Sketch from previous summer, August 2015

It can take a long time to find your voice.  A long time to tune it in.

I went for a walk up Massachusetts Avenue after my week had ended.  I'd gotten up late, and soon it was dusk.

I see coming toward me three pretty young Russian girls walking abreast, holding hands, walking slowly, meditatively.  Like ghosts.  I'd seen two of them just the day before as I was going into the restaurant, very pretty, slender, long limbed, graceful.  Jaw-dropping, their combined beauty, still colt-like.  One with freckles.  Two at least, sisters, maybe all three.  I turn, after watching them walk away, with the same steady slowness.  Eventually, I decide my walk is not done yet, and so I follow them from a long distance, just to make sure that they are Russian, and I find, yes, that's exactly where they go.

Later I find a newspaper kiosk box with my the local paper, my little article within.  I am in print.  Seeing something in print is a different experience than seeing it on-line.

I have a hard time conforming.  I do not deal with convention well.  I really don't.  I have to look deeper at things.  I cannot just fall in, even if it would do me good.  Like Gary Cooper says, "I can't do it."  (when Lloyd Bridges, the sheriff in waiting, wants him to go, to make himself look better, though he won't stand up against the bad guys.)


The thought of the Calypso is reassuring, a totem of sanity toward the natural world.  A voyage, a creative venture.  Sailing is always that.  Life is always that.

And for me, there was no other way to do it, to instinctively follow the need to write, but to work that job.  The world is not always kind to strangers, can push away a loner.


So I tried a little foray into Sicilian wines.  And I must confess, the frappato was too fruity, and other was like a new world wine.  Does everyone like the unsubtle fruit bomb vanilla mocha spice frappucino kind of wines, even Charles?  He did enjoy a sip of that St. Joseph a bit too much.  Too big for me, not lean enough, not light enough.

I was happy to return to French wine to tell you the truth.