We had the remarkable sight of four bucks in our backyard Sunday night. It is not that unusual to see does in small clusters wandering through our yard, but bucks, much less a buck-cluster are rare. One of the group appeared to have a seven-point rack. Never saw that much antler.

They did not appear at all shy. Some looked directly at us as we trained binoculars on them from behind our glass doors. They just went back to browsing and munching our lawn. Some grazed directly under our bird feeders, but, to my relief, did not attack the feeders. I did not want to tap the glass door to scare them away.

The large buck was not at all interested in the spectators.  He did nuzzle and even groom the smaller bucks, but was otherwise oblivious to us and anything non-edible in our yard. You get a sense of the size of his rack, as he leaves the yard in the picture below.

I was less in awe than grateful to witness such a rare sight in our yard. The bucks made it clear that we were on their property, and they owned the grass  and trees as much or more than we did.  They hung around for the better part of an hour, and when they left, they ambled leisurely, in no hurry to vacate the premises.

I am honored to share with these amazing creatures. They are welcome anytime.

Just leave my bird feeders alone.

 

When I first noticed Bill Feiser across the aisle in church I thought he might be visiting from our partner congregation Temple Beth Emeth. He might even have been the rabbi with his bushy beard, deeply receding hairline, short stature, spectacles and head tilted slightly up toward the altar.

A few Sundays passed before I met him and his wife, Jill Crabtree, after church and found out he was a member of St. Clare’s (our) parish.  His deliberate, hoarse speaking voice added to my fantasy of a rabbi, but I found out his experience was strongly Episcopalian, more years logged in churches called “St. __” than I would ever have.

One friend, Judie Erb, said, “Bill was a geode, unspectacular on the outside, multifaceted and beautiful on the inside. We shared a love of classical music, irreverent theological satire, science fiction and the inner life of plants. He delighted our group with his description of the writings of Terry Pratchett and his detailed knowledge of how to maintain an orchid with annual seasons of blooms for over 10 years.”

Joanie Carson said, he was “lost in the pages of diverse books and papers that he could magically pull out from what seemed an endless supply pile under or near his table.

When I first got to know Bill I was a disillusioned Evangelical.  I thought I might be back-sliding toward a liberal Christianity I had never imagined adopting. Our friendship was often a liberal-activist-vs.- conflicted-moderate conversation that was never really a debate.

We went through late-life crises at about the same time. Kathy, my first wife, had died when I was 68 and already planning for retirement. Jill was showing signs of dementia, soon diagnosed as Alzheimer’s.  She spent much of her day in an adult therapy program in 2016 and soon moved into nursing care at the Evangelical Home in Saline.

It was Bill’s idea that we meet regularly to check in with each other. I suggested the Barnes and Noble Cafe and later the Whole Foods Cafe, which had plenty of tables so we could meet with a little privacy.   We met every Wednesday for lunch for the two years before I met Victoria and remarried. It was less crisis management than an opportunity to reflect on weekly stresses. It served us both well.

Bill and I had twin passions for the movies and dark beer.  I really looked forward to periodic screenings at the Michigan Theater followed by a beer or two at Hop Cat or Knight’s, within walking distance of the theater. We easily agreed on the movies worth watching and even on interpretations much of the time.

I remember we saw a few biopics, including On the Basis of Sex, (the celebration of Ruth Bader Ginsberg), A Quiet Passion, (a sensitive portrayal of  Emily Dickinson), and Ladybird (Academy Award nominated mother-daughter struggle), and Eighth Grade (a fond portrait of a painful adolescence). What an interesting compendium of women from the  19th and 20th centuries! There are not many men who would enjoy a diet of these movies as much as both of us did, but Bill and I were thorough-going feminists.

It was also Bill’s idea to revive the St. Clare’s writing group to share original pieces once a month or so.  We had about half a dozen amateur writers, with completely different assets, attending most of the time. We had a couple of poets, a memoirist or two, an adapter of biblical stories, and some who reflected on recent events. Sometimes we observed a St. Clare’s tradition of writing about the lectionary reading for the week, but we were best when we wrote in our favored genres.

Bill’s writing usually drifted toward his own life, especially the challenges of partnering with a woman sinking deeper into Alzheimer’s.  He wrote regularly about one of those painful years with touching vulnerability. I hope some of those writings have been preserved, because they could help others facing what we have come to call “the long good-bye.” We all believed writing was an excellent therapy for a man facing the gradual decline of his spouse.

When we decided to anthologize our work, seven of us contributed to a slim volume we called, To Find Out What Really is Mine, a title I lifted from a Nields song called “The River.”  Bill selected a piece he wrote about helping to get a venue and an audience for a visiting Episcopal priest reporting the church’s work in El Salvador in 1986. “In our way Jill and I made a small contribution to the spreading of Liberation Theology in the Episcopal Church,” Bill wrote in conclusion.  He called the memoir “A Small Effort.”

That is so Bill Feiser. He did not want to be known for accomplishments, even though he volunteered for many years for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and periodically led St. Clare’s volunteers for Alpha House (homeless residence).  He was unassuming to a fault.  He wanted to be known, but not famous.

Joan remembered him this way: “I realize that he really was an everyday pilgrim, humbly slow waltzing his way through the streets of the heresy of activity. . . .  He never seemed to rush a conversation.  He waited patiently to share a kernel of truth within our seekers group.”

Bill was my witness and best man at our 2018 wedding. He donned a coat and tie in my honor. I can not remember another time he was actually dressed up, but there might have been one. He looks very proud in the photo, and I believe he was proud to be so honored.  He had warned me about seeing my true love with “rose-colored glasses,” but once Victoria and I were engaged he was completely on board and always wanted me to give Victoria a hug when he wrote or called from Ann Arbor.

This past April (2023) was his last time visiting us in Missouri. We visited his favorite attraction, the Missouri Botanical Garden and a restaurant we had selected for barbecue– Pappy’s (see at top).

We breezed through the St. Louis Art Museum (“Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape”) and lingered at the Ulysses Grant Memorial one morning.  Another day we took the famous Budweiser Brewery Tour. Then we hit a brewery with honest dark beer: “Heavy Riff.” That was a celebration of past indulgences. We also heard the passionate Anthony Ray Hinton, the exonerated death row inmate. Not too hectic a week’s schedule, but probably a few gears up from the pace he had been used to. He seemed a little overwhelmed at times.

After Bill texted that he had landed safely in Detroit, we did not hear much from him, but that was often Bill’s MO. He was hard to reach by every medium of communication, but a frontal assault with e-mailing, texting and voice-mailing usually produced results the same day.

Victoria and I were about to embark on two three-week journeys, first to the Southwest and then to Canada.  On the trip home from Canada Judy Avery emailed us that he had been to Urgent Care. He sounded weak on the phone. I worried that he would not prioritize seeing his personal doctor, but he assured me he would.  I’m sorry he didn’t and very sorry I did not stop in Ann Arbor on the way home.

Rest in glory, my friend.

 

 

 

Probably my favorite of the ten plays we experienced in Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake was Much Ado About Nothing, which was performed with such delight that the peril of the middle of the drama was dissolved in the denouement with abandonment, and I was reminded of the theme of Rent, the musical celebration of life over death: No regrets, live for today.

“No regrets” does not dissolve the sobriety or remembrance of past pain, but it gives joy to the present, expressing the gratitude of the moment.  That theme allows me to remember the gravity of my first marriage without giving away the joy of the second. It helps me remember that the weight Kathy and I bore in the last nine months of her life can not overshadow the paradise we found in Hawaii in May, 2015. The pain of our separation from the Community of Jesus in in December, 1985 can not negate our previous years of spiritual growth in that same community.

I can reflect without regret, because the whole of my life is preserved in the present moment. Not a moment of pain can dissolve the satisfaction of the present. The theme “No regrets” echoes through our pilgrimage through musicals, tragedies and comedies in the summer of 2023.

In Much Ado About Nothing, the “nothing” is more serious than the title suggests. A lady named Hero appears to perish from the defiling of her reputation by the plot of Don John, an embittered character who must spoil the joy of the innocent couple (Claudio and Hero). His plot also alienates two close friends, Claudio and Benedick, and two potential lovers, Benedick and Beatrice.  A dark moment portrays Benedick challenging his friend Claudio to a duel to the death because of Benedick’s love for Beatrice, who is mourning her cousin’s (Hero’s) death and dishonor. See the entangling and unraveling of the plot at [https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/much-ado-about-nothing/?gclid=CjwKCAjwkeqkBhAnEiwA5U-uMzdLVfKdisNU1_HbwkWVJ2D7ezpxYz0WZRgFriMVvH7EVHev0pkiwBoCWQ8QAvD_BwE]

As in every Shakespearian comedy, the villain is exposed and the couples are married in the end. In the production of Much Ado we saw on Wednesday, the great joy and the end of regret is celebrated when Benedick and Beatrice, the confirmed bachelors, give themselves to complete love because the danger of the moment is averted. Beatrice and Benedick are rescued from danger when a keystone cops of local buffoons testifies against Don Juan and his henchmen.

Beatrice appears ready to be reconciled to Benedick when she gives him the news that Hero and Claudio may yet be married. She exits the stage to prepare for the wedding, leaving Benedick to hope she might yet marry him.  Then she comes running from off stage to jump into Benedick’s arms with such abandonment that the older couple seems to have become the younger one.

The playfully cynical couple conquered their estrangement with the utter joy of “No regrets.” Much credit to  Graham Abbey and Maev Beaty, who play Benedick and Beatrice respectively with such intensity, joy, and playfulness to make them the central couple of the play.  They are nearly their own worst enemies at the beginning, when they mock each other with such fury that they are the last you would expect to find each other in abandoned love.

And yet, when they hear fabricated stories of how much one of them pines for the other they are quick to accept with amazement the possibility that their favorite target has become their ardent lover. It is the adult version of a middle school boy and girl taunting each other only to find out their counterpart is deeply in love with them.

In Shakespearian comedy, it is sometimes beyond credibility that adults can change their attachments like middle school boys and girls, but it is the premise of comedy that every emotion can turn on the inner longing for love.

The romance of Much Ado About Nothing is exactly like that. At the end of the play, even during the bows, I found myself searching the eyes of the characters for the joy of “No regret” to reassure myself that it was true. Two cynical adults had found innocent love by a comic turn of events.

Every couple danced with the joie d’vivre of the happy ending, and I believed the actors were as happy and their characters. They took their bows with held hands and delight.

Is Shakespeare saying that the deceit and betrayal can be overturned by a committed love? Perhaps. But the message I learned was that present love could extinguish past bitterness with “No Regrets.”  Celebrating the present joy does not cancel the past grief, but it brings healing to hallow the present.

That is my life at the milestone age of 75.

Stratford is the home of the Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, but remains an unspoiled village. It is a center of theater, of drama education, and of indigenous and local art, yet it it retains the small-town feeling that allows you to walk to every destination, if you don’t shy away from a mile expedition to the Festival Theater or a half-mile to the Tom Patterson Theater.

We stayed in the heart of town adjacent to the two other Shakespeare theaters, the Avon and the Studio. Yesterday we crossed the street from our studio apartment to attend Spamalot at the Avon, which is no larger than a small movie theater. It was a delight.

In the morning we took the tour “Festival Treasures” to see costumes and archives in a huge warehouse of performances past. Among the props from Spamalot: the 3-D printed “Holy Grail” and the chain mail shirt labeled “Very Heavy” (It was).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the recent performance of the “Chronicles of Narnia,” a skeletal costume of the massive Aslan, the lord of Narnia, and a unicorn:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From “The Tempest,”  a golden egg that opens to reveal a figure of royalty (I forget which one).

From “The Little Shop of Horrors,” Audrey, the human-eating plant. We were told there was a larger Audrey capable of ingesting an adult human body.

 

We had dinner at Gilly’s on Downie Street on Wednesday, a bar with better-than-average cuisine barely twenty steps from our apartment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday we dined lavishly at Raja’s, an elegant Indian restaurant behind our apartment.  Raja’s a is favorite we returned to after eating there in 2022 with our friends Marty and Hope.

After stuffing ourselves with Vindaloo (Lamb with a spicy sauce), Mullagatawny soup and Dansk (chicken, lentils and curry), we walked down to the Avon River, which is the shore setting for the Festival and the Patterson theaters. We circled the west boundary where a dam regulate the river flow downstream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed the lower Avon River banks and  promised ourselves to return to the shops facing toward the river, but away from the main (Ontario) street of Stratford.

Panorama Two Falls

I tried in vain to capture the awe of Niagara Falls. The short clip “Panorama” comes close to displaying the breadth of the the two Falls: American and Canadian (Horseshoe). If you click the file twice, you can see the Canadian cruise boat heading toward the Horseshoe Falls as it passes the American Falls. The next day we were on that boat getting as close to the Horseshoe Falls as safely possible.

The awe can be felt from the top as well as the surface of the river. The movie clip below gives a sense of the sheer volume of water passing over one end of the Horseshoe Falls.  75,750 gallons of water per second over the American and Bridal Veil Falls and 681,750 gallons per second over the Horseshoe Falls.

You can feel the power and volume up close. From a distance, it looks like someone broke a valve and a huge quantity of water is pouring over a cliff into a basin that washes it downstream.

Horseshoe Falls

On the left a boat passes the American Falls. On the right a boat approaches the Horseshoe Falls, a little more upstream from the American. I stood on the Canadian side of the river to take the boat pictures, but the next day we were on the same boat sailing with our red souvenir ponchos

Below you can share our intrepid voyage into the Horseshoe Falls, the powerful cataract that raised a cloud of mist up into the atmosphere hundreds of feet above the cresting waterfall.  Once you are nearly under the Falls, the boat pilot lets you linger in the raining mist, and before we are waterlogged, steers us around to catch the current of river propelling us downstream toward the American falls.

It reminded me of descending to the Bryce Canyon floor and looking up at the spires and hoodoo’s that lined the floor of the cany0n– a perspective to make you smaller and  insignificant. Here you also feel dwarfed by the power and height of the Falls, and somehow less potent.

Then we turn and escape the wrath of the terrible swift falls and feel a little safer, if not invincible. It is a hero journey in 20 minutes. Not very expensive, as hero journeys go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday and Saturday we enjoyed Santa Fe, especially Red Mesa Cuisine ( a home dedicated to cooking, beyond the city) and Centinela Traditional Arts (a school, weaving center in Chimayo).

Some photos here borrowed from the Road Scholars’ Tripcast. This photography a step above the near-sighted phone photography usually seen here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Native art from a local museum not clearly documented.    The wood carving of a sinister woman atop her chariot, recalls the same character sculpted at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Dona Sebastiana. She is a figure of the Day of the Dead, Día de Muertos, come to harvest souls. Is Native culture fascinated by such a demonic character or am I?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking and Nutrition at Red Mesa Cuisine. ” Chefs Lois Ellen Frank, Ph.D., and Walter Whitewater, cook contemporary Native American visually stunning dishes using ancient techniques with ancestral ingredients, all with a contemporary flair that is delicious food art at its finest.”

 

 

We seized the opportunity to take a group photo with Lois and Walter. Please consider this was on full stomachs, after a five-course meal. I am grateful for the thoughtful attention of providing a separate dessert for one sad diner who could not consume sugar.

Thanks to MaryAnn Luedtke for this shot of a charming couple outside St. Francis Church in Taos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Road Scholar Friends at Taos: L to R: Colleen, Diana, Sandie, Judy

 

The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art displays a fascinating array of artifacts from the eighteenth and nineteenth century that reflect the growing diversity of culture in New Mexico -Pueblo, Spanish, Anglo, and Plains Indian culture.  Below are a small sample of artifacts we observed with a very smart and articulate docent.

On the left, an intricate altar-piece with candles holders for candles and prayer intentions. At the base, boxes of candles.

On the right an amazing three-foot cross, constructed of woven straw, so fine it pays tribute to the artisans that worked patiently to form it.

 

 

 

 

 

Below the comic portrayal of Dona Sebastiana, a ruthless purveyor of hard justice. Her victims lie beneath a stone floor, struggling as in a purgatorial or demonic environment. The wide range of punished victims suggests an almost indiscriminate dealing of judgment.

 

 

 

The painting of a warrior with a fish in his left hand, suggests an apostle, even St. Peter, backed by wings of angels.  This represents another cross-cultural hero like the many native heroes in Pueblo history.

Below the ghostly image of Shipock to our west as we ventured toward Santa Fe. The other shot is the San Juan Valley to the southeast of  Mesa  Verde. Shiprock is either a ship or a giant bird, if you listen to legends of native and invading people. It is reverenced as a sacred monument, one way or the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond the top of the Plaza in Santa Fe stands the St. Francis Basilica, the founding symbol of the city.  The namesake of Santa Fe is St. Francis, who reaches out to the people below. The plaza of Santa Fe used to extend right up to the church and statue, so citizens were never far away.  Business has since pushed the plaza a half mile to the south.

Below the San Miguel Church, oldest in Santa Fe. On the wall behind the altar are memorial cameos of local and universal saints, including St. Francis and his collegial saint, Clare. They were beloved for their ministry to the poor of Assisi in Italy, but also for their ongoing devotion to their patron/ matron city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The San Loretto Chapel is famous for its winding staircase, built by an itinerant carpenter for the Sister of Loretto, who had been awkwardly climbing to the choir loft by a rope ladder.  The legend said he disappeared before payment could be made, but the true account is that he was paid appropriately for his skilled work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The path to the State Capitol is lined on one side by a metal frame of twelve distinct citizen-heads in silhouette and topped by razor wire usually sighted at the top of prison walls– a mixed message to say the least. Less ambiguous is the statue of the Pueblo warrior Propé, who organized the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, driving the Spanish out of Santa Fe for twelve years. This hero suggests that the land occupied by the whites of different nationalities ultimately belonged to the Pueblo nations.

 

Within the State Capitol are surprising varieties of Native and Colonial art ranging from the remarkable collages of a larger-than-life bison head and photograph of an Indian child juxtaposed with a painted crucifix to traditional  paintings of Our Lady of Peace

and the renowned farmer who introduced the famous sisters-corn, beans, and squash– to the Pueblo.  The Capitol paid appropriate tribute to the first citizens of New Mexico.

Tuesday morning we broke out the hiking poles and began a descent into the Bryce Amphitheater toward the Queen’s Garden. This is a modest descent compared to some trails into the Canyon, but it reminded me too much of a descent into the Grand Canyon last year, where we struggled to get back to the rim on a hot, dry day.

Here are some photos that chronicle our trip on a cooler, yet warm spring day.
You can see the hoodoos  (spires, pinnacles) getting higher at eye level and then above us on the trail, which marks our moving toward the floor of the Amphitheater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The arch where Victoria stands below marks the halfway point in our descent.  From there the foliage gets thicker, walls rise higher, and the heat of the amphitheater floor rises as we descend.

 

 

At the bottom you can imagine Queen Victoria on her mount in the middle of a procession of five hoodoos. Sometimes these names tax the imagination’s ability to conceive. Reminds me of how we describe the astrological figures in the sky. Fetched far.

Well, maybe my visual imagination has significant limitations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the visual ambiguity of the image of our quest, I was proud to have made the two-mile hike into the Bryce Amphitheater and to return with muscles and tendons intact. It was more satisfying than that agonizing trail into the Grand Canyon and gave me confidence to make an upward hike to the Delicate Arches two days hence.