A Kindred Spirit Remembered

The Laird Bell law quadrangle

Over thirty years ago, I arrived in Hyde Park to begin law school at the University of Chicago. I was 28 years old and had been married for five years. In those days, most students went directly from college to law school, so during orientation the small number of "older" students among our class of 120 quickly found one another.

One of those I met was Eugene Vaughan. Gene and I soon found we had something in common—prior to law school, we'd both worked as editors. Gene had edited textbooks, while I had worked as a magazine and book editor. We both expected that our writing skills would come in handy in the practice of law.

When classes began, I was delighted to find that Gene was in my Legal Research and Writing class, a small section of about twenty students. The course was designed to teach us how to research legal questions and produce memoranda and other documents typically required of lawyers. Each section was led by a recent graduate of the law school who had received a year-long Bigelow Fellowship. Our instructor, Sam Saracino, was no older than Gene or me, but he was clearly our superior when it came to understanding legal arcana. As for writing, however, Gene and I figured we might teach Sam a thing or two.

In those days of non-computerized legal information, legal research was an arduous and confusing affair and I found the law library something akin to a Dickensian Office of Circumlocution. During the first few weeks of the course, I wandered the stacks like a lost soul. I'd been an English major in college and my research skills were minimal. When I finally located all the information I needed for my first assignment, I felt the hard part was over. Writing the memo would be a breeze.

However, when my memo was returned, I was in for a shock—red ink all over the place. Apparently, Sam found my research impeccable but thought my writing needed help. Gene suffered an equal surprise—his writing hadn't passed legal muster, either. At least we could commiserate with one another and laugh about our own hubris. As the term went on, though, we realized that we really could transfer our writing skills to the legal arena. After mastering a few necessary legal expressions, we persevered in our view that a good legal memorandum is one that's written in simple, accessible language. Even Sam seemed to finally agree—the red ink appeared only rarely.

Gene and I continued a casual friendship during law school, then lost touch once we went our separate ways. My love of writing soon trumped my interest in law and, after a stint writing law book supplements, I turned my attention to poetry, fiction, and personal essays.

Earlier today, I learned that Gene passed away in January, at the young age of 61. His obituary mentioned that, after practicing law for a few years, Gene returned to his first love, editing, and once again became a textbook editor. I'm sad to hear of his passing, but somehow gratified to learn that, like me, the solitary but satisfying work of an editor/writer ultimately drew him back into its fold. I hope it gave him many years of fulfillment.

Stop, In the Name of Love

I'm not much of a singer. My children will attest to this. When they were in grade school, if I began to sing they would shout in unison, "Call 911, arrest your singing mother!" At the time, my ego was only slightly bruised—after all, they were kids, what did they know? But to my chagrin, my husband, Eric, agreed with them. Many years later, he still hasn't changed his tune. Much as he loves me, he doesn't enjoy it when I burst into song. Yesterday was a case in point.

While driving on the Interstate, we hit a major traffic jam. Cars slowed to a crawl, then stopped altogether. I fiddled around with the radio, but couldn't find a station the two of us agreed upon. So, I decided I would entertain Eric with a song or two.

I started with a Motown hit—"I Heard It Through the Grapevine." I have fond memories of seeing Gladys Knight and the Pips perform the song back in the sixties. They were the opening act for the teenage phenom, Little Stevie Wonder, at a concert I attended with my then-boyfriend, Peter. Eric has heard the story many times. Maybe that's why he reacted so vehemently when I launched into that particular song.

"Stop!" he cried and added, in the manner of American Idol's Simon Cowell, "You will never make it as a singer. America will vote you out of this competition."

So much for Motown. Undeterred, I launched into a medley of Broadway tunes, a specialty of mine. I began with a rousing rendition of "Oklahoma!", then put on a cockney accent for "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" from My Fair Lady.

Finally, unable to persuade me to stop, Eric joined in, singing along in an operatic falsetto. We made quite a duo. Thankfully, we were in an enclosed vehicle and people in the nearby cars couldn't hear us. Otherwise, they surely would have called 911 and begged the police, "Arrest that singing couple!"

The Travel Bug(aboo)

I love traveling—in my imagination. I have a voracious appetite for stories, photographs, and films that illuminate other cultures. My niece recently sent me photos from her trip to Thailand. The pictures of fruits and flowers, crabs on the beach, and coconut ice cream served in a coconut shell present a delightful array of local color. The beaches look stupendously beautiful, the rock formations unlike anything I've ever seen. The Grand Palace in Bangkok glows with an otherworldly beauty. I'm so glad my niece shared the record of her experiences with me, especially since I can enjoy it without the stress of airports and long flights, packing and strange beds, unfamiliar languages and that feeling of being a tourist, an outsider looking in.

To satisfy my thirst for exploring foreign lands from the comfort of my own home, I seek out books that help me enter different worlds. My all-time favorite is Peter Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. Hessler, an American who taught English for two years in Fuling as a member of the Peace Corps, literally asked the same questions I would have asked if I'd been there. He transmitted the flavor of the place as experienced by someone from my own culture, the things that surprised him, captivated him, repelled him. I felt as if I were there, without the hassle, anxiety, and expense.

Novels also have the power to transport me to other cultures, as do films. The movie Monsoon Wedding, set in New Delhi, enveloped me in the sights, sounds, and emotional color of that Indian city. Of course, I got only a brief and narrow glimpse of an enormously varied landscape. Reading or watching a film obviously can't convey the smells and textures of a foreign place. But even when I've actually traveled to other countries, I rarely manage to experience more than a sliver of what lies beneath the facade. And I feel the separation more keenly.

I do sometimes rouse myself from the couch and fly off to foreign locales. Invariably, the most rewarding experiences occur when I know people in the places I'm visiting. In 2007, I spent a few days in Nice, where my French cousin and her husband live. Seeing the city through their eyes gave me a deep sense of connection. During a trip to England, I visited academic friends of my in-laws at their charming house in Cambridge, then spent the afternoon touring Cambridge with them. Exploring Christ College with a retired don and his wife made it so much more personal and real. Those trips were worth the jet lag.

Mostly, though, I prefer armchair travel. I'm one of those (apparently) rare people who truly enjoys viewing other people's travel albums. So, next time you're off to exotic ports, have a great trip. And email me your photos when you return!
Click on photos to enlarge them.

Close Encounter of a Vulturish Kind

When you walk along Biscayne Bay in Miami, you never know what you might see. Maybe a manatee will raise its gentle face above the surface and take a deep snorting breath. Or a bevy of blue-bubbled Portuguese Men o' War might float beguilingly across the water, deadly tentacles dangling below. Perhaps a dolphin will surprise you with a series of graceful leaps across the bay. Or you could catch sight of a sting ray undulating along the clear water's bottom in search of prey.

Sometimes the sights on the bay aren't part of the local ecosystem—a psychedelic-green tennis ball bobbing along like a bad imitation of a coconut, or a thousand flecks of white foam packing "peanuts" scattered across the water by the wind. But the the most disturbing things I've seen on Biscayne Bay are the blue bundles that sometimes wash up against the rocks next to the sea wall where I like to walk. These are the remains of Santeria sacrifices.

Santeria is a Caribbean religion that combines elements of Yoruba, Roman Catholic, and Native American beliefs. It has devotees among Cubans-Americans in Miami. Animal sacrifice is part of Santeria practice and the local rituals take place at a restaurant that overlooks the Miami River. Once the sacrifice has occurred, the slain animal is wrapped in one of the restaurant's cobalt blue tablecloths. The knotted tablecloth creates a bulky bundle, much like a hobo might carry. The bundle is dumped into the river. From there, the currents carry it out to the bay. Eventually, at low tide, it winds up on the rocks beside the seawall.

When I see one of these blue sacks, I try not to dwell on the poor creature inside and how it met its demise. I just hope the tide will rise quickly and carry it out to sea to a watery grave. On a recent walk, though, I experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of the circle of life. As I made my way along the bay, I saw something black and hulking on the rocks. I came closer and realized I was staring into the beady eyes of a black vulture, one of four sitting on the rocks, with sooty black bodies and wrinkled gray heads. Two of the four birds flew off as soon as they saw me approach. The other two held their ground. It was then that I noticed the blue tablecloth on the rocks in between them. It had been ripped open by their short, hooked beaks and I could see a few feathers poking out of the bundle.

I've rarely viewed a vulture on the ground. Turkey vultures and, less frequently, black vultures constantly soar high in the skies over Miami, gliding on the wind currents, searching for carrion. But I'd never seen one so close up. It looked enormous, threatening . . . vulturish. Rather than approach any closer, I decided the better choice would be to continue my walk, which would involve circling back to that spot a couple more times.

On my second pass, the two birds were at work on the carcass and didn't even pause to stare me down. They must have concluded I was harmless. By my third time around, about half an hour later, the chicken carcass had been stripped bare and the birds had departed.

Gory though the scene appeared, I saw a certain beauty in it. The poor chicken hadn't been sacrified in vain. Certainly, the Santeria adherents didn't think so. But more importantly, the unfortunate chicken had provided a meal for the hungry vultures. I don't think much of the vultures' appearance or their table manners, but surely they serve an important role in the ecosystem, cleaning up the messes that other creatures make. We humans make the biggest messes of all. Too bad most of them aren't amenable to a quick, devouring, vulturish cleanup.

Photos by Mdf, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Who Obama Should Help

An article in today's New York Times describes laid-off executives who have taken hourly-wage jobs to make ends meet. It's worth reading the article and watching the accompanying audio slide show online. The former executives profiled in the piece are responsible, hardworking members of our society who lost their prior positions through no fault of their own—not incompetence or negligence or even ill health. Their companies simply downsized or went out of business altogether, landing them on the street.

Despite diligent job searches, these victims of our desperate economy quickly realized that the accomplishments listed on their resumes were not yielding any jobs, let alone jobs comparable to the ones they had lost. So they downplayed their managerial skills and over-qualifications in order to find jobs as janitors, fast-food clerks, and UPS package sorters. They're doing whatever they can to earn enough to make the mortgage payments on their homes and hold onto health care coverage for their families.

One of the individuals profiled in the Times prays every morning with his wife, a breast cancer survivor, and then goes off to work mopping floors and cleaning urinals. This is depressing stuff. But, for me, it's also a story filled with hope. If anything is going to bring us out of the coming depression into a better world, it will be the work ethic of people like those described in the article. These men and women embody the concept of personal responsibility.

I hope President Obama's policies will reward their industriousness with appropriate support and incentives. If families who have stopped making mortgage payments receive assistance to help them stay in their homes, there should also be help for those who are working themselves to the bone everyday so they won't fall behind in their payments. Only that way will anything like equity be achieved.

Annie Leibovitz, What Have You Done?

What is the world coming to? It can't be coming to anything good when photographer Annie Leibovitz pawns all her photographs to pay the mortgages on homes she inherited from her longtime partner, Susan Sontag. According to the Daily Mail, Leibovitz has put her photographs up as collateral for a loan from an "art pawn shop." Her photos will only be sold if she defaults on the loan.

So, all is not lost. The artist may yet be reunited with her work. I'm guessing the properties mean a great deal to Leibovitz—after the death of a loved one, sometimes remaining in the home(s) they shared provides tremendous comfort to the surviving partner. Still, the fact that Leibovitz apparently had to choose between her photographs and her real property represents a disturbing snapshot of the times in which we live.

Haiku for the Current Moment

certain as sunset
only death and taxes once
now foreclosure too

The Big Six-Oh!

Today is my sixtieth birthday, the big six-oh—oh as in Oh, my God, how did this happen? It seems I barely hit forty and here I am, sixty. All shock aside, I've been looking forward to turning sixty. I think of sixty as the age of permission, when it's okay to finally let myself be who I am.

When I look at my face in the mirror and notice a wrinkle or two (or three), now I can say, "Hey, I'm sixty, of course I have a few wrinkles," and when I feel like watching "American Idol," I can just go ahead and do it, to hell with my formerly high-brow tastes. If I go out to lunch or dinner with a friend, it will be because I really want to, not out of some sense of obligation or politeness. And when politics comes up, I won't feel I must go along to get along. I can say what I really think. Because, after all, I'm sixty. I may have to suffer the indignities of older age, but I'm determined to enjoy its privileges. A friend of mine once described the occasional outbursts of elderly people as "geriatric disinhibition." I may not be geriatric quite yet, but I'm ready for a little disinhibition.

Still, old habits die hard and I'm worried that even turning sixty won't free me from the bonds of over-cautiousness. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't abandon all my careful ways. After all, they've gotten me to where I am today—great friends, wonderful family, alive and kicking and psyched for my seventh decade.

I Even Worry in My Dreams

Last night I had a doozy of a dream. I was in a car with my husband, Eric, in a mall parking lot. We were trying to find our way to the exit, when suddenly some kind of gas was released into the atmosphere, enveloping us in a pinkish-white cloud. By osmosis, or some other process magically available in dreams, I immediately realized that this was the Viking flu, a deadly strain extracted by terrorists from formerly frozen explorers. I knew we had to get home, where I'd hidden (conveniently) a stash of anti-virals, our only hope of combating this deadly flu virus.

I thought of my kids and recollected, in dreamlike fashion, that in a fit of hyper-protectivity, I'd given them some of the anti-virals long ago. But you know kids—I was sure they'd left their stashes behind during their various moves from apartment to apartment. So, I was filled with worry about them. I considered calling my younger son, Alex, who lives in Brooklyn, and telling him to wear a surgical mask on the subway. Fat chance. And I wanted to urge Aaron, my older son, to stay home from law school, that cesspool of lecture halls and germs. Equally unlikely.

In my dream, Eric and I made it back home, where my worries continued. We always live on the edge, food-wise. I can't seem to shop more than two days ahead. Ergo, there's almost no food in the fridge or even on the shelves. So, if we had to stay home to keep from catching the flu or because we'd already caught it, we'd starve.

Then there was Cosmo, our toy poodle—who would feed him if we were in extremis with the flu? Not only would we starve, but poor Cosmo would, too. And where would he relieve himself? On our eleventh-floor terrace? This part of the dream was such a nightmare that it woke me up.

It was five o'clock in the morning. Not surprisingly, I was so disturbed by the dream that I couldn't fall back asleep. So now I have a new worry—if I have many more dreams like that, I won't get enough sleep and I'll come down with the flu.

The Obama Bell Jar

When I tuned into President Obama's first news conference on Monday night, I expected a thoughtful explication of the Democratic bailout plan, perhaps leavened with a bit of wit. I was disappointed on both counts. The President was serious, long-winded, and even patronizing, and he didn't cogently explain how the bloated bailout bill will pull the country out of the coming depression. Instead, he scolded and even lectured the press and, by extension, the rest of us.

I expected better from President Obama and I'm concerned about what his tone portends for the future. He's only been in office for a few weeks, yet the bell jar already seems to be descending. Like a delicate object displayed under a bell-shaped glass cover, where it can be seen but not touched, Obama may already be trapped in the isolation of the Presidency. Obama's message during the news conference seemed to be that we should adopt the bailout plan because he's the President and he knows best. That sounds eerily similar to our last President. Remember him? He was the "decider."

What drew me to Obama during the campaign was my conviction that here was a man who sought the views of all sides and really listened. Yet during his news conference, he denounced those who oppose the bailout package for "playing politics rather than trying to solve the problems of the American people." Is that listening? I'm worried that soon Obama will only hear the congratulations of his staff, who surely patted him on the back after the news conference and exclaimed "Great job, Mr. President."

A Bang for My Buck

The other day I went to my hairdresser for a bang trim. I'm 59 years old and I still wear bangs. Bangs are cute on a three-year-old, perky on a teenager, sexy on a sultry twenty-something, but bangs at 59? Isn't there something more sophisticated I could do with my hair?

Probably. But the fact is, I like my bangs. I've had them for so long that they're who I am. When I pull my hair back in a hairband or mousse it off my face, the person who stares back at me in the mirror is someone I don't recognize, someone older, more severe, my evil twin. I feel exposed. There's something comforting about hiding behind a soft fringe of bangs.

During my early twenties, I overcame my distaste for a fully-exposed face and grew my bangs out. I felt comfortable and, at times, even pretty without bangs. But after a few years, a hairdresser persuaded me to let her cut bangs and the instant I saw them I knew I had rediscovered my true self. I've kept my bangs, more or less, ever since.

Still, I worry about what my banged-up state signifies. Am I fated to live in a perpetual limbo—years away from childhood, yet not quite a full-fledged adult? It's hard to say whether the bangs keep me feeling young or whether it's because I still feel young that I keep my bangs. But now that I'm about to turn 60, I find myself wondering, will I ever grow up?

Until my recent bang trim, I'd been once again toying with the idea of letting the bangs grow out. I hadn't cut them for several months and had even trained my hair to go back, off my face. I got somewhat used to letting my wiry eyebrows see the light of day. Sure, I looked older. Yes, those lines between my eyebrows were no longer obscured. But hey, I am older. At almost-60, isn't it okay to look old? I decided I should flaunt my age, not hide behind a youthful fringe.

But then, in a moment of weakness, after catching sight of the lines on my forehead in a harshly-lit mirror, I backed down, went to the hair salon, and undid all those months of growth. Last night, I saw some friends for the first time since the recent cut. One and all, they said how good my hair looked. That clinched it. I'm a bangs girl. At least until it's time for the next trim. By then, I may have changed my mind again.

Duck Duck Duck

I'm worried about a very ugly duck. It's a Muscovy duck, one of three that live on the grounds of my Miami apartment building. In addition to being ugly, Muscovy ducks aren't too bright, and this duck is no exception. To make matters worse, the poor dumb duck has a peculiar handicap, a tangle of dirty streamers that somehow got caught in his feathers and has affected his ability to fly.

The ducks have a great setup here. A water fountain has been fitted with a plastic pipe that dispenses water at ground level, so they always have a supply of fresh drinking water. They live amidst grass, flowers, palm trees, even a tiny beach, all amounting to nothing short of duck paradise. But instead of lolling on the grass under the shade of a palm, my foolish duck and his equally foolish buddies choose to spend an inordinate amount of time in the building's parking lot. It's a busy area, with cars frequently coming and going. If a car gets too close, I've seen the two able-bodied ducks fly to safer ground. But their crippled brother can no longer fly, so I fear it's only a matter of time before he becomes pressed duck under the wheels of some hapless sedan.

Still, things could be worse. I used to worry that the disabled duck would be abandoned by his companions and that he'd slowly die of starvation or even loneliness. But I needn't have feared. The ducks have shown a remarkable loyalty to one another. They stay together. They rest together in the shade under the cars. I've grown to love the ducks, all three of them. And of course I worry every time a car turns into the parking lot.

Global Cooling

I'm worried about climate change. Not the man-made warming kind, a la Al Gore. That would be too easy. That would be something we could fix if we just got our act together. No, I'm worried about something far more ominous and way beyond human control—global cooling.

Sounds strange, doesn't it? No one is talking about the coming ice age, except a few Russian scientists and a handful of others, including my husband, Eric. Eric's an amateur scientist and he's got a thing about sunspots, or the current lack of them—he's convinced that their absence may signal an impending period of cooling.

At the moment, it's not politically correct to challenge the prevailing global warming orthodoxy. After all, Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for his efforts to warn humanity about the dire consequences of warming. But, given the extreme winter weather we've been having in many parts of the northern hemisphere, this might be a good time to consider the possibility that Al is wrong and that we really should be worrying about sunspots and cooling.

Simply put, sunspots are magnetic storms on the surface of the sun. They normally occur in cycles of approximately eleven years, during which the number of sunspots increases and then decreases before beginning to increase again, signifying the start of a new cycle. But occasionally, sunspots don't increase as expected. This happened notably during a period known as the Maunder Minimum, when from 1645 to 1715, very few sunspots were observed. Not to worry you, but this period is also known as the Little Ice Age.

Back to the present—currently, we're stuck at a sunspot minimum. The last cycle ended about a year-and-a-half ago and we're still waiting for any significant increase in sunspots. How long this minimum will last is anyone's guess, but it certainly makes me wonder whether our current extra-cold winter might be due to the lack of sunspots, since low sunspot activity historically correlates with global cooling.

Although Eric is the only one I know personally who's talking about sunspots, he does have venerable company—The Old Farmer's Almanac, which has used sunspot levels as an important part of its annual forecasts since 1792, correctly predicted a “numbing” winter for 2008-2009, with below-average temperatures for at least two-thirds of the country.

For a worrier like me, this controversy represents a win/win situation, or should I say a worry/worry situation. I'll keep worrying just a little about global warming and all those poor polar bears, but at the same time, I'm bracing for the cold and seriously worrying about my future heating bills.

A Dog's Life

I have a dog who chases helicopters. I suspect this behavior began because my office is on the second floor of my house and my desk is next to a big double-hung window. Cosmo likes to lie by my feet while I'm working, just under the low window sill. From that vantage point, he can only see the tops of trees, an occasional bird, and the helicopters that fly overhead. The birds are too quick and too quiet to capture his attention. Planes also fly above us but, while Cosmo can hear them, they're usually too high for him to see. However, helicopters, with their distinctive drone and low altitude, excite him every time.

When Cosmo hears a helicopter, he leaps up, all seven pounds of him, and stands on his hind legs, with his front paws on the window sill, scanning the sky for the offending aircraft, all the while growling, barking, and wagging his tail. When he finally has the helicopter in his sights, his barking increases exponentially. This continues until the helicopter leaves Cosmo's airspace—that is, until he can't see it anymore.

Of course, trapped as he is in my office, Cosmo can't actually chase the helicopter. For that, he needs to be outside. While other dogs focus on squirrels or bunnies, Cosmo is ever on the alert for an aerial opponent. As soon as he hears the telltale whine of a helicopter, he strains at his leash and searches the sky. When Cosmo was younger, he often didn't know where the noise was coming from. I would point in the direction of the helicopter and Cosmo would look at my arm or down the street, anywhere but up. Eventually, however, he got the idea. Now, if he doesn't immediately spot the helicopter on his own, he turns to me for help and his eyes follow my pointing finger up into the sky. When he at last sees the helicopter, delirium ensues. Picture, if you will, an apoplectic apricot bundle of fur, complete with furious barking, frantic running, and fierce growling.

When the helicopter eventually disappears from view, Cosmo invariably looks at me with an expression that can only be described as triumphant. And he walks with an unmistakable swagger. After all, in his mind, Cosmo hasn't been barking ineffectually at an unreachable enemy. He's vanquished the helicopter and chased it clear out of his territory. He's heard the enemy, seen it, and barked it away.

If only my life were that simple.

The Art of Crying

When I learned I had breast cancer in 2003, I didn't cry. It's not that I decided not to cry. I simply didn't. Though my body thrummed with anxiety, my mind seemed detached. I remember wondering whether I felt sorry for myself. I actually pondered that as an objective question. I realized that the answer was no when, rather than asking "Why me?" I found myself asking "Why not me?" After all, I'd been fortunate to have 54 healthy years before this bad news. My eyes stayed dry.

The process of diagnosis and treatment for cancer is often filled with waiting. For me, the waiting began after a suspicious mammogram. First, I had to wait for a biopsy to be performed, then I had to wait for the pathology report. Once that confirmed I had cancer, I had to wait until I met with my breast surgeon to learn exactly what the path report meant and what treatment she recommended. After that meeting, surgery was scheduled, but not for the next day. Rather, I had to be slotted into my surgeon's busy schedule. I was "lucky" in that I only had to wait ten days. But I was dealing with cancer and I wanted the cancer out, so ten days seemed like an eternity to me.

Once I finally had the surgery, there was more waiting for the next pathology report. And so on. Very anxiety provoking. During these waiting periods, I couldn't eat. I woke up with a start each morning to find my body literally vibrating with nervous energy. But mentally, I remained detached. I focused on understanding my situation. I spent a lot of time researching every aspect of breast cancer and its treatment on the Internet. This kept me outwardly calm. I still didn't cry.

When the pathology report finally arrived, I learned that the surgical margins weren't clean. This meant that some cancer still remained in my breast, necessitating a second surgery. My surgeon was going on vacation, so the surgery couldn't be scheduled for several weeks. More waiting.

Physically, I recovered quickly from the first surgery and (outwardly, at least) resumed my normal life, which included caring for my toy poodle, Cosmo. Cosmo's vet had recommended that his teeth be cleaned, so I dutifully brought him to her office early one morning. Late that afternoon, when I picked Cosmo up, he seemed woozy from the sedation required for a canine cleaning, but otherwise okay. As I carried him out to the car, though, I noticed a swelling on one side of his mouth. On closer inspection, I could see that his entire upper lip was swollen. I immediately brought him back inside and asked what had happened. The vet seemed surprised but not terribly concerned. Probably the technician had propped his mouth open too wide during the cleaning, she speculated.

I felt terrible. Cosmo was totally dependent on me and because I'd trusted this obviously incompetent vet, he'd suffered. I quickly drove home and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. Cosmo bore his wound with stoicism. He didn't cry. I sat down on the floor next to him. By now, his lip was massively swollen, the raw skin of his inner cheek turned outward. I began to cry.

Soon I was sobbing. In the midst of my tears, I realized that I was crying not only for Cosmo, but also for myself. In my distress at Cosmo's helplessness, I had at last found an outlet for my feelings of fear and sadness about my own situation. After I'd had a good cry, I picked myself up off the floor. I knew Cosmo's lip would heal. And I'd been told I had an early stage cancer with a good prognosis. I found strength in accentuating the positive. It made my husband and sons feel better and it made me feel better, too. But the release I experienced when I finally let go and cried was profound. My mind and body felt reconnected.

My mother-in-law, Reggie, died this week. I'm saddened by her passing and I miss her already. I haven't cried yet, but I know that crying can't be forced. One of these days, something will trigger my tears. In the meantime, I'm choosing to accentuate the positive by recalling Reggie's many gifts—her free spirit, her contagious laughter, her unexpected insights. Eventually, when I least expect them, the tears will come.

A Saab Story, Part Three: Recapturing Our Lost Youth

After Eric and I sold our Saab Sonett sports car in the late seventies, Eric tried to compensate for its loss—he took up flying. By the time we moved from Chicago to Boston in the summer of 1979, he had both an MBA and a pilot's license.

Eric's enthusiasm for flying caused me considerably more anxiety than his pursuit of speed on the ground ever had. Nonetheless, once in Boston, I accompanied him on excursions to the Vineyard, Bar Harbor, and other interesting locales. At first, we flew in a rented Cessna two-seater aircraft, but before long Eric teamed up with a friend and together they bought a Piper Cherokee with room for four.

While we were still in Chicago, our Mazda RX2 had died and we'd replaced it with a boaty, used Mercury Montego, which we brought with us to Boston. Eric had been hired as a consultant at Bain & Company and I planned to finish my third year of law school at Harvard. We were both thirty by then and had been married for over seven years, but we hadn't really thought much about having children. Once we decided we were ready for a family, I grew more anxious than ever about Eric's flying hobby. When a mouse got into the Cherokee and chewed up some of its wiring, even Eric acknowledged that flying could be risky.

Our son, Aaron, was born in June of 1982. By then, the plane and the Montego had been sold and we'd moved from Boston to the nearby suburb of Newton. After moving nine times in ten years, we settled down in a 40-year-old Tudor-style house on a quiet, leafy street, a block from the local elementary school. On our driveway sat a Honda Accord and a Honda Civic, which Eric used as a commuting car. I'd decided to forego a career in favor of full-time motherhood, pursuing law and other interests on a part-time basis. Our transition from free spirits to responsible parents became complete when, in 1984, we purchased a Volvo DL 240 station wagon, a tank-like vehicle whose main selling point was its stellar reputation for safety. By 1985, when our younger son, Alex, was born, the Saab Sonett, and the life it represented, seemed a distant memory.

A Mercury Sable station wagon eventually replaced the Volvo and took us through the grade school years. In 1995, it was supplanted by a Toyota Avalon, then in its first year of production. By that time, Aaron was a teenager, and the Avalon's roomy back seat was ideal for big teenage boys. While I ferried the kids around, Eric continued to use a second car for commuting. In 1990, he replaced his Civic with an Acura Legend. It was the first car since the Saab that Eric had really loved—a sleek, metallic-blue luxury sedan, with great handling. Eric drove the Legend for seven years and would probably still have it today had a patch of black ice not caused it to spin out, wrecking its under-carriage. The damage was repaired, but while the car was in the shop I persuaded Eric that an SUV was the way to go for a safer commute in wintry New England, a dubious claim, given the rollover potential of SUVs. Still, Eric agreed that an all-wheel-drive vehicle made sense. He sold the Legend and bought a two-door Ford Explorer.

As Eric's fiftieth birthday approached, I attempted to avert any chance of a mid-life crisis by encouraging him to buy a new car, something really special. Eric had long admired two Jaguars from the sixties—the S-type and the Mark 2. For the 2000 model year, Jaguar came out with a new S-type, whose design borrowed from both those earlier cars. Eric bought the Jaguar sight-unseen and took possession on his birthday, in June of 1999. The S-type fulfilled his expectations—it was a powerful car with great acceleration, but also luxurious and easy to handle. The Jaguar was hardly a sports car, but it reawakened Eric's passion for cars. At about this time, we were emerging from the fog of over-protective child-rearing. Aaron was a senior in high school and driving Eric's Explorer. Alex was a high school freshman. Eric began to fantasize about someday owning a sports car again.

He was encouraged in this line of thought by our friend, Mason, a knowledgeable car buff whom we'd known since college. One summer, Mason invited Eric up to his house in Vermont for a weekend. Little did I realize that the main event of Eric's visit would be the 2005 Saab Owners Convention at Stratton Mountain, featuring vintage Saabs of every description. Among the more behemoth models on display were a few restored Sonetts. On seeing them, Eric immediately regressed to his adolescent state—he wanted one of his own. He even phoned me from Stratton Mountain, claiming he'd purchased a Sonett on the spot. I wasn't amused until I realized he was only joking. I worried that if Eric ever really bought an old Sonett, he would be disappointed, since I believed the actual car could never live up to his mythical memories of it.

I didn't hide my concern from Eric, so he reacted the way any rational man would—he began searching in secret for a 1969 Sonett to restore. His quest continued, without my noticing, for over a year, mostly on the Internet. Since so few Sonetts were built to begin with, there were very few on the market and most of those were in bad repair. Finally, though, Eric thought he'd found the car he wanted. He decided it was time to reveal his intentions to me.

I reacted the way any rational woman would—with dismay.

"You can't recapture the past," I admonished. Eric insisted he simply loved the Sonett and relished the idea of restoring one.

"You'll take over the garage," I complained. Since we have a three-car garage, that argument didn't hold much weight.

Eventually, I was set straight by several of my girlfriends, who pointed out that boys like their toys. One of them put things in perspective—at least Eric didn't want to build an airplane, she reminded me, or ride a motorcycle (her husband had succumbed to the lure of a Harley-Davidson not long before, with near-disastrous results). I was at last convinced and gave my grudging support to Eric's project.

Eric excitedly showed me pictures of the car he'd found through his Internet search. It was located in Arizona, where it had been owned by two generations of the same family. The car looked just like our Sonett, except it was bright red rather than electric blue. The photos showed the car housed in a spotless garage, suggesting it had been well-cared-for. The current owner, Mike, was selling it because his wife was having a baby and wanted the garage space for a sensible car. Here was a woman I could relate to!

When the deal was in its final stages, Mike mentioned that the car had been in a minor rear-end collision at some point before his father purchased it. The damage had been repaired but, in the interest of full disclosure, he wanted Eric to know about it. Eric mentioned off-handedly that he'd had a similar-sounding accident with his Sonett.

"But my car was blue," Eric said.

"Oh, didn't I mention that this car used to be blue?" Mike replied. "My dad painted it red."

Eric asked Mike where his father had purchased the car. The answer—Berkeley, California, not far from where we'd last seen it at Eric's parents' home on the Stanford campus.

Shortly after this intriguing conversation, Eric was helping his mother sort through boxes of old documents as she prepared to move from the Stanford house after 47 years. During the process, he came across a copy of his original title to the Saab Sonett, VIN number included. He immediately contacted Mike, who confirmed that the VIN number of his Saab Sonett was identical. So, Eric was buying back his original car! This amazing coincidence erased even my remaining hesitation about the purchase. A short time later the car was shipped from Arizona to a convenient locale near our home, where Eric picked it up and drove it onto our driveway.

I gazed at our now-red 1969 Saab Sonett. It looked cute, smaller than I remembered, and somehow not quite ours. Perhaps it was the red paint, perhaps the intervening years, but I didn't feel much connection to this little vehicle we once again owned. A while later, back in the house, I saw the car keys sitting on a table in the foyer. I picked them up. They were old, clearly the original keys. I felt a rush of emotion. These were the same keys I had held back in the seventies, when we were young and starting our life together. These were the very same keys I had inserted into the ignition, the keys that had started not only the car, but our journey together. Memories came flooding back, along with the thrill of having somehow recaptured a little piece of our youth.


Our 1969 Saab Sonett, fully restored by Eric and repainted its original blue color.

A Saab Story, Part Two: Over the Edge

Eric and I arrived in California in the summer of 1972, during a heat wave. The hills had been baked a golden brown by the unrelenting sun and it seemed impossible that it would ever rain. By the time it did, we had been hired as managers of a garden apartment complex in East Palo Alto, where we could live rent-free. We moved into a pleasant one-bedroom apartment with shag rugs and a tiny fenced-in patio. Our 1969 Saab Sonett had its own cozy carport among a row of carports at the front of the complex.

Our neighbors were an eclectic group, including Leonard, a taciturn engineer who restored antique cars; Melanie, a "masseuse" with a throaty, seductive voice; and Susan and Gowen, recent Princeton grads who became our friends. Our next door neighbor, Rita, was a down-and-out middle-aged woman who depended on her no-good boyfriend for support and listened incessantly to a record of Fats Domino singing "Blueberry Hill." Above us lived a lively couple who were into wife-swapping, as we discovered when they invited us for drinks one afternoon. We even had a famosity connection—the apartment across the garden path from us was rented by Joan Baez's cousin and personal secretary. Ms. Baez would sometimes visit with her big German shepherd. Among that varied group, our main distinction was of course our snazzy Saab Sonett.

When the rain finally arrived that fall, it came not merely as drizzle or showers, but also as impressive wind-driven downpours, veritable blizzards of rain. During one such deluge, Eric and I were driving north on the 101 Freeway. We had crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and were in the fast lane. The rain was coming down in sheets and, even with the windshield wipers going, our visibility was poor. Nevertheless, being 23 and fearless, Eric was careening along at high speed. Since the Sonett had no radio, the monotonous motion of the windshield wipers provided our sole accompaniment—left, right, left, right. We had just passed the exit for Ross, Eric's home during his third- and fourth-grade years, when the driver's-side wiper swung left and kept going over the edge of the windshield, where it dangled uselessly.

Within a nanosecond, Eric had no visibility whatsoever. The windshield wiper on the passenger side still worked, but it didn't help Eric see directly in front of the car. Frantically, he opened his window and leaned his head out. I stuck my head out the right window so I could look back at cars coming up beside us from behind and guide Eric into the slower lanes. It was a near-death experience, but not one characterized by white light and bliss. More like screaming intensity, not to mention that we almost drowned. Eventually, Eric edged the car across several lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder. There, we waited for the rain to let up, which it mercifully did after about fifteen minutes.

Back home in East Palo Alto, we made a disconcerting discovery—the part we needed to repair the wiper wasn't available. This was our first stroke of bad luck concerning Saab parts. We'd had quite a different experience during our drive west, when our alternator failed just outside Boise, Idaho. Thinking we'd be stranded for days, we had coasted downhill into town, where we learned that the only Saab dealer between Chicago and San Francisco was located right there in Boise. And he had the part we needed!

This time we weren't so lucky. The local Saab dealer informed us that not only did he not have the wiper part, but no one else in the U.S. did, either. He suggested we call Saab's U.S. corporate headquarters in Connecticut. Maybe they could order the part for us from Sweden. Coincidentally, I'd recently applied to a Master's program in anthropology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Eric convinced me that we should wait until I heard from Wesleyan. If I were accepted, he reasoned, we could delay contacting Saab headquarters until we actually arrived in Connecticut. Meanwhile, ever resourceful, Eric came up with a temporary fix using duct tape. By then, the worst of the rainy season was over and the tape held until the coming of spring and dry weather.

During that winter and spring, while Eric worked at home maintaining the apartment complex and writing a book about blues roots piano, I commuted in the Sonett to the Stanford Music Library, where I'd been hired to create a catalog for Stanford's Archive of Recorded Sound. I spent my days in the musty basement of the Knoll, a lovely old building that housed the Music Library. Surrounded by ancient Edison gramophones, I listened to and cataloged spoken-word recordings made at Stanford during the prior decades. They ran the gamut from lectures about Shakespeare, astrophysics, and architecture to speeches by Henry Kissinger and anti-war radical David Harris.

In mid-summer, after I was indeed accepted as one of two graduate students in Wesleyan's anthropology department, we began driving east toward Middletown, Connecticut, where Wesleyan is located. Somewhere in Wyoming's big sky country Eric's duct-tape wiper fix failed. We could see a storm coming from miles away. When it hit, the faulty wiper made a couple of left-right swipes, then headed once again over the edge. This time, fortunately, we were on an empty two-lane highway and the storm was brief. We pulled over and waited for it to stop, then continued on our way. We spent the rest of the trip praying for dry weather and pulling over when necessary. After we arrived in Middletown, we managed to persuade someone at Saab's corporate headquarters to order the correct part for us. Once it arrived and was installed, we felt ready for whatever Connecticut weather might deliver—rain, snow, or ice. What we weren't prepared for, though, was the coming oil crisis.

Following the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, during my first semester at Wesleyan, OPEC declared an oil embargo against the U.S. and other countries that supported Israel. By this time, Eric had found a job in West Hartford, as assistant managing editor of Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot, a weaving magazine. The commute was about 45 minutes each way, not a big deal until the gas crisis hit. When it did, the Sonett proved its worth. With its extremely light-weight fiberglass body, it got about 40 miles per gallon. Even with that amazing mileage, Eric would still have found it hard to buy sufficient gas for his daily commute were it not for the ethnic factor—with his dark hair and Mediterranean complexion, Eric could pass for any one of a number of ethnic groups. The local gas station happened to be run by an Italian who naturally assumed that Eric was a paesano. He told Eric not to worry—there would always be enough gas for him to get to work. Happily, this proved to be true.

After our year in Connecticut, we drove back to Northern California. Although I had planned to follow up my classwork with fieldwork in San Francisco, my anthropological fervor decreased the further away I got from Wesleyan. So, instead of studying the ethnography of language among Portuguese immigrants, I opted for a job as an assistant editor at Guitar Player Magazine. Eric's music background, coupled with his publishing experience at the weaving magazine, led to his hiring by Guitar Player's publisher to develop a book and record division, Guitar Player Productions. We settled in Los Gatos, about 25 miles south of Palo Alto.

Although I felt comfortable driving the Sonett around town, I had managed to avoid driving it on the highway ever since my traumatic downhill experience with the freewheeling clutch two years earlier (see Part One). I still thought the Saab was a cool car and I enjoyed being seen in it, but the fact that I was afraid to take it on the highway served as a constant reminder of my driving inadequacy, so it hadn't exactly enhanced my self-image. All that changed, however, when I heard about the San Andreas Health Center in Palo Alto. The San Andreas center was a holistic health mecca which offered biofeedback, Rolfing, encounter groups, the Feldenkreis Method, and numerous other non-traditional medical approaches. In my quest for self-realization, I was dying to try them all. But I had to get there first. Eric was less than enthusiastic about alternative medicine, so I knew I was on my own.

One evening, there was a lecture on full-spectrum light, which I really wanted to attend. Calming myself with my Transcendental Meditation mantra, I got into the Sonett, made my way to the freeway, and hit the accelerator. The freedom was glorious! It turned out I loved driving fast in the Sonett. And the Health Center was fantastic. I soon started attending biofeedback sessions and, in early 1976, I persuaded Eric to move to Palo Alto. By this time, I had left Guitar Player and, while working as a freelance editor, I began volunteering at the health center. Eric eventually left Guitar Player, too, and joined Inner City Records, a small independent record company.

It was a wonderful existence, but we felt we hadn't quite grown up. In the fall of 1976, Eric decided to apply to business school and, not to be outdone, I applied to law school. We were both accepted at the University of Chicago and decided to return to a colder clime. We agreed that the Sonett wouldn't be the right car for the frigid and gritty south side of Chicago. Eric's dad had long admired the car, so we gave it to him, thinking we might reclaim it later. In the meantime, we bought a more practical but still offbeat vehicle, a used, orange Mazda RX2, with a rotary engine. Soon after we arrived in Chicago, my father-in-law realized he simply didn't have room in his driveway to keep the Sonett. After some soul-searching, we told him to sell it. Thus, a powerful symbol of our carefree youth vanished from our lives. Or so we thought.

A Saab Story, Part One: Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Once upon a time, my husband, Eric, owned an electric-blue sports car called a Saab Sonett. It was a rare car, one of only 640 built in 1969, his model year. The car was unusual in other ways as well. Its body was made of fiberglass and it had something called a freewheeling clutch, which sounded alluring until I tried using it while descending from a mountain pass in the Sierras.

When I first dated Eric, in the winter of 1969, the Sonett had just been shipped to him from Sweden. On our first date, we drove to a movie theater on Route 9 in Amherst, Massachusetts, where we saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. With the Sonett's aerodynamic design and spaceship-like interior, it was the perfect vehicle to transport us into the futuristic world of HAL. Afterward, as Eric explained the meaning of the film to me, I marveled that I'd found a guy with brains as well as a snazzy car. Despite Eric's attractions, though, I broke up with him the following summer. At that stage of my life, I was too masochistic to settle for such a great guy.

I didn't encounter the Sonett again until January, 1972, during a visit to Amherst College. Eric, having taken a semester off, had just finished his senior year. I had recently gotten back in touch with him. I now regretted our earlier breakup and was trying to figure out how to rekindle the romance.

Enter Wendy Wasserstein. The future playwright and I had graduated the prior spring, she from Mt. Holyoke College, I from Smith, but we had both spent our junior year at Amherst, where we'd become friends. After graduation, we both moved to New York City and saw one another occasionally. The trip up to Amherst was her idea. A friend of ours was giving a French horn recital at the college and Wendy wanted to attend. She asked if I'd like to come along. This gave me the perfect excuse to visit Eric and crash on his couch.

Wendy and I arrived by bus on a bitterly cold evening. Icy snow coated everything and crunched underfoot. Wendy soon departed with our horn-player friend. After they left, I stood shivering outside the fraternity house where the bus had let me off, waiting for Eric. Five minutes passed. Ten. Eric's low-slung car finally roared around the corner and up to where I stood. Eric leaned over to open the door for me. He didn't look happy. Uh oh, I thought, this isn't starting well.

"Sorry, I'm late," he said. "I had a little accident." It turned out that, in his haste to meet me on time, he had backed the Sonett into his friend Rick's VW bug, barely denting Rick's car, but damaging the Sonnet's fiberglass rear end. On impact, fiberglass doesn't dent, but instead fractures. So, Eric's car now had a jagged scar. At the time, I worried that the mishap would spoil our weekend together. It didn't occur to me that Eric's momentary loss of motor control might have been due to his nervousness about seeing me.

Despite starting with such an unfortunate bang, the weekend went well. Eric played hard to get, which only heightened my interest. While I attended the French horn recital with Wendy, Eric stayed behind at the Hadley farmhouse he rented with friends, reading Plato, or so he claimed. When I returned, I found him in bed with The Republic, whereupon I persuaded him to abandon metaphysics for the purely physical. This seemed to help him transcend the trauma of the car mishap. In any event, by summer we were married and heading west to California in our blue Saab Sonett.

Fortunately, we had few possessions, so we were able to cram them all into the Sonett's hatchback. Included was a tent, which we used as we car-camped our way from Massachusetts to California. During our trip, Eric never tired of extolling the car's many virtues—its innovative roll bar, which he assured me would protect us even in the event of a head-on collision with a Mack truck; a windshield designed so that snow and even rain would glide right off, providing clear visibility without the use of wipers; a ventilation system that circulated fresh air, creating a delightfully cool and comfortable environment despite the lack of air conditioning; and, finally, that fantastic freewheeling clutch, which enabled the car to revert to neutral when the driver's foot was removed from the gas pedal, eliminating the normal braking action of the clutch and resulting in an extraordinary sense of freedom.

Thankfully, we didn't encounter a Mack truck along the way, so we were unable to test out the roll bar's effectiveness. As for the car's other supposed attributes, Eric's love for his Sonett was blind, or at least near-sighted. Regarding the vaunted windshield, for example, during the first few moments of a rain shower, the windshield did remain notably clear. However, any significant rain quickly made visibility impossible. To my dismay, though, Eric usually insisted that he could see just fine and often delayed activating the wipers until the rain was coming down in sheets. On the plus side, the windshield wipers functioned just fine once turned on, at least until a fateful day in Marin County (more on that in Part Two).

As for the ventilation system, a day traversing the Nevada desert wilted even Eric's conviction that the Saab's fresh-air flow would keep us cool no matter what. With the windows open and bugs of unusual size splatting against our windshield, we sweated our way through Nevada and began climbing the Sierras. By then, though, I had something else to focus on, for it was in the Sierras that I experienced the full impact of the much-touted freewheeling clutch.

Eric had done most of the driving during our cross-country trip. To be honest, he'd done virtually all of it. Back in Massachusetts, he'd taught me to drive the Sonett's manual shift and I'd taken a spin or two around the block, but I'd never driven on a highway, let alone on steep terrain. Now, he encouraged me to get behind the wheel. We were newlyweds and his faith in my driving ability touched me, so I complied, though not without some trepidation. Once in the driver's seat, I managed to put the car in gear and merge onto the freeway without killing us. We continued climbing, heading toward the pass. I began to relax. This was easy. I'd always been a good driver, after all, even an aggressive one. As we arrived at the summit, I stepped on the gas and the car zoomed downhill, picking up speed until we were approaching 85 miles per hour. I lifted my foot off the gas pedal. Although Eric had explained the freewheeling concept, I instinctively expected the car to slow down due to the braking action of the clutch. Instead, we hurtled down the highway at breakneck speed. What Eric experienced as extraordinary freedom felt like a total loss of control to me. I applied the brake pretty much all the way down from the summit into the San Joaquin Valley, until I finally found a place to pull over and hand the keys to Eric. I didn't drive the Sonett on the freeway again for the next two years.

Despite its quirks, though, I grew to love the Sonett. It had speed and maneuverability. Its black seats, though vinyl rather than leather, were sporty and comfortable. The car featured three-point seatbelts, which were far safer than the lap belts then standard in American cars. It had a simple, elegant dashboard and a powerful engine for its size, which gave it tremendous acceleration. It was even possible to switch that challenging clutch into regular mode rather than using freewheeling, though once I got used to freewheeling, I actually came to like it. Perhaps most important, the Sonett was a great-looking piece of machinery, a really cool car. We drew stares of appreciation wherever we went. In it, I felt instantly transformed from a staid, uptight kind of girl to the hip, laid-back woman I'd always wanted to be. By marrying Eric, I'd gained not only a husband, but a car and the image that went along with it. It remained to be seen if I could live up to that image.

Books & Books & NASCAR, Too

It's not an exaggeration to say that my husband, Eric, and I moved to Miami because of a bookstore. Once we discovered Books & Books in Coral Gables, it was only a matter of time before we decided to decamp from Massachusetts to Florida for the winter. When we began looking for real estate in earnest, we narrowed our search to the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, only a ten-minute drive from Coral Gables and the bookstore of our dreams.

We had already been drawn to the area because our son, Aaron, spent his college years at the University of Miami, in Coral Gables. Although my parents had lived for over twenty years in Boca Raton, only an hour north of Miami, during our visits there we had rarely ventured to Miami. We thought of it as a high-crime city without much to offer culturally. I did, however, have fond memories of Coral Gables, having spent an idyllic week there in 1969, visiting my college roommate. Her parents' glamorous home featured a "Florida room," a sun-drenched enclosed patio filled with potted palms and other exotic flora, where we dawdled over breakfast before heading to the country club to swim and sunbathe the days away.

Eric and I had been yearning for a respite from New England winters, but we could never picture ourselves living in Boca, with its early-bird specials, homogeneous (read old) population, and its suburban feel, strip malls and all. When we visited Aaron, though, we found Miami to be a city transformed from its gritty past, boasting a dazzling skyline, almost blindingly white compared to the dark brick and stone of Boston. And then there was South Beach, its charming art deco architecture awash in pastels, and Coral Gables, as lovely as ever, with its Spanish tiled roofs and lush foliage. We promised ourselves that in the fall of 2003, after our younger son, Alex, had left for college, we'd spend some time in the Miami area and check out the real estate. We still weren't sure we could actually live there, though. With Miami's reputation for glitz, we wondered if it would suit our more literary tastes.

In November of that year, we flew down to Miami and started looking at apartments. In the evenings, we checked out the vast array of local restaurants. One night, we chose Cafe Abbracci in downtown Coral Gables. We found a parking space about a block away. As we got out of our car, Eric said, "Look. A bookstore." The sign read "Books & Books" and the store appeared to be arranged around an attractive open courtyard. We were already late for our reservation, so we decided to see whether they would still be open when we were through with dinner. To our astonishment, the sales clerk said they closed at the late hour of 11 pm. We surmised that some people in the neighborhood must care about books to justify such long hours.

After a delicious meal at Abbracci, we hightailed it back to Books & Books, which exceeded our expectations. The courtyard was still lively at 8:30 pm, its tables filled with people speaking English and Spanish, enjoying dishes prepared at a small cafe located inside the bookstore. We entered the store through a doorway off the right side of the courtyard. We could see a book group in progress at a table in a small room adjacent to the paperback book area. On the other side of the courtyard, we found not only hardbacks, but a reading in progress in a large back room which housed an impressive-looking collection of art books. From a listing on the bulletin board, we could see that such readings were frequent. Virtually everyday, sometimes twice a day, authors came to talk about their books. We were sold—any community that supported a bookstore as vibrant as this one was a place we could feel at home.

Our faith was not misplaced. Five years later, Books & Books is still one of our favorite spots. We've attended book groups that meet regularly at the store and we've heard authors as varied as Madeleine Albright, Jared Diamond, Dave Barry, Andrea Mitchell, Carl Hiaasen, and Angelo Dundee. These author appearances are not mere book signings. They're full-blown lectures, during which the author talks about the subject of his or her book, perhaps reads a bit from it, and then takes questions. The Dundee event was preceded by a boxing exhibition in the courtyard. Mr. Dundee turned out to be a delightful gentleman, who shared many wonderful anecdotes about his years as Muhammad Ali's trainer. After Mr. Dundee's talk, we were treated to a few words by the "Fight Doctor," Ferdie Pacheco, who became so emotional about appearing with his old friend that he actually cried.

Not long ago, NPR's Scott Simon came by to discuss his recently-published novel, Windy City, and next week, Jhumpa Lahiri will be visiting the bookstore to talk about her new book, Unaccustomed Earth. Some events are held at local churches, synagogues, and hotel ballrooms, to accommodate the enormous crowds well-known authors draw. Dave Barry rated the ballroom at the Biltmore Hotel and Madeleine Albright filled Temple Judea, which seats a thousand.

A recent Books & Books highlight was a performance by the Florida Grand Opera Young Artists, an event which was held at the bookstore. The performers sang selections from The Pearl Fishers, by Georges Bizet. Maestro Stewart Robertson, the Grand Opera's musical director, provided fascinating commentary about Bizet and his work. When the artists began to sing, the power of their voices in that intimate setting was simply breathtaking. Eric and I saw the entire opera a short time afterward at Miami's spectacular new Ziff Ballet Opera House. While I enjoyed the full production, I felt I had really understood the appeal of opera for the first time when I heard the music performed up close and personal at Books & Books.

Eric and I have learned it can be rewarding to attend events featuring authors whose subjects may not be of particular interest to us. A few weeks ago, we decided to take a chance on Liz Clarke, who was speaking about her new book: One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation. At best, I had an anthropologist's interest in what makes NASCAR fans tick. I expected Ms. Clarke to be a brassy, hard-edged type, with maybe with a tattoo or two. Instead, I encountered a refined, articulate woman, a sportswriter at the Washington Post and a graduate of Barnard, who lyrically described the personalities of the drivers and the dedication of their fans. Eric and I were so inspired, we bought the book. We even persuaded some friends to drive down to Homestead-Miami Raceway the other day to watch some qualifying heats. Unfortunately, NASCAR wasn't in town, so we were forced to settle for Formula One and Grand Am heats this time. But NASCAR, here we come!

All of this cornucopia of book-related activity owes its existence to one man, Mitchell Kaplan. In addition to starting Books & Books, which now has branches in Bal Harbor, Miami Beach, and the Cayman Islands, Mr. Kaplan also co-founded the Miami Book Fair International, an event that attracts book aficionados and speakers from all over the country. He provides living proof that a single individual can make a huge difference in the cultural life of a community. In fact, I can't think of a better motivation to write a book than the opportunity to talk about it at Books & Books.

Ode to Miami

Ah, Miami in summer. Warm, tropical breezes, mosquitoes buzzing, frigate birds wafting gracefully on air currents, swarms of gnats, mojitos under the stars. Did I mention mosquitoes?

Miami in summer is paradise, almost. The hot, humid air is cleansed daily by rains that arrive in the late afternoon. The showers cool things off and make for delightful evenings. And lots of mosquitoes. Plus quite a few gnats. Did I mention ants?

For a northerner like me, there's something wonderfully predictable about Miami's summer weather pattern, so unlike Boston's ever-changing climate. After the cooling rains, as the sun sets, there couldn't be a more perfect place than Miami for eating dinner al fresco. But remember to wear long pants, long sleeves, and socks. Probably a good idea to bring along bug spray, too.

Even in the heat, South Beach beckons. So what if the sun on the sand glares so brightly I feel like I'm going snow blind? No bugs on the beach. BIG advantage. And the water is nice and warm. Especially if you like hot baths. Seriously, it's gorgeous. And that lightheaded feeling just before heat exhaustion sets in is kind of special. I haven't felt so spacey since the Woodstock era.

One evening, my husband, Eric, and I decide to try a hot (no pun intended) new restaurant in Miami's Design District. Our son, Aaron, a University of Miami grad, is visiting and we want to show him how hip we've become since we began spending time in Miami. We arrive at Michael's Genuine Food & Drink just as the rain is letting up, a few minutes early for our reservation. All the tables inside are occupied. But outside the air smells fresh and the wood tables under black umbrellas look inviting, so we decide to go for it.

My black mesh chair is comfortable and only a little wet. It's still drizzling lightly but the umbrella protects us, for the most part. Aaron fits right into the scene, with his tee shirt, shorts, and flip flops. I feel edgy in my fitted black tee with the word "courage" lettered in gold across the front. I have on capris and a cute pair of sandals. Eric is sensibly dressed in long pants and socks.

Maybe it's the cosmo that dulls my senses, maybe the fabulous salmon dish, or perhaps just the heady feeling of being in trendy Miami. I don't really notice anything until, just as we're finishing our main course, Aaron complains he's being bitten. Really? In the middle of the Design District? I realize I'm itching a bit around the ankles myself. Eric claims to be fine. Nevertheless, we decide to skip dessert and ask for our check. Aaron insists we stop at Walgreen's for some Benadryl. Still, I refuse to be concerned. Even when I see the massive swelling on my wrist and the nest of bites under my arm. Not to mention the numerous welts around my ankles. After all, that West Nile Virus thing is way overblown, isn't it?

Ah, Miami in summer. The perfect place to be. Especially if you love mosquitoes.