Two girls from New York lost in Vermont

When two writers get in a bind, what is the logical thing to do?

Write a headline about it, of course.

The headline of this post is what we came up with when driving down a dark country road after an extremely interesting and civilized evening of chamber music at the Marlboro Music Festival in the eponymous town in Southern Vermont on the campus of Marlboro College.

I had gone with a new friend who had an extra ticket. It was magical out there, with the landscape having a different feel than here in the Valley. I was glad I went. The New England Travel Planner gives a good succinct description:

The Marlboro Music School and Festival, directed by Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida, brings together 75 of the most talented musicians in the country, some famous and some soon to be famous, for two months' practice, consultation, and tutorial.

On weekends from mid-July to mid-August the school is opened to concert audiences, most of whom have ordered their tickets weeks or months in advance and have also made early lodging reservations.

The auditorium at Marlboro College (map) seats fewer than 700 people, and to keep the spirit of the chamber music, directors and performers resist demands for a larger hall.

Young musicians and accomplished artists wove an fascinating musical tapestries. The hall is small enough so that even in the back, you can see the emotion in the performers' faces and watch how much of their body they put into a piece.

We saw String Quartet in D Major, Op. 50, No. 6, by Joseph Haydn; 8 Etudes and a Fantasy, by Elliott Carter; and String Sextet in A Major, Op. 48, B. 80, by Antonin Dvorak. I thoroughly enjoyed the first and the last but have to confess to not being able to make sense of the modern work in the middle. I closed my eyes and took a micro nap. I was glad I was awake for the complicated Dvorak, which went through multiple moods and tempos. At one point for some reason I imagined the music to be the soundtrack for characters in a fairytale dancing through the woods.

The mood continued when we drove off through the woods, took a turn, and soon realized we did not know where we were. We had no phone reception, hence no way to get directions on the unmarked road. We drove a little, hoping to see a road sign when suddenly we came upon an inn. We decided to drive up and ask for directions. It was before 10 p.m. and we expected to see someone at the reception desk or in the living area. There was nobody to be found. We saw empty card tables, a couch with pillows, and an unattended bar stocked with liquor. If it was a play or movie, we might have poured ourselves a drink while we pondered our next move.

Admittedly mawkishly, I said, "Maybe they're all dead," and I had visions of Agatha Christie's "And then There Were None." We gave up and had just begun to back out when a face peered suspiciously out of a window. I knocked and mouthed the words, "Can you come out?"

A man came out and said we were actually headed in the right direction, Brattleboro, through which we had come.

I had met my new friend through the Western Mass Dog Walkers' Meetup. When we were doing introductions of ourselves and our dogs before we took a walk at Mt. Toby, we realized immediately that we had to have coffee.

Both native New Yorkers, we had each gone to a Friends School, me to Friends Seminary and Abigail to Brooklyn Friends. That alone was enough for a long conversation. She also went to Vassar, though only for a year, and she is also a freelance writer. We are both dog people, and we both have a Lives.

Here is hers: Bitten to the Quick
And at the risk of repeating this ad nauseam, here is mine: Running for My Life

Last-minute New York trip, the why and the how

Audrey and Herbert, 1947

I have popped down to New York for the funeral of a good friend's father. It was a last-minute decision but I had the time (and no medical appointments) so I said, why not.

The friend is Tommy Rosenfield (now, as a grownup, Tom, but always Tommy). We've been friends  since our idyllic days in Atlantic Beach, with our friendship continuing through Friends Seminary and beyond.

His father, Herb Rosenfield (Aug. 6, 1918 - July 20 2016), lived a good long life, but of course difficult is not a sufficient word to describe what it is like to lose a beloved parent. Tom started his remembrance of his father the way I might have started mine had I been able to speak through the tears when he died: He remembered his father talking about the ice being delivered for the family's ice box. From much later, I can picture Herb going into the ocean at Atlantic Beach, while his wife, tanned, turbined Audrey (my mother always said she was a real beauty), sat in her usual spot further away from the ocean, being the first person to greet us with a warm smile when we came down the small boardwalk before hopping onto the sand. And then Mary Ann, putting down her book, telling me to stop being a chicken and to go into the water with her.

Temple Emanu-el

This morning, after paying my respects to Herb's children, Tom, Patty and Nelson, and to the rest of the family, I had time to wonder at the main chapel in Temple Emanu-El and was lucky to be standing next to a knowledgable man who told me about the mix of architectural styles and the importance of the temple as a must-see destination in New York. I read later that the temple, completed in 1929, is the world's largest synagogue, accommodating 2,500 worshippers.

It was good to give Patty, Nelson and Tom a hug. The timing was so strange because the night before I learned that Herb had died, a dreamt that I was hugging Patty and Tom.

I am staying two nights but wasn't sure about that at first because I thought I would have to ask my cousin Jeanne for two nights on her couch. Then a friend from Friends, Craig Evans, offered his apartment on east 57th Street. I took him up on his offer and got here last night; after recovering from my trip, I had a very nice dinner with his wife, since Craig only coming into the city this morning.

Tonight I will see them again at a reception at the Century Club.

Always wondering which way is best to come into the city, I took the advice of some friends who said they like to drive to New Haven and take Metro North from there. Someone said I live dangerously to have left my car in an open air parking lot, but I figure there are better targets than an old Subaru. One hopes, anyway.

Disheveled Me

Getting swept out of Grand Central in a crowd in the early evening, I didn't think it would be easy to get a cab or an Uber. So I lugged my suitcase down the subway stairs, going very slowly, because I didn't want to repeat my mishap of somehow flying off the top step in the Paris Metro and doing a belly-flop into the car.

Once in the subway car, I caught myself when it jolted and I started to jerk backwards. Then I lugged suitcase and laptop up the stairs and went  across town and up a few blocks. Did I say that I was dripping with sweat?

When I had dropped Maddie off with Jim Bloom before I left, he asked why I didn't just take Amtrak from Holyoke. I don't really have an answer to that question. As I wobbled in the subway, looking like the world's most disheveled out-of-towner, with baseball cap askew, I asked myself why I was doing this.

"Because I can," I said to myself.

A good morning with Friends

Yearbook photo, next to
William Penn's hitching post.

Telling people you went to a Friends high school can be like playing Who's on First.

Me: "I went to a Friends school in New York."

The other person: "I wasn't asking about your friend's school. I was asking about yours."

When you say a Friends School is operated by Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends), people aren't sure what to make of that either. I only knew one or two Quakers at my high school, Friends Seminary. Actually, a good percent were Jewish.

So what about the Quaker part? The philosophy guided our school. Quakers believe in the inner light in everyone and in working for peace and social justice. It is hard to say it without sounding corny, so I'll send you to the Friends Seminary website.

When I was in 10th grade, the school organized a bus trip to Washington for a silent vigil around the White House to protest the Vietnam War. That is the kind of thing we did. Silence is another key component of a Friends education, specifically the one-hour silent meeting for worship that we had every Wednesday in the meeting house. There is no program; you sit in silence, and if you are moved to speak, you stand up and begin. This website has a good explanation of Quaker Meeting.

Meeting house, left, and Friends Seminary

My mother said that as soon as we went into the beautiful historic meetinghouse on 15th Street and Rutherford Place, she knew it was the school for me. The school is one of some 80 in the country; the Obama girls attend Sidwell Friends. When I reconnected with friends from Friends who live in the Valley, we hardly skipped a beat. My friends from Friends are like family.

Wherever I live, I usually find a Friends meeting. For example, when I lived in Brookline, I went to the Friends Meeting at Cambridge.

Some time ago I went to the Mount Toby Friends Meeting in Leverett, but I hadn't been for a while. Sunday mornings I usually either go to a spinning class at the Holyoke Y or a yoga class at the Hampshire Regional Y in Northampton.

I bring this up now because in the past two weeks I went first to the Friends Meeting in Northampton, and then this past Sunday to Mt. Toby. A friend from Friends and I had talked about wanting to go together, and I was curious about the meeting in Northampton (on Center Street) because I pass by it all the time.

Given the terrorist attacks of the previous week, it seemed like a good time to go sit with the peaceful people. So that is what we did. He wasn't available, so I went by myself to the Mount Toby meeting. It is easy to find – it's on Route 63 – but, if you know me, you know I can get lost in South Hadley. I misread the directions and took one wrong turn, which led to another, and another, with Siri being of no help and saying, infuriatingly, "I'm sorry, I seem to have lost my Internet connection."

I got there about 20 minutes late, but people were coming in and out anyway, so it didn't matter. Just coming into a place like that, I could feel my blood pressure drop. We sat in silence, with some people standing up to talk – mostly about the terrorist attacks – and then, after an hour, each person turned to his or her neighbor, shook hands, and said, "Good morning." Then people went around and introduced themselves, with newcomers like myself receiving a warm, "Welcome." Afterwards, I chatted with some members over coffee.

 Here is the description on the website: Mount Toby Friends Meeting is a welcoming faith community. We come from many different religious backgrounds, including birthright Quakers, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists, Pagans, and those with no previous affiliation. Believing that every human being shares in the universal Light, we join together each Sunday to create an expectant silence where the spirit may enter. Our Meeting is “unprogrammed,” which means that there is no formal order of worship, but those who are moved by the spirit can speak. Thus we all are ministers as well as attenders.

Friends education gave me the gift of being able to return to meetings and feel connected and gain a sense of inner peace wherever the meetings are. The gym will be there the rest of the week. My friend from Friends and I are going to return.

Catching up with friends from Friends

My friends from the Friends Seminary class of 1972 try to see each other as often as we can. We talk and we text. When the larger group got together at reunion, we shared so much history that it seemed like we barely missed a beat. I got reacquainted with Dan Green and Sabrina Hamilton when we all ended up living in Western Mass., and he was kind enough to create my website, Ronnigordon.com that is invaluable for freelance writing. Same thing when we got together: Never missed a beat. I am so excited that in the next few days I will see two "old" friends who I haven't seen in ages. Tom Rosenfield is coming from Switzerland to visit relatives in New York, and I am going to meet up with him and some others tomorrow. Next week, Scott Miller will travel from West Virginia to Providence, R.I., also to see relatives, and since that is under two hours from me, I'm going to meet up with him there.

See if you can find me in our 11th grade class photo, top. In the bottom photo, it is easy to find me with my crazy hair. We are all holding our senior photos. I think Scott Miller is responsible for that one.

In any case, I'm heading down to New York today via my usual hop, skip and a jump, stopping in Fairfield, where Ben will take me to the Metro North.

Last time I wrote that I was heading to the Old Country – what some of us Jews call New York – my friends here with roots on the Emerald Isle thought I meant Ireland!

But it is actually my own old country, where I feel at home the moment I step into Grand Central Station.

My room looks like it has been hit by a hurricane because I tore it apart last night looking for something to wear out to dinner. Even though I know that the house you leave is the house to which you return and it is nice not to come back to a mess, I am going to shut the door and get on the road as soon as possible so I will have time to do my favorite run around the Central Park reservoir before having dinner with my cousins.

Tomorrow: Dim Sum in Chinatown, then a visit with my aunt Marge and Bill before coming back.

Snow day

I packed all my stuff for staying overnight at Diane's after my scheduled appointment with the GI specialist in Boston this afternoon, also bringing cheese and crackers, an apple and chocolate chip cookies for lunch.

Back when we were growing up in New York, we'd take the long car ride to Greenfield to visit my aunt and cousins – a long trip before the completion of Route 91. We packed lunches...and ate them before the bridge, about 15-minutes into our five-hour drive.

So today, I ate my cheese and crackers "before the bridge," in other words before I got to the turnpike. But it was snowing steadily, and the roads were terrible, so I turned around after about 10 minutes, eating my apple on the way back. Well, at least the dog was happy to see me.

The next available appointment isn't until April 30, but since I feel fine, it doesn't matter much.

Sitting at the table with my soft red scarf around my neck, I finished a story for my high school magazine (Friends Seminary) about a graduate who is a professional cyclist.

Then I wondered, should I go to the gym? Nah. The roads are too bad.

Should I take Maddie for a walk instead of just letting her out in the woods behind our house to do her business? Nah. I might slip and fall.

OK, well how about doing Joanne's exercises at home? Nah. I did half an hour of cardio-tennis yesterday and then went to yoga so I think I'll just stretch from side to side and touch my toes, calling it a day.t

How about I stare out the window at the snowflakes falling and then fall asleep on the couch?

Yes!

And then how about making a cup of coffee and sitting down to write this?

Yes again!