Year-end Report - 2003

Casa Otra Banda

El Rancho, New Mexico

December 2003

Dear Friend,

I have struggled long and hard on what I would say this year. It has been, to my mind, a very rough year, and when I assess things, sadly, I do not see a lot of bright spots. Initially, I thought this is likely to be a considerably shorter year-end report on my part than past ones have been, on the theory that if I cannot send a particularly cheerful letter out, why send one at all? It is not much fun to be a recipient of a downbeat letter at this time of the year. All the same, in the end, I haven’t been able to keep it terribly short. Apologies. Perhaps, though, I owe a brief explanation of where I am coming from. So, here is my attempt.

At the most personal level, the loss of my mother, first to a severe stroke on June 1, followed by her death shortly thereafter (mercifully), on July 5, was a severe blow. I consider myself quite fortunate that I had her wonderful presence in my life so well into my own maturity, but as with most of us, when the death of someone so close in one’s life finally comes, it is a great loss, pure and simple. And I, like countless others before me, must come to terms with it – for me, I am making my peace with it, but it is definitely not a straight path. Memories, brief moments, come back at the most unexpected times, intense flashes that in the merest of instances, bring back powerful associations, sometimes touched off by the slightest of sensory perceptions or idle daydreaming. Fortunately, my father is still in my life, though for him, after 65 years of marriage, the adjustment has to be difficult beyond all my powers of imagining. He is almost my last connection with a vanished world that was once so populated with the generation of family that preceded my own. And with that generation, goes my own history, a way of life, a web of connections.

The loss of a parent, whenever it happens, brings on reflections on mortality, one’s legacy, being remembered, and I must say it is a very humbling experience. While I have long thought about such matters in a general sort of way, my mother’s passing has brought these thoughts to a focus and an emotional intensity such as I have never experienced. Reading, plays, movies – all sorts of thought-provoking activities – connect with her death in the most unexpected but often profound ways – it has opened a door to another world, often scary, but at the same time, very much a part of the progress of a life. The sense of life as an arc, from beginning to full maturity to old age has become not just an idea anymore, but something that pervades my whole outlook and which I intuit in many experiences.

On the home front, this has been a year, in our part of New Mexico, of truly the most atrocious weather I have ever known, almost to the point of being unrecognizable as that of the New Mexico that attracted us here. Severe drought (continuing a situation of many years duration now), combined with often filthy air (a result of frequent forest fires from as far away as California), heat continuing for months of abnormality, wind, normally a spring phenomenon that now seems prevalent throughout the year, decimated pine forests (a beetle infestation) – in short, a level of environmental degradation that I could not imagine when we moved here just 11 years ago. Whether things will turn around or this is a new pattern is hard to say. But it has made the kind of gardening I had hoped to do close to impossible – my vegetable garden was a total disaster this year – and gardening is my great love, so the disappointment is keen. (I should note that it was only beginning in mid-November or so that the weather seemed to become a bit more seasonal and the incredible winter light that is so special here shone upon us again, a reassuring reminder of why it is so special to still live here.)

On a larger scale, I cannot recall a time in my life that as I listen to or read news, has presented a spectacle of such unrelieved pain and sadness – particularly on the national and international scene I am simply not aware of any developments at all that make me feel good about what is happening. Instead, each day brings more news that stabs at me. I sometimes think I hardly recognize the elements about America that have always made me feel so good, so special about it. I know they exist and will continue to exist, but everything I care about and value seems to be under massive assault and threat. Increasingly, I feel like an exile, or an alien, or a mutant, in my own country.

While I am dismayed at virtually everything that is happening – attacks on and very serious threats to long-cherished civil liberties and women’s freedoms, the increasing difficulties of so many to just survive and get adequate health care, the loss of decent jobs for so many Americans, the role of a certain kind of religious fundamentalism that makes me think we have a sizable cadre of American Talibans, the inability of state governments to maintain all manner of vital programs, the impoverishment of public life, educational decline for so many, the U.S. withdrawal from key issues that most of the world is moving towards (and I could continue) – there is one area that particularly pains – the almost unimaginable reversals in environmental protections at a time we need them more than ever. I do not maintain that this is the single most important issue we are facing, but it is the one that has been most dear to me, and I can almost no longer bear to confront, each day, another gleeful, wanton attack on environmental conservation. I have the sense that even when it makes no economic sense, destroying the environment has become an obsession, in and of itself. I look at this beautiful world we were given as a gift – to care for and love – and I watch how we are destroying it and have to think there will be a terrible, terrible price for what we as a nation (and the rest of the world too) are doing. Talk about a disenfranchised taxpayer – I can hardly think of anything that my tax dollars pay for that I support! (The one commercial TV series I watch is “The West Wing” – it is my adult fairytale of what good government is about, my yearning for the values so many of us in this country treasured but have so sadly lost.)

Enough already! I have probably dwelled on this more than I should have, but I wanted to give you some idea of where I am. In fact, I would actively welcome anything you can contribute in the way of optimism, of a positive outlook, on what is happening in this world of ours. I hate to think I am simply following the all too typical evolution of growing old and carping about a world that does not resemble the old familiar one I grew up in. I know, rationally, that that world was replete with its own set of problems and horrors. And I remind myself and reassure myself there are all kinds of wonderful and caring people I keep running into, and rubbing shoulders with, who bring light into one’s life and that of the world at large.

On to other matters. David is working hard at writing his book on classic American popular song, 1950-2000. After many delays, he was offered a contract he could feel comfortable accepting from a major publisher, and is now under the gun to meet a December 2004, deadline for getting the book written. Fortunately, he is disciplined, and able to work at home without interruption. I tend to be the biggest distraction, but I think I am getting pretty good at sticking to the “ground rules.”

This may become a bit stickier with my planned retirement, set for approximately July 1, 2004. This is a rather momentous milestone and I face it with both a sense of opportunity and foreboding. Right now David and I are trying to carefully compute expected incomes and probable expenses to make sure we can have a reasonably decent life in retirement. But ironically, if I retire, as I expect to, by the middle of 2004, David will still be working on his book, so a joint life of intense travel and other such activities is not in the cards immediately.

Our plans to move into a lifetime care set-up located in the heart of downtown Santa Fe may conceivably be on a faster track if the weather situation does not improve – the pleasures of country living are predicated on a certain way of life and if conditions are changing radically, then that needs to be re-considered. But we have not worked out a specific date yet for the transition from country to city. Santa Fe, like most everywhere else, is struggling with unchecked growth – this is no longer the small town of the 1950’s – it is now sprawling at an alarming rate, and the key issue, especially in these times of drought, is water. The city, and the state for that matter, are living beyond their budget, water-wise, that is. The sad thing is that when the piper finally has to be paid, it is going to be a very traumatic situation, since so far there are no signs of intelligent, rational, careful, long-term planning by governmental bodies. There are all kinds of non-governmental and quasi-governmental bodies with good ideas, but getting them translated into action is a different ball game.

I am grateful for continued good health and a wonderful relationship with David – two critical elements in my life which are very important and which I try (not always successfully) to not lose sight of.

While I had enjoyed my job for most of the year, there are some major upheavals that we are in the midst of that could significantly impact everything I have enjoyed about it, so even on the work front, this has been an increasingly unsettling year. It began with some major “scandals” at the Laboratory, which led to the resignation of the Laboratory Director and the removal of my boss, the Security Division Leader. Needless to say, with new personalities at the top and those senior levels that most affect me, there are lots of changes that have begun, and many more to come. This is yet one more reason to think of retirement as a form of escape from bureaucratic upheavals. (And as an aside, the “scandals” turned out to be hugely exaggerated.)

The year began with us still in Morocco, a trip I thoroughly enjoyed and which I wrote up in a separate trip report. It ended (taking liberties, since we are talking about October) with a trip to the Veneto region of Italy – that is, the region that was historically under the sway of La Serenissima, that is, the powerful Republic of Venice. The inspiration for the trip was David’s fascination with the architectural legacy of Palladio, who was born in Padua in the early 1500’s and worked his whole life in the Veneto, primarily in and near Vicenza. David did lots of preparatory work, and found that October was the latest month when one could still find many of the country properties still open for visits. Practically needing computer software, he worked out a complex schedule that would allow us, day-by-day, to get to the really important properties that were open to the public on unbelievably erratic schedules. In the cities, access was generally much simpler.

So we visited Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice, and ended in Treviso, visiting in the last-mentioned city, the American daughter and her Italian husband and daughters, of a professional friend of mine in the U.S. We had a rental car for 9 days which allowed us to visit the Palladian villas in the country as well as a number of small, interesting cities north and south of Vicenza, meanwhile staying in an “Agriturismo” – a farm stay, which, this being Italy, turned out to be a gorgeous property with the main building, Il Castello, built at the beginning of the 18^th century. A property with vineyards, perched above a lovely town, with terraces, large pots of lemon trees and oleander, and gorgeous views into the distance. Venice, of course, is Venice – one of those incomparable places that cannot be compared to anywhere else in the world. And the riches of art and architecture were simply beyond imagining. We had done some extensive reading on Venice prior to the trip, and that primed us, but could never fully prepare us for the wonders we were to experience (or re-experience, since we had both previously been to Venice and some of the other locales).

I very much enjoyed the fact that food remains a serious business. Daily shopping for fresh ingredients is still a way of life. There seems far, far fewer inroads of food as a packaged toy, as a “product” that large companies play around with, introducing endless silly (and unhealthy) variations, like baubles before the eyes of a baby. Wherever we ate – an inexpensive place or a bit upscale, food was well-prepared and very tasty. And of course, there were countless coffee bars on every block, all capable of making, with very impressive machinery, the most satisfying caffe lungo or capuchino.

My only major complaint, other than the high cost (especially with Italy now a “Euro” country), was that virtually everything seems to be under scaffolding or closed for renovation. It is, of course, a classic joke about Italy, but compared to past visits, I would say the situation was far more extreme this time around. We kept hunting for just one “campo” or “piazza” in Venice, out of the countless hundreds we visited, that was not marred with scaffolding, plywood coverings, etc., and never succeeded! All the same, it remains a fascinating country of unimaginable cultural treasures.

The trip to Europe was a spur to some interesting reflections. Given my very depressed state about the world in general these days (of which you have undoubtedly heard enough from me by now), I also discovered (or rather, re-discovered) just how American I am. In many ways, the American style of doing things and of behaving, is my style, and I realized, when I was removed from it, how much it is me, my way of doing things and responding to the world – a certain freedom to live by one’s own rules, to behave and act in an expansive, open way. I also came to miss the wide open spaces of a big place like New Mexico; the Veneto is a very crowded part of the world. There were, essentially, no open spaces – where one municipality ended, another began.

We did have some other brief trips throughout the year. One memorable one was to Ft. Worth to see the new Modern Art Museum designed by Tadeo Ando, along with the expanded Amon Carter Museum and the architecturally overwhelming (in its purity and simplicity) Kimball Art Museum designed by Louis Kahn. There were also brief visits to San Francisco, Ann Arbor, and New Orleans to see friends and attend professional meetings, plus lots of trips to Florida.

This year, between Christmas and New Year’s, when the Lab closes, will be another first – no trip abroad. Instead, David and I will visit my Dad, and take off for a few days on a road trip along the southwest coast of Florida.

I hope you will forgive me for not being more cheerful, but I have always tried to make this “year-end report” an honest set of reflections about my doings and my place in world at large. Strangely, at the immediate, personal level, we are doing okay. We have more or less good health (and health insurance), we don’t worry about putting food on the table, we can go out to hear music or see a movie. We have carved out a life that to some extent is removed from much of what we find increasingly distressful in American life. In short, we’re doing okay. But I can’t help thinking about the growing unfairness and inequality of American life, of the terrible struggles of so many of those in our midst. We have the wealth and the means to improve the quality of life for so many who give their all to surviving and making sure their kids have a chance. But instead, those who need help least just keep getting more, while the common good suffers. The future, at this dark moment, does not seem promising. However, if you see it differently, I really want to hear about it, and I mean that. We all need hope in our lives.

That is, in a nutshell, the view from this small corner of New Mexico, 2003. I send, with this, all my wishes for a good 2004 - for you and all those dearest to you.

Love,