The Red Sox aren’t as dear to my heart as those Bums were, but if you live around Boston you gotta care. Last night’s game was miserable from start to finish. As the Sox were losing, I was reading Sonia Sotomayor’s marvelous autobiography, My Beloved World. Tonight’s game starts at 8:30, too late for me to stick with until the end. I’m slowly creating distance and getting back into silence, solitude and simplicity.
It’s hard to get back into silence, solitude and simplicity when everyone I see is wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. How can I ignore Major League Baseball in October when I have vivid memories going back to the Brooklyn Dodgers? My grandmother was the most ardent of fans, yelling at Duke Snider through the TV: ‘Duke, you need glasses.’ She was primed in front of our black and white TV, the daily major league standing cut from the NY Times on the table in front of her, waiting to hear ‘play ball!’ She didn’t have a TV in her Brooklyn apartment so she was often with us in Connecticut for important ball games. I remember, however, talking with her on the telephone after the Dodgers finally won in 1955. She and my aunts and uncles were going out to celebrate on the streets of Brooklyn.
The Red Sox aren’t as dear to my heart as those Bums were, but if you live around Boston you gotta care. Last night’s game was miserable from start to finish. As the Sox were losing, I was reading Sonia Sotomayor’s marvelous autobiography, My Beloved World. Tonight’s game starts at 8:30, too late for me to stick with until the end. I’m slowly creating distance and getting back into silence, solitude and simplicity.
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I’m about settled back into my home routine. Here are some of the solitary things going on with me. First there are the little things: walking up at a reasonable time. This morning it was 5:30, my favorite and usual rising time. No more 4 AM until I travel again. Just too early. Then there are the big things: The Pope in Assisi. It was just a week ago today that my daughter and I took the train from Florence to Assisi, preceding Pope Francis by four days, viewing the preparations in front of the Basilica of St. Francis. Regardless of your religious/spiritual stance, you have to be hopeful. Any talk about love and helping the poor has got to be good energy for the planet. And of course there are the things in between: getting rid of some stuff in the parlor (I’ve reactivated my blog http://lettingofstuff.blogspot.com/) , my writing at the library, making apple sauce, and the Red Sox. But right now off I’m to church to settle into the social routine of my life. Solitude and community, I need them both. A few days ago I posted about Assisi but I have more to say because today, October 4th is the Feast Day of St. Francis and this year Pope Francis, the first pope to have chosen that name, is there to celebrate. The citizens of Assisi must be particularly elated as plans were made, satisfying hopes and dreams. I was in Assisi in 2004 on the very day that Pope Benedict was elected. It was early evening and my friend and I stepped into a bar to see if the white smoke had risen from the Sistine Chapel. Indeed it had, and the TV was just announcing that Cardinal Ratzinger, a German, was the new pope. The owners of the bar, husband and wife, looked disgusted, turned off the TV, and went about closing up for the night. On the street outside a little nun, all by herself in the middle of the street, clasped her hands in gratitude. She had a ‘papa’. Although my daughter and I only spent twenty-four hours in Assisi, I find that with each visit I feel a closer affinity to this little town on the hill, this hometown of St. Francis, this town that calls out to us to care for the earth, the animals, the poor. I sense that everyone who visits here, everyone who lives here, loves St. Francis. Many are Roman Catholic and of course one sees many Franciscan monks and nuns. But there are also the rest of us who, with our own thoughts about saints, know that St. Francis energy can only benefit us and the world. It’s already affected Pope Francis. I’m on the plane, in the middle of a nine plus hour flight from Rome to Boston. I’m delighted, no relieved, that I chose this direct flight instead of going to Philly to pick up some flyer miles with USAirways, the airline, if you recall, that sent my suitcase to Brussels for a week when I went to Scotland. This time, for many reasons it just didn’t seem worth it, that extra stop. And besides, Alitalia offers free wine. Now about Italian wine. I’d look it up if I could get on the internet and maybe I will sometime. But suffice to say that the wine in Italy does not contain the preservatives required for wine sold in the U.S.. Consequently, a glass at lunch and on you go, not missing a beat. What a simple way to live. Yesterday my daughter and I walked all over Rome, from Rome Termini (the railway station), to the Coliseum, Forum and the Victor Emmanuel Monument, to Camp de Fiori, the Pantheon and Trevi Fountains, and ending up at St. Peter’s Square. Along the way we enjoyed a salad and wine but we didn’t miss a beat. (Thankfully the bus strike that morning ended sometime during the day so we hopped on Bus 64 back to our hotel near the station.) Of course it’s not simple walking in Rome—people, cars, buses, motorcycles, among winding streets and enormous boulevards. The secret is to go with the human traffic. Stop to defer to your map, but never to another pedestrian or car; that only fouls up the system; just keep walking. We discovered that the best way to cross the street is to follow closely behind a group of people, preferable Italian, for they are fearless. I’ll be posting this when I get home. Tomorrow I’ll be walking in my neighborhood. No winding streets; a school bus or two, perhaps a motorcycle, cars; no boulevards and no groups of Italians to follow. I’ll just look left and right and defer to the traffic. |
Contact me: bobbifisher.mac@mac.com
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