The East Coast Shuffle pt 1

It’s actually a fine thing when a child grows up to outshine her parents.  But it’s not so great when she grows up to be one of them.  Like Barbara Boyce.  She lived in a big old house down on 2^nd or 3^rd North with a bunch of other girls in our BYU ward, and she was soooo nice. And she was soooo classy.  She could have gotten up in the morning, tied her hair in a knot and thrown on an old shower curtain, and she’d have looked like the classiest person to ever walk the planet.  She always made me feel like I was something special, which is ironic because I am to class basically what acoustic tile is to sound.

            And Katherine Stadelbauer. One of the eighty girls my age in our Scarsdale ward – a pack of us, like sisters, loving-hating, going to camp together all through high school.  Katherine used to wear these cool Villager cardigans.  My mother draped me in whatever we could find at Korvettes.  Katherine had hair like a waterfall.  My hair couldn’t hold a flip to save its life.  I could sleep in curlers all night (yeah—what was that about?) and in the morning, my hair would hold the curl for about fifteen seconds before it fell over sideways and died.

            But it was more than that—from her first breath, Katherine had it—panache, charisma, that je ne sais quois.  Me?  I never got over being an adolescent.  In later years, when we ran into each other again at BYU, she said, most disingenuously, “You could look good, if you’d just take care of yourself.”

            So yes, I taught my kids everything – reading, writing, writhmatic – music, photography, art, dance.  And now they all do all of it better than I do.  Which is right.  Which is good.  Except I find myself coveting my daughter’s eye.  You go to Gin’s place and look at her shots, you suddenly turn French and kiss the tips of your fingers (superb!!).  With her, you are in the presence of greatness.  And now she has moved to the East Coast, and lives in the presence of Autumn at its most classical.

            Which is why I am here.  I got tired of playing my little mountains against her deciduous forest.  It wasn’t fair.  So I came out here to get some maple shots for myself.  Only to find the weather gone weary and dreary.  Which means we have to stay mostly indoors – which is even sadder because Ginna’s house is just like Barbara Boyce, welcoming, generous, and carelessly classy with that gift of scattered and unselfconscious whimsy and artsiness that makes it a joy to behold.

            So I have turned the tables by taking pictures of her world – albeit in the perennially low light that has plagued me all through this season.  Or is it my eyes are just getting worse and I can’t tell when I’m focused anymore?  Well, through rain, dusk and inside lighting I have stolen these images – and now I offer them up, hoping that what has made me happy will do the same for you.

Frazz: home and glad to have us with him

Studying the menu – she’ll hate this shot, but I love it.

G, with his daughter.  This hat, he took off at the airport, worrying that they’d think he was a terrorist.  Actually, he wears it because it’s cold outside.  I loved this light.

Weighing broccoli with Grandpa G

This is the “don’t take pictures of me” sign.  Ha.  I followed them around as they bought groceries for the week, watching scenes as natural to me as if they still happened every day.  I have learned to record the unremarkable, since the aggregate of these is what does, in fact, make our lives quite remarkable indeed.

I always seem to be shooting great leaves from the back of a horse or the inside of a car.  This one looks good at this size.  Please do not double click it, however – you will get motion sick.

Dog in the kitchen.  He was just lying there with business going on all around him, his chin propped up on this stool. You can just catch the good humored glint in one eye.

I am in love with the vestibule.  The light coming through her sheers is so diffused, so creamy.  And this old fashioned entry has such a romantic quality.

Getting lunch together.  More lovely light.

Kathy and I both are represented on the wall.  Kathy’s is bigger and has a cat in it.  Also pumpkins.

Dog, now in the living room.  An ear, certainly not asleep, cocked to catch any promising sound – the fall of a crumb, the mention of his name.

What you can’t see clearly here is Kathy’s gorgeous quilt – wait, I think Gin might have put this one together under her tutelage.  The colors are lovely, makes the whole room rich.

More entry.

Attention to detail, and all of it points to a household built around the child.

Love the fish.

Outside our window.  The house is in the city, and the community almost walkable.  Groceries are a distance, but swimming lessons, the library, a cleaners, the little school – all a pleasant walk away.  Sirens pass the house a couple of times a day.  Energy up and down the sidewalks. But the earth in woven through it all, peaking out in tiny lawns, in drifts of leaves at corners of some of the oldest buildings in our country.

On our way home from the cleaners.

Part 2: out and about –