santa Fe also came up. And as we did the previous year, while in Crested Butte we attended one of the best rodeos in the West – Cattlemen Days in nearby Gunnison. We went on the night designated “Not Afraid to Wear Pink” where proceeds benefitted breast cancer.
I remain active as a volunteer with a number of performing organizations, handling ushering, will call, ticket taking,. I am also a part of a pilot effort to train seniors in how to get increased benefit from their electronic devices (e-readers, smart phones, tablets), as many struggle with some of the most basic capabilities. I also worked for a number of months on a project to clean up the shelves of the library of the Museum of International Folk Art and to synchronize the actual collection with the catalog records.
My small garden in the back of my apartment takes more effort than one might think from late winter until I plant the spring blooming bulbs in the fall and “put it to bed.” But it continues to give me much pleasure and is an indescribably wonderful addition to my quality of life at El Castillo. Many of the perennials and shrubs are settling in and so it is taking on a well-established, comfortable look. A great source of new plants is Bob’s garden where a number of perennials needing dividing are donated to me and I have a free source of new transplants.
I am still on the Board of the Friends of Folk Art, the main volunteer organization supporting the Museum of International Folk Art. This involves a range of activities, such as volunteering for several of the events the organization puts on and synchronizing the membership list with the software used to send out notices, invitations, and upcoming events.
AGING
It seems that this was a year in which an exceptional number of friends, close and less close, passed out of the picture, and one has to make one’s peace with the fact that it is likely to be this way as the years unfold. Other friends are dealing with severe physical and mental impairments. Here in New Mexico, a number of people I know availed themselves of our version of Death with Dignity, called The Elizabeth Whitfield End of Life Options Act, which went into effect in mid-2021. It made such a difference to those for whom slogging on in misery and pain made absolutely no sense.
With myself what I see is something analogous to a brick wall or a car that’s been around a long time. Like a brick wall, first some grout crumbles, then a chunk falls out, bits of brick break off, and then perhaps a whole brick tumbles out and then another and more and more. The wall begins to sag here and there and finally completely falls down. I see that happening with myself. This year I got hearing aids, having made my peace with accepting that my hearing had fallen off significantly. I can’t walk as far as I used to, and I can even feel that it is getting harder to pull a tight sweater or T-shirt over my head. It’s something little each time, but over the years it does have its effect, it all adds up, and before you know it, voilà, you are old!
On the other hand, I still have a great memory, I camp and sleep on the ground under the stars, and continue to travel to wonderful places, and I will continue to do as much as I can for as long as I can.
As I have aged, I continue to struggle with America’s fraught history. Having learned, as a child in school, that the U.S. was the greatest nation on the planet since time immemorial, with age, reading of history and insight into human nature and affairs, I have had an extremely difficult time making my peace with our history – racism, genocide of native Americans, economic injustice, inequality, endemic violence, and prejudice of all kinds. It makes it close to impossible for me to see America as God’s gift to humanity. With each passing year I am more horrified at the American experience.
So it was very helpful, recently, to read the following by Susan Neiman in a piece on dealing with one’s national history (in this case, mainly Germany) and coming up with a proper reckoning. Looking at the U.S. she writes:
But since the overdue recognition that America should face the dark sides of its history took hold, many voices have suggested there are nothing but dark sides to American history. There’s no question that the right wing campaign to ban from American classrooms anything that might cause discomfort is dangerous. Anyone should be proud to belong to a nation whose heroes include Martin Luther King Jr. and Toni Morrison… Along with a history of profound injustice, the United States has a long history of people who fought against it. Without examples of brave men and women who worked together to make progress toward justice, we will never have the will to make more. Those who cannot acknowledge past histories of progress are doomed to cynicism or resignation.
“Historical Reckoning Gone Haywire” by Susan Neiman, New York Review of Books, October 19, 2023
Also see my related thoughts on reading the book How the Word is Passed, above.
THE NATIONAL AND GLOBAL SCENE
The forefront of our attention is now dominated by the Israel-Gaza catastrophe. Beyond the horrors and atrocities that have already occurred and continue to occur, this, it seems to me, is right now the great moral issue on a global stage. As awful as the war in Ukraine has been, for me, there is no moral question – clearly one side is blameworthy and it is a pretty black and white picture. In the Middle East, there are horrors and injustices to go around for all concerned. I find myself reading and reading and reading what other “wise people” (and “ordinary” people) have to say as I struggle with my own moral compass. There are no simple answers and no simple way to end the monstrousness of this war and widespread death. I have come to only one conclusion – if there will ever be stability in that region, a fair and just solution to the Palestinian “question” must be achieved, or what we are seeing now will never end. This will require massive compromise once the war ends – it is clear to me that brutal suppression of one people by another will never be the answer. Pure, unadulterated force is never the answer. At the same time the solution must ensure the safety of all peoples in the countries in the region.
The following paragraph resonated powerfully with me, relating to Germany’s terrible history in the 20th century (which not only includes the Holocaust) but the genocidal murder of huge numbers of native peoples in the early years of the century in what is now Namibia:
In a 2017 essay in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the German novelist Navid Kermani, born to Iranian parents, movingly wrote about the importance of shame to the development of his sense of national belonging. The first time he felt like a German, he wrote, was during a visit to Auschwitz: “Anyone who is naturalized in Germany will also need to bear the burden of being German.” He then summarized German identity by paraphrasing a Polish rabbi, Nachman of Breslov: “There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.” The path to self-knowledge and harmony, in other words, must lead through a shared sense of shame.
The Long Shadow of German Colonialism, by Thomas Rogers, New York Review of Books, March 9, 2023
What is there to say any more about our national political environment that hasn’t been said countless times by others with far more insight into history and government than myself? I look at the situation through the lens of a lifetime of involved citizenship. Not as an activist but simply as a citizen who considers himself reasonably well informed. I know a few things. In my entire lifetime I have never witnessed so many total unqualified individuals running for office and even if some of them don’t win, that they could even contemplate it is frightening to me. These are people with certifiably lunatic conspiracy theory outlooks, people who lie and whether indited or not are, in essence, criminals. Not so long ago even a whiff of scandal kept one away from office. Now it serves as a badge of honor.
The public dishonesty and lying is mind-boggling. Having grown up during the height of the Cold War, I would have to say that Soviet propaganda was closer to the truth than the kind of wild rantings of the Republican Party and its propaganda outlets like Fox News. I’ve reached the conclusion that if the voting public does not care, we are doomed to get a broken, dysfunctional and even authoritarian government. Citizens have to care, have to differentiate between bad and better, and if they don’t, which all too many don’t, then there is little hope for the country.
The great question of the moment in the U.S. is will the country elect Trump as President in 2024? For me, this is no longer a question of differing political philosophies but an existential matter of whether democratic government survives or dies. The failure of so many Americans – a majority? – to see it in these terms, is disheartening, as we slide down the slope into the kind of illiberal authoritarianism we’ve seen happen so often of late and of which the 1920’s and 1930’s was such a perfect case history. Unfortunately, I feel too old to emigrate but were I younger and if Trump were to get elected, I would be seriously attempting to leave. Instead, much as I hate the expression “internal emigration” (given its association with many who lived through the Nazi regime in Germany), that is probably how I would try to get by.
I wish we could get rid of one expression one still hears regularly: “This isn’t who we are.” Well, unfortunately, an examination of current and past U.S. history tells us this is exactly who we are: widespread violence and genocidal racism are part and parcel – absolutely integral – to American life. And these days, with the elevation of gun ownership and guns in every imaginable venue treated as an absolute right beyond any other – freedom of speech, life itself – we have entered a period where the “public square,” protests and speaking out, even voting, become fraught, if not downright dangerous.
What is relatively new and which I am trying to get my arms around is that effectively we have only one political party that remains committed to the concept of democratic governance. The other party is totally in the grip of the authoritarian wave that is sweeping so many other parts of the world. This is a cult of lies and conspiracy theories, of revenge and unbridled nastiness, of a war on science, health, history, the environment, minorities and the general welfare. For me – and I realize that this puts me in a minority – to vote Republican, regardless of the specific candidate, means to vote for authoritarianism, dishonesty, and oligarchic government. So how do we have so many American citizens who don’t care about the behavior displayed before them and go ahead and vote this party in? I’ve reached the point where it is entirely beyond my comprehension.
Those who throw verbal explosives constantly either don’t understand, or don’t care to understand, that inflammatory speech can stir up vicious sleeping dragons that lie just under the surface of our polite veneer of societal order and stability.
What is the overall state of things in my view? Despite the somewhat brighter outcomes of the 2022 mid-term elections and the recent spate of 2023 elections, all too many crazies were voted in. So I would have to say that not only are we nowhere near being “out of the woods” but democracy is overall, hanging by a thin thread in this country.
In another area of global concern – climate change – I am afraid I feel quite pessimistic. While there are bright spots here and there, the bottom line is that fossil fuel energy production keeps increasing and the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere continues upward, The oceans are dying, the forests are being cut down, and resource extraction (be it fish in the ocean, seabed mining, or metals mining), are causing irreversible damage to the earth. It was impossible to ignore the diverse range of weather catastrophes this year, and almost each day we learn of another iconic plant or animal or ecosystem that is disappearing or under serious threat.
TRAVELS
This was a year of extensive travel, with three trips to destinations outside the U.S., plus some U.S. travel and two fabulous major camping trips. Clearly, after my gloomy words about the environment, it seems hypocritical to talk about plane trips all over the world and it is a fair charge against me. I can only say that I am fully prepared to make necessary sacrifices when we as a society (meaning the U.S. but also the entire world) are ready to pitch in to save the planet we have known.
Overseas, we went to Rome for the second half of February and then to Florence from late October until mid-November. We were centrally located in each city and managed to find ways to immerse ourselves intensely in the fabulous art, architecture, history and food in each city and yet enjoy each as a place to relax and observe in a way that wove everything together. Despite traveling outside of what is high or even shoulder season, these remarkable cities always have many visitors, regardless of the rime of year or weather.
Rome and Florence make for an interesting comparison. For me, Rome represents breath, spanning the full spectrum of Western history, whereas Florence represents depth, with its phenomenal concentration of creative energy over a 300-year period (late Middle Ages, Renaissance, Mannerism) in which much of the greatest Western art was created. We love going to Italy and for that matter, most countries in Europe. There are so many aspects of everyday life in countries like Italy and France that we enjoy that it seems we need to recharge our internal batteries there with some regularity.
In May-June, we did our biggest trip – a 5-week experience that began with a week in New York, then went on to a small ship adventure cruise from Aberdeen, Scotland to Svalbard, Norway (only 600 nautical miles from the North Pole), with stops along the way at a remote island of the Shetlands (Fair Isle), then to the Faroe Islands, an isolated Arctic island called Jan Mayen, and finally a somewhat in-depth exploration of Svalbard, an archipelago whose largest island is Spitzbergen and which has the northern most human settlement in the world.
We got to see all manner of Arctic birds (northern fulmar, various species of guillemots, eider, and the adorable Atlantic puffin) along with walrus, the Svalbard subspecies of reindeer, various kinds of seals, and perhaps most special, an Arctic fox whose coat had not yet darkened from its winter pure white. And needless to say, the scenery was beyond spectacular – fjords, rugged cliffs, snow-crusted mountains, sea ice and glaciers.
When the cruise was over we were flown to Helsinki, where we spent two days and then took a luxurious public ferry overnight from there to Stockholm, where we spent 8 days. Neither Bob nor I had ever been there, so it was a new experience for both of us and we found it an absolutely remarkable city to explore and immerse ourselves in.
Our stay in Stockholm (and to a lesser degree our much shorter visit to Helsinki) left us with a number of impressions that lingered in the mind. In light of many long-standing issues in the U.S., along with some of more recent vintage, it is difficult as an American not to think about what we experienced.
First, there is the sense of the primacy of the public sphere in Scandinavia – the attention given to it by governing bodies (the municipality, the national state) and the valuing of it by the general citizenry. By and large, streets were unlittered, bicycle and pedestrian paths were everywhere, benches were conveniently provided for frequent rest stops, public parks and gardens were immaculate. In short, one had the sense that there was a constant striving to make the public realm as comfortable and pleasant for all as possible.
Here are a few examples. In early June, when we were there, flower beds in public parks were magnificent and fountains splashed. We were impressed that at large construction sites, comfortable modular worker housing was provided, so that workers did not have to commute or worry about high rents in expensive districts of the town. Good, modern design seemed to be integral to every aspect of daily living. Another observation: there was virtually no obese people and very few were what we might call overweight. Also, almost no homeless people and no begging. A nice surprise was that far fewer Swedes smoked than we are used to seeing in other parts of Europe.
We kept thinking: Why is the public environment so pleasant in Stockholm when so often it is scruffy and even dangerous in the U.S.? We came up with two primary reasons: 1) Rampant capitalism in the U.S., the fact that making money comes before everything else and makes people think selfishly: 2) The legacy of racism in which there is resentment for poorer people, and particularly Black people getting the benefits that so many whites feel they worked for and shouldn’t be giving to freeloaders. Overall, one always had the sense, in Scandinavia, of being in a very egalitarian society. No one ostentatiously rich, no one miserably poor.
The public transportation system was efficient and clean. We were amazed that the seats in the Metro cars were cloth – they were not cut up and not stained with food, drink (or worse). If there were people with unattended mental illness, it was not at all obvious. Public toilets were often easy to find and generally free (and spotless).
Another aspect which was so refreshing: The Metro and particularly airports were quiet. Announcements weren’t screaming at you constantly on the rules for boarding planes, what boarding group was now ready to get on, etc., People quietly understood the rules and it all went smoothly without constant instruction. What a pleasure it was to be in these shared environments compared to at home.
There is a kind of no fuss practicality we experienced that has a way of eliminating the endless social issue clashes that have become a constant struggle in the U.S. For example, frequently public bathrooms are designed for everyone – male, female, cis-, trans-, you name it. You walk in and there are the sinks, soap dispensers, hand dryers, etc., and then you choose an available stall. Poof! Who uses what bathroom suddenly becomes a non-issue! So refreshing!
Many comment on how amazing it is that everyone – everyone – speaks English. Not just speaks English but English that is colloquial and with a minimum (if any) accent. It is clear that done right (e.g., a good educational / school system) children can learn another language. All children! With English having now become the “universal language” there is little actual need for we Americans to be fluent in another language, I cannot help feeling it is a terrible loss to not experience the profound benefit that understanding another language offers across many realms of knowledge.
One interesting aspect of life in Sweden is that cash is virtually obsolete. Everywhere, payment is by credit card or through mobile phone apps. In fact, in most places cash is not even accepted. Only food stores accept cash, a recognition that there are some poor people and immigrants who may not be part of the credit economy.
Now turning to domestic adventures. Every spring and every fall my friend Jerry and I do a major camping trip (approximately 9 days each) to some part of the West. This year’s trips were particularly memorable. In the spring we went to the Mojave Desert and on to the southern Central Valley (Carrizo Plain National Monument) and struck it rich. California had massive rains in the late winter and we got there a few weeks after they ended but in time to catch an incredible wildflower “super-bloom” the likes of which we had never seen before. The flatlands between the mountain ranges were Persian carpets of patchwork colors, the intensity of which was spellbinding. The mountains were transformed into hallucinogenic blankets of brilliant yellow and orange.
In the fall we went to various sites in far western Colorado near the Utah state line – Colorado National Monument, Dinosaur National Monument and several lesser-known sites. The weather was autumnal perfect, and we were at both high and low elevations, so we got to see the aspens in their glory at the higher elevations and the cottonwoods at their peak at the lower elevations.
Upcoming, in early 2024, is a 3-week trip to Panama where we hope to enjoy warm sunshine, snorkeling and seeing some spectacular tropical birds. And the spring 2024 camping trip is already planned: an exploration of the coast redwoods of northern California.
AND SO, IN SUM
At the personal level I am deeply grateful that Bob is in my life and offers me unstinting love, companionship and a considerably more positive outlook than is the norm for me. It is so good to have his bright optimism to contrast with my tendency to darkness and gloom. Though perhaps hard to believe, day to day, I enjoy my life and take pleasure in the little delights – sunshine, warmth, a good cup of coffee and freshly baked bread, and most of all, Bob’s presence! And with that, I close. Yours in the New Year,
Ken