Marching to Grandchester

About a spit and a holler and a half from Cambridge is the village or hamlet or township or whatever of Grandchester. It’s advertised as a literary Byron/Brookes/Woolfe pilgrimage, but it’s really just a good stretch of the legs. Anyone who knows my sense of direction knows that I can get lost in an elevator. But last Sunday the junior members of Wolfson offered a guided walk. So, I naturally seized the opportunity to stray not far afield. To date, “my Cambridge” has been only about ten square blocks; this was an opportunity for an exponential expansion of my horizons.

The normal route to Grandchester is along the Cam. But we ventured to explore “the alternative path.” We got lost for a bit–and that was all the more joy. Andreas, our Greek guide, our Argos-du-jour, had satellite images and GPS schematics–how Cambridge! Nevertheless, we found ourselves in a field of “rape’ which to us colonists is known as “canola.” After a brief discussion regarding the road not to be taken–from which I recused myself–we headed straight to the tea. It was a splendid hike. And along the way I had a charming chat with Saman, a patently brilliant Iranian M.D. studying epidemiology at Cambridge.
If Saman represents all Iranians, as I apparently represent all Americans, what the hell’s the problem? I want this guy to meet my daughter.

Winter Break

OK, so I just wanted Tricia to come snuggle on the cheap in Cambridge. But, oh no, Little Miss Bonne Vivante has to plan a rendezvous in Paris. And of course she was right--for a while. Our week in this little dump of an hôtel near Gare Montparnasse was wonderful. The neighborhood was quite nice, but one block over was a “theatre district” which looked a tad red-lightish–not that I was looking (if Tricia was looking, that is).Anyway, I got to visit St. Denis and Chartres, where we met up with Rachel for a great day. Tricia got to choose all the other, mostly modern sights which included the Rodin museum, the Parc de la Vilette, and McDonalds’ Playland also known as the Centre Pompidou. And everything was wonderful, the sites, the food, the people, and then it all got better cause we headed south to Rome.
We did a couple of touristy things, saw the Ara Pacis, visited the Baths of Caracalla.
Tricia went on a skirt safari, buying random small game along the way. But mostly our visit was just a homecoming. Our apartment (actually the second of two) was a nightmare, no flushing toilet, no hot water, no oven, and no way to get the agency to care. . .ma bei! Having dinner with Davide and Diane, seeing Emilio and Carolina’s new baby, chatting with Barbara and Kikka and Megan and Mary Margaret and the students still at the Study Center, but mostly just hanging with Samia and Michaele and Kwame–I want to weep for joy. . .allora, a harbinger to crying in pain.

Tricia threw a party on our next to last night in Rome. It was so much fun it was hard to say “good night” to anyone. The few hearty young who were still around at midnight invited us to go to Primo’s for a nightcap. It was only two blocks from our apartment, but–as in “The Convergence of the Twain”–there was an indifferent cobblestone with Tricia’s name on it. She simply but thoroughly tripped. . .and, we discovered in the morning, had broken both her wrists.

I could recall how concerned and helpful Samia and Barbara and Kikka were about getting us to the soccorso pronto. I recall how expert and kind and, of course, casual the Italian medical care was. I could recall how someone asked if Tricia was my daughter. . .again. I could recall how Tricia was put in full casts that made her look like a plaster Popeyette. I could recall how we had to fly straight home where I needed to do everything--dont' ask!--for Tricia for three weeks. But I’d rather hit the delete key.

Tricia’s wrists were extremely well set and are healing perfectly. Her casts were shortened below the elbow about a week before I was due to return to Cambridge, and she instantly became able to care for herself almost completely. In choosing her new casts, she opted for the simple black Audrey Hepburn look. And so the break is over. Tricia’s back in school; the casts come off in another week. I’m back in my lonely cell. Scribble, scribble, for better or for worse.