Wandering through the halls of the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh some years ago, I came upon a little-known work by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a 16^th century German painter. Was it the title of the painting that captivated me—An Allegory of Melancholy—or the painting itself, so modern, almost surreal, in its juxtaposition of strangely discordant elements?

Let me start by explaining that I like the word melancholy, even though its Greek etymology is black bile, hardly an attractive notion. One of the four humors: I cannot see myself as choleric, or sanguine, or phlegmatic, so I’ve always opted for the melancholic side of things. Melancholy has a bad rap, especially in these days of enforced cheerfulness and tooth whitener smiles. The word melancholy is onomatopoeic to me, something about its consonants and rhythm suggestive of languor, gentle sadness, nostalgia. Sitting alone on a veranda watching the sun go down, missing some one, but gently. (more…)

She was born in the last of the colonial years, old enough to automatically become French at a later time in her life when she would have nowhere else to go. She was a teacher, worked at the Alliance Française in Saigon for seventeen years. She left the country, with her family, in 1981; they risked their lives on a leaky boat, more afraid of the victorious regime than of the pirates in the south China sea. There is a certain resonance in French to the English words “boat-people” that is lost in English, because it is reserved for that time when to leave Vietnam meant to survive, somehow, the terrible aftermath of a lost war. And when she says it, in her voice that is soft and questioning with a quiet humor, there is a resignation and dignity that comes from somewhere inside her, a place we can only understand intellectually. (more…)

In 1950 Charles Aznavour wrote a song which went on to become famous, sung by both Juliette Gréco and Edith Piaf, and perhaps others as well. The woman in the song is expressing a feeling which could be shared by many: she hates Sundays, finds them “pretentious” and rose-colored and filled with pretexts for the middle classes to parade in crowds and act smug, while the man she loves has to go to work. If only he had Sundays off, she says, she would love Sundays—and show it—so well that other people would envy her happiness.The subtext of her little musical scenario is the loneliness that Sundays inflict upon those who are neither en couple or en famille. And while she clearly sees the ritual that is behind the traditional Sunday—church, family dinners, after-dinner walks, excursions to the country or trips to museums, along with the pretense (we’re not lonely because we’re doing what normal people do on a Sunday), she also envies these traditional activities, even those who “make love because they have nothing else to do…” (more…)

Here is my two little red hearts’ worth for Valentine’s Day.

A friend of mine, whose wife has left him after 25 years of marriage, suddenly finds himself middle-aged, available, and…well, we won’t go into that. Friends, wanting to offer easy, quick palliatives, have told him to try on-line dating. Sure he’s on the rebound, and worried about his sex appeal, as we all are when we go through breakups and divorces. And all the more so when the last time you were openly on the meat market you didn’t have crow’s feet or gray hair. So let’s assume he subscribed to a free trial, browsed through profiles, maybe even sent a few messages or winks. If he’s met any ladies he’s not saying. But the other night he met a couple, through some mutual friends, who themselves “met” through match.com. That’s no big deal either; we’ve all heard those wonder-stories of couples who fall madly in love via the internet…yadda yadda yawn. (more…)

No doubt some of you, my American co-residents, are moaning because it’s that time of year again, when the Tax Man (hey, I’ll get out my old vinyl copy of Revolver, maybe George Harrison can cheer me up) crooks and wiggles his ugly gnarled finger at you. He wants your miserable dollars, worthless compared to a Euro or a Swiss franc, but they still add up, however many donations you make to the Gates foundation.

But if you think April 15 is a rough date, listen to this one. And call it February 20. And don’t complain. (more…)

Reader, I married him.

One of the most famous lines in English literature; a happy end to a gruesome tale of love, deception, morality, cruelty, redemption, etc. etc….you get the picture. I could almost write the blurb for the movie preview, One plain orphaned woman…one wealthy gentleman in need of a governess…

I remember the elegant, illustrated green-bound volumes on my parents’ bookshelf, a set of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights; I must have been eight or nine, and although I was intrigued by the woodcut engravings, the text was impossibly difficult for my childish brain, saturated as it was with Nancy Drew stories and other easy reading. It was the illustrations which had drawn me, but they were vaguely menacing, too adult, pictures of a world I wasn’t ready for.

Nor was I ready at age 12, when our eighth-grade English teacher set Jane Eyre as the first text of my first semester in a new school. I was still into pre-adolescent detective stories, and although Jane Eyre is a thriller in its own unique way, it was not the kind I felt drawn toward. I struggled, my grades were mediocre, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Jane was boring, Mr. Rochester was creepy, and as for that woman in the attic…they just weren’t cool. (more…)

I recently had some minor surgery on my shin that turned out to be more painful than anticipated; for two days I seriously thought I would become a Vicodin junkie. All those twinges shooting across my shin like darts; the sensation of skin tugging and pulling in places where it ought not to be. Maybe I’m a wimp, with a low pain threshold; maybe because it was worse than I thought it would be I didn’t know how to deal with the unexpected incapacitation, immobility, disfigurement. I lay doped up in bed and read Chekhov and thought about the pain he must have witnessed on a regular basis in his rounds as a country doctor—although it is mainly the psychological pain which is chronicled in his work; a world without Vicodin or anaesthesia, only vodka to numb the acute awareness pain brings of our mortal, animal humanity. (more…)

Everyone’s doing it, so is that a reason to join the fray?

I hate the word. It sounds like someone having a protracted vomiting session. Blog. Microsoft Word doesn’t even recognize it as a word, and has just squiggled a red line underneath it. There are a host of tangentially unpleasant words associated with the mere sound of it: block, black, log, bleuuh, beurck—these last two being onomatopoeic renderings of the vomiting session—logorrhea—in question.

And think about the other blogs you’ve read. Some are called blogs but actually deserve to be called opinion pieces, op-eds, essays; it’s the internet delivery which slots them into the blog category. But there are also a lot of really bloggy blogs: rants, endless confessional self-indulgent journals, narcissistic contributions to the cosmic noise. Of the “A thought occurred to me as I was on my way to get the milk bottle on the stoop” school. Well, who cares about your milk bottle, and besides, no one has milk bottles delivered anymore, this is the 21st century.

Everyone is just trying to get out there, and get noticed.

So why should I join the fray? (more…)