Happy Birthday, Cynthia!

Today is the birthday of John's wife, Cynthia Hughes. Cynthia is a librarian, a celtic harpist, and a poet. She is also a very special person, warm and generous, full of life and fun. We are hoping we can all go out to eat together as a birthday treat, but since she works at the Marlboro School as a librarian today, that may not work today, but might be possible tomorrow or Saturday. So we'll see! Meanwhile, Happy Birthday, Cynthia! Here is one of her poems (a winner of the Montreal International Poetry Prize). I apologize for the formatting, but it is impossible to create line spaces on this blog, which is why I use **************** to separate things. The Time White Lightning Busted Out************************* Inside our guts a jitter. Inside the jitter a ribbon the color of a January morning curling past the wood box and through the shed door, to the packed dirt floor, the rusted-out hinge. Inside a velvet black the empty water bowl and inside that lack a lost pony in a blizzard, out on the hill or down a two track to the river winding along our worry, the frozen car battery, ‘til finally our tires slip the slant road to the high pasture. We scour the storm – ice crystals hurtled through the eye of a needle, threading our hearts with gleanings of tracks beside the snow fence. And inside those tracks recognition, a small hope.

Cynthia Hughes************************************************************************************************** This week has been pretty full. Monday, I took the car to Subaru and had four summer tires mounted - that solved the problem with having the spare tire donut on the front wheel, slowing us down. So now we are "good to go" as they say. Tuesday, we sang at a funeral in the late morning for Billie Pichette, a long-standing member of the Guilford Church, 95 years old, one of the last of her generation of older ladies in the church. We still have Mary Lila Gregg and Joy Hayes with us, fortunately.

The altar at the Guilford Church with a photo portrait of Billie Pichette*********************** After that funeral, we decided to drive to Concord to see Jerome. I am glad we went, but it was discouraging because he was miserable, in pain, unable to eat, even though they keep bringing him food. But he is too weak to make the effort to eat it, and there is no one there to help him eat. I hope we brought him some comfort and cheer while we were there. I've been in touch with our Pastor, Elisa, and his daughter, Margaret, since coming back, and hopefully they can visit too. ************* Wednesday, Ellen went down to Massachusetts and picked Ben Feinland up at The Academy at Charlemont where he had a job interview for a teaching position. Ben seems to be seriously pursuing a career as a high school math/science teacher. This would be a part-time position in a private school, so he wouldn't need to be certified. But eventually he plans to get an M.A., possibly at the University of Pennsylvania. He felt the interview went well. So we'll see how this evolves.

Ben Feinland************************************************* We have some things coming up. Today we'll be going to Grandma Miller's for morning glory muffins and eclairs! Tomorrow is open. Saturday we have another funeral we'll be singing at - this time at the West Village Meeting House, which is Unitarian-Universalist. The one being honored was a Guilford resident; not sure if Pastor Elisa is leading the service, but our own Patty Mayer is leading the choir. Maybe we'll have a birthday dinner for Cynthia Saturday evening. Sunday we're going to Plainfield, VT, to Goddard College, for a three-hour concert celebrating Larry Gordan, part of a full weekend Larry Fest. That should be really fun! LATER We ended up having a birthday supper for Cynthia at Shin La Korean restaurant Friday evening. I had not been at the Shin La for what seems like decades. That's probably an exaggeration, but it's been a long time. It was good - I had the Korean chicken and rice soup which was a favorite years ago. We also shared a big platter of Yakimandoo dumplings. Yum! It was really nice to be with John & Cynthia.

Shin La Restaurant, Outside and inside