Scapino at Sidwell

May 22, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

From time to time we attend a play at my son’s old high school. Productions range from crowd-pleasing classics like Damn Yankees and Fiddler on the Roof to more recent and edgy works by the likes of Tom Stoppard and David Ives. All are beautifully produced and well-acted, and recognizing students in the cast makes it even more fun. This month they put up Scapino, adapted from Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin, a zany romp inspired by commedia dell’arte, featuring star-crossed lovers, humorous mix-ups, and the classic scheming yet lovable servant who brings everything to a satisfying happy ending. The gymnastics and athletic physical humor required for the roles made it an appropriate vehicle for energetic teens. Oof.

Matthew

Magic Puzzle Boxes

May 18, 2011 by Sheila 1 Comment

I dislike shopping, unless it is for, say, dinner party ingredients, or perhaps used books at the library’s twice-yearly sale. Generally I try to purchase everything possible online. However, this is tough with shoes, so I agreed to take my daughter into a Sears store to acquire for her a pair of coveted Converse sneakers.

I remember when this meant sitting down in a chair, being fitted by a chatty salesman, and having boxes fetched from a secret room. What a surprise! no chairs, no salesman, no secret room. (This is probably the result of so many folks shopping online. Uh-oh.) Instead, we had a lengthy and baffling search through fifty boxes in order to find two matching shoes in the correct size. Like a treasure hunt. Or a bizarre dream sequence. We were eventually successful.

Father Madden

Mothers Day

May 8, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Ahhh…the lilting voices of her children thumb-wrestling in the garden of Firehook bring a tear to a mother’s eye. Happy Mothers Day.

Queen of the May

May 1, 2011 by Sheila 1 Comment

Since the 16th century, May has traditionally been the month of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic church. When I was a girl, on the first of May the entire population of our Catholic school lined up for a procession to the grotto at the far end of the school campus, where the statue of Mary presided serenely, unperturbed by our playground misdemeanors, as the ideal mother would be. While we sang hymns, some lucky pre-selected girl (never yours truly) stepped forward to place a crown of flowers on her plaster head. Just one of the many pagan customs that have kept me in the church.

Mary

Easter in Japan

April 24, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

In Japan the school year begins in April—with emerging blossoms rather than falling leaves—and so, despite continuing difficulties, this past week children began their new classes, some of them amid vast stretches of earthquake and tsunami rubble.

A few years ago we spent this season with friends in Japan. With kindness, good nature, and interest, they found, and accompanied us to, an exceedingly long Easter church service. Afterward we transplanted to their home our family’s Easter basket treasure hunt, a tradition begun by my mother that I have continued with my own children. This time, though, the clues were bilingual, the English ones first written by me and then rewritten in Japanese by my son. (Later we copied the clues here into my travel sketchbook.)

Today is also the anniversary of the founding of the Library of Congress. For sketches and a saga, please see Library of Congress.

Life on Earth

April 22, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

At this time of year my husband and I are usually in western Massachusetts (hiking, sketching, and—if deadlines have required hauling along a laptop—working) while our daughter’s homeschool coop spends the week working on a Hudson River Valley farm. This year the coop has a different plan, so here in DC we remain. Nevertheless, in honor of Earth Day, I post a sketch from one of our hikes through Mass Audubon’s Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, where we have spent many happy hours quietly watching beavers. (The beavers are less happy to see us.)

For another sketch, and a history of Earth Day, please see Earth Day.

Gunilla

Hasse

Triduum

April 21, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

The dates of Passover (Pesach) and Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday), are both related to the arrival of spring and the phases of the moon, connecting their celebrants with humanity’s remote ancestors, to whom knowledge of the seasons and the heavenly bodies was not merely interesting but vital for survival. Passover begins on the 14th day of the Hebrew calendar month Nisan, which is also the date of the full moon following the vernal equinox; Holy Thursday falls on the Thursday before Easter, which is the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. (Whew!) It sometimes works out that they fall, very satisfactorily (to me, anyway), on the same day; Holy Thursday is, after all, the celebration of a Passover meal.

For a painting and a poem about Holy Thursday, please see Holy Thursday.

The gift of reading

April 17, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Today is the anniversary of the unexpected passing of my mother in 2006. I try to deflect the grey curtain that descends on my spirits each spring by recalling the many blessings she bestowed.

One of them was a love of reading. I grew up accustomed to the sight of walls and walls of books in living room, family room, bedrooms; books stacked on every table; books strewn about the car and gracing the bathroom. They were of nearly every genre: reference books and classics, of course, but also art, poetry, history, geography, science, humor, cartoon collections, and up-to-the-moment modern fiction. My parents also subscribed to about twenty different publications, from Life and Look (I’m dating myself here) to the New Yorker and Punch. Oh, the trees that were sacrificed at the altar of literacy. (When did my mother manage to cook and clean?) And, for good or ill, none of it was off-limits to us children, whether it dealt with the Gulag, the Holocaust, or bed-hopping suburban New Yorkers.

Here is my mother reading P.G. Wodehouse. Especially as she grew older, she really preferred humor to anything else. And that’s another of her blessings.

Mom

Monique

Art Appreciation

April 13, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Today is the anniversary of the founding in 1870 of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, created, according to its charter, “for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction.”

With its program of exhibitions, tours, lectures, and concerts, activities for teachers, families, and children of all ages, and collections that include “more than two million works of art spanning five thousand years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe,” it can be regarded as fulfilling its mission.

On every visit to the MMA as far back as I can remember, somewhere I always encounter this guard, whose striking appearance merits depiction in one of the painting or sculpture galleries. I don’t think he’s been there since the founding. But it’s been a while. I hope he is writing his memoirs.

Today is also the anniversary of the enactment of the Edict of Nantes, a 16th century attempt at freedom of worship. For a sketch and a mini-history, please see One small step pour l’homme.

About the Basin I Will Go

April 4, 2011 by Sheila Leave a comment

Despite the cold, my daughter and I bundled up and betook ourselves and the dog to the Tidal Basin just after sunrise for our annual cherry blossom breakfast. The blossoms seem unusually beautiful this year—extraordinarily cloudlike, illusory, celestial—worth every shiver. Gazing upward as we nibble our scones, it’s easy to forget the day of work and school that lies ahead of us. A serious photographer and three mallard ducks are our only companions, until the tour buses arrive.

For another cherry blossom picture, and a beautiful springtime verse from Song of Solomon, please see Cherry Blossom Breakfast.

Saul