“I am thinking about the way that life can be so slippery; the way that a twelve-year-old girl looking into the mirror to count freckles reaches out toward herself and that reflection has turned into that of a woman on her wedding day, righting her veil. And how, when that bride blinks, she reopens her eyes to see a frazzled young mother trying to get lipstick on straight for the parent/teacher conference that starts in three minutes. And how after that young woman bends down to retrieve the wild-haired doll her daughter has left on the bathroom floor, she rises up to a forty-seven-year-old, looking into the mirror to count age spots.”

― Elizabeth Berg, What We Keep

“A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification. If a woman loves her own body, she doesn’t grudge what other women do with theirs; if she loves femaleness, she champions its rights. It’s true what they say about women: Women are insatiable. We are greedy. Our appetites do need to be controlled if things are to stay in place. If the world were ours too, if we believed we could get away with it, we would ask for more love, more sex, more money, more commitment to children, more food, more care. These sexual, emotional, and physical demands would begin to extend to social demands: payment for care of the elderly, parental leave, childcare, etc. The force of female desire would be so great that society would truly have to reckon with what women want, in bed and in the world.”

― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“Men are visually aroused by women’s bodies and less sensitive to their arousal by women’s personalities because they are trained early into that response, while women are less visually aroused and more emotionally aroused because that is their training. This asymmetry in sexual education maintains men’s power in the myth: They look at women’s bodies, evaluate, move on; their own bodies are not looked at, evaluated, and taken or passed over. But there is no “rock called gender” responsible for that; it can change so that real mutuality–an equal gaze, equal vulnerability, equal desire–brings heterosexual men and women together.”

― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”

― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

Ha, ha!! In his mid 70’s, my husband is still using a ladder to get on the flatter roof to chop the ice dams!! Don’t tell the kids (I mistakenly posted a picture-argh)! I also thought he’d be skiing (he was an expert downhill and telemark skier) into his 90’s (we both talked about that in our 40’s). Skiing at least 40 days a year was written into the marriage contract and my parents lived in VT! I was never a very good skier and once the kids were gone, I stopped and he quit in his mid- 60’s after finding a new winter passion . . . curling!! We’ve added activities as we have gotten older; pickleball, kayaking, bicycle riding . . . .

I am so grateful for the years we were able to experience the magnificent views, unbelievable blue skies, and even snow-storms from the mountain tops which we would never have been able to do had we not been skiing. It was exhilarating!

Hello again. I appreciate your encouragement of my images. You asked about my connection to old houses. I am part romantic; for the neglected, the forgotten, the unpretty. When something is weathered, a house particularly it can set me off into dreaming about the life of the inhabitants inside. The ghosts. My mind drifts not to sophisticated educated people but working-class people who are less pretentious and are not buying art but living it by the soulful way they live out their lives. All people can be interesting to watch and listen to if one is in the right spirit. There is a coffee shop that I frequent that is a stone’s throw away from the old house that I love to shoot pictures of. From my window seat there I often look at the old house for a weird sort of comfort. Someday some developer will renovate it and wash away its old soul. Or perhaps it will always be there. A ghost. A marker of a different era.

It’s mid-July 1973
A sunny late morning
Red Sox are playing at home—hosting the Yankees tonight
WBCN is the cool station with Charles Laquidara ruling the airwaves.
High school is over forever for us. My friend Jerry and I make the trek into Boston snaking our way through the sooty Sumner tunnel, along the way we rolled the car windows all the way down, and WBCN turned up as an array of cool songs are interspersed with lofty commentary by the one and only Charles Laquidara–the last real DJ in America.

In Kenmore Square, there is a hip sub-shop named Mississippi’s that is advertised on this groovy radio station, and we have decided to make pilgrimage there instead of eating locally at Nicks. Of course, being Boston, there is nowhere to park, so we double-park right in front of the restaurant chancing getting a parking ticket. 

Upon entering the space, we instantly feel the energy of this urbanely hip cafe, which feels a million miles away from Winthrop which induces us to feel part of the coolness that is here. The fixtures are shiny silver. the menus are long. Prices higher. The staff personable. The customers that are seated are so well dressed. as intellectual conversations permeate the air.  The Rathskeller, that infamous music hall and bar is a few doors down and hadn’t yet awoken from its hangover induced last night. And storied Fenway Park looms a long home-run swing away.