Two Christmas Memories
Our apartment in Brooklyn Heights, New York had a soaring cathedral ceiling in the living room. Four skylights allowed the sun to shine at a fluid angle, lining the floor with light that crept up the far wall. Cascading swirls of rain, waterfalls from the sky, streamed down the panes during nor’easterners, and when it snowed, drifts, gentle peaks with a sculptor’s touch, piled high on the glass....Please click on the title to continue...
STEEPLETOP
A friend sent me a website this morning heralding the opening of my favorite farm stand. Summer, with all its sweet memories, has come at last.
But it was the sidebar which caught my attention as it contained a link to Steepletop, the home of the poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Austerlitz, New York. Down a narrow road, thick with trees, then a quick turnoff and up a steep hill, the site is now owned by the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, an educational not-for-profit corporation, and listed as a National Historic Landmark. The home itself, I understand, is no longer open to the public though the corporation is seeking funds for restoration. Please click on the title to continue...
The Candy Shack
Still painted it’s original tint of deep forest green, the little weathered shack has stood in the same place for over fifty years. Set off at an angle, not quite facing the rutted drive that turns off the main road and down to a small private beach that sits on a quiet lakefront. Perched on cinder blocks it’s surprising a storm hasn’t taken the shack away a long time ago....Please click on the title to continue...
My Mother Myself
I recently found myself lying in a hospital bed with a severe case of pneumonia. So severe, in fact, that for a time the situation became dire and I was afraid I might go into cardiac arrest and either not come out of it or be disabled because of it. But my doctors were exceptional and the nurses took such excellent care that after a few days I could see that I would recover and would eventually go back to my life again. As someone who has really never been ill before, lying in a hospital for eight days, relying on other people to get me through, awakened me to a renewed appreciation of life as a woman. ...Please click on the title to continue...
The Pascack Theater
The photograph arrived unexpectedly in the mail. My older sister sent it to me. The reflection, a picture of one of the best parts of my childhood.
I grew up with my family, including my grandfather, in New Jersey. By the time I arrived, my grandfather, William Corbett, had turned seventy-five years old. Born in 1872, in Brooklyn, NY, he never married until he reached his forties. By the turn of the century he owned a used bookstore on 14th Street in New York City. When I was about eight years old, and after closing the bookstore and retiring, he took a part-time position which enchanted me. He became the ticket taker at The Pascack Movie Theater, a gilded classic theater in our town and it became my home just about every Saturday afternoon while growing up.
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