Good morning! From the Greater Boston Area, specifically Cambridge

It's been a lovely time. Leaving is bittersweet, of course; however, the next leg of this journey takes me back to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where I'll be spending long overdue family time! 

In the meantime, returning to old haunts, some changed beyond recognition, has been fun. Much has happened in the world since I've been back, but over the course of the next few entries, I'm likely going to spend more time on art, gardens, literature, and reminiscences shared and unshared.

I restricted myself to well-trod paths (in some cases, literally; there's the Alewife Footpath, and the lovely stroll into Harvard Square from my dear friend Graziella's house, which will henceforth and ever be called Venti. I could sing Graziella's praises all day; she's not just a gracious host, but a woman of innate strength, deep introspection, and a huge heart. She and Joyce, another of the inestimable heart-sisters in my life are a team of love and fun that can raise the spirit on the darkest of days. We'll be meeting up with them throughout.

I made this trip because I am planning my return to India and Nepal sooner than later and frankly, I don't know if I'll leave from the Northeast or the Gulf Coast. I have a couple of projects I want to work on before making the hop across the ocean and honestly, I don't know where I'll be.

To leave without seeing people you love once more seems a tawdry, neglectful way to say good-bye, so I'd like to get as much quality time in as possible. I didn't see everyone I would have liked to because to be equally frank, in a couple of cases, I think I'm out of the picture of those people and places and this is fine; relationships arise, stay, and pass away for whatever reasons, causes, or conditions. In a couple of cases, it just wasn't feasible, but good chats were had nonetheless.

Over the next few entries, I want to concentrate on what I saw at the Harvard Art Museums. I know the collections reasonably well, but they have some new holdings that surprised me and I wanted to look at pieces that I hadn't really paid much attention to before. 

Reading has been concentrated on rereading E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, for me a highly influential tome that I've not read in a couple of decades. There's much that Fritz couldn't have foreseen when he wrote the essays and chapters that comprise his book, but he was spot-on about much else. A tangential but not completely unrelated work is David Bohm's On Dialogue, which complements a number of observations Schumacher makes in discussing meta-economic factors and other aspects of how we can better locate economics as a science in the world.

I also finally - finally - picked up collections of Fernando Pessoa and Anna Akhmatova's poetries, a slim volume of Verlaine and Rimbaud's Illuminations. Additionally, I"m sitll poring over other stuff I started for my summer reading. 

Movies? Just two. For those, you'll have to go to Reaction Shots. I'm not going to muddy my blogwaters. 

Local policies and politics; these have been of varying concerns depending on who I'm with. I've been following the various shifts and changes online for the past seven years, but it was helpful to see and experience the effects of some of these in person, as well as discuss with folks who work for the city or for NGOs. Inflated prices and the cost of living are prominent topics here and I'm growing increasingly of the mind that what Schumacher called "gigantism" as a result of increasingly large corporate entities, coupled with a body politic that rises and falls on a capital/profit driven economy is rendering any meaningful living in cities almost untenable. Yes, Houston, I'm looking at you, too. We'll look at that more deeply later.

Good times; let's face it. Put away all this other stuff and quality of life rests on the quality of people in your life. I am beyond blessed. There's been a lot of laughter and listening, and rivers of babble most profound and happily silly. I don't know if I'll be able to adequately put into words my joy and the warmth I feel being around people that I love and have missed more than I realized. 

It's been lovely, and I'll try to do justice to this leg of the trip while enjoying my time spent with family in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I don't guarantee that all of this will be a cohesive narrative, but I'll try to frame it in such a way that the architecture makes sense.

Pop Goes the Basil - colored pencil -