Almost Hallowe’en 2020

Virtually two months have galloped by since my last update in mid-August. It is interesting how the older we get the faster time seems to speed. I can remember in childhood the wondrously lengthiness of the summer break from school when it would first begin in June. Apparently when we are young, any time period would occupy a greater portion of our complete life. Now it would be only an ever-diminishing fraction of the whole. The social distancing and restrictions that are currently being imposed make what there is seems so much less. This last is not a complaint on my part. There is much more opportunity, email & Facebook & physio/exercises permitting, to concentrate on my end or life, “Matter Matters,” narrative, while Richard is up most mornings around 05:00 to begin further with his art work. In short, it is full and wonderful. The worst of it all is the great reduction in being able to be with friends and loved ones.

Socially, we had a dinner at the Club with Patrick and Sue mid-August, Gin came to us for a 5:2 the last day of August, a dinner at Gin and Rix’s with Sylvester, James and Eamonn on the Ides of September, Stead chez nous for lunch followed by coffee at Daylesford, , Stephen and Roberto chez nous  for dinner near the end of September, lunch with Tilly and lunch the next day with Tilly, Paddy and Keir while helping both days to clear out Elisabeth’s flat early October, another 5:2 meal at home with Gin on my brother’s birthday, and a dinner again with Gin at the Club on the Roman festival of the Fontinalia. Also in early September, we had four days in the Cotswolds staying with Padma at her cottage in Stanton. Brenda drove us there from London, Gillie joined us one day for a barbeque lunch, and Padma drove us back home. While there, we visited the magnificent Rollright Stones as well as the Lucas Cranach the Elder exhibition at the Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park. For this last, we had not made reservations, but the gals managed to get us all in all the same. The Cranach as well as works by the various artists who had been influenced by him (e.g., Picasso) were all delightfully impressive.

Several days in both August and September, Richard and I were able to picnic and nap in the sun both in the garden of our apartment building and Battersea Park. We have also been twice to Vardo’s for pizza (a lunch and a dinner), once for dinner at Azteca Chelsea, once for lunch at l’Éto, and for my birthday, lunch at ROSL and dinner at the Balans Soho on Old Compton Street. For this last, the weather was perfect, and we had a table outside on the street. The street in fact was packed with dinner tables its whole length and even stretching down the side streets that run off it. This became another peak summer moment like the one when at we had dinner with Rix and Sylvester at the Saatchi Bar and Brasserie in July. Otherwise, for much of September, it became almost wintery cold and while the building’s heating was off and being repaired. We finally pulled out the electric heater and worked both of us in the salon.

Maggie’s son Jeff came down with a severe case of the coronavirus and is still recovering. Carol’s cardio surgery was successful, but she became quite ill afterwards and had to return to the hospital. Samantha has been with her, and she is now back home. I’ve spoken with her once by phone. And I have just learned through Facebook that both Rix and Sylvester tested positive for Covid-19 and had only mild symptoms – quarantining for the two weeks. Apparently Cosmo had it too. Robin when at the farm contracted shingles and required emergency transportation back to Paris. Richard and I both seem to be okay with just our usual tiredness. The Marsden has discharged me from the clinic. In September I tested for both my PSA (now 0.13) and testosterone (‘good’). My lower back became cripplingly painful for much of a month. For this, I began seeing Diana. It is now okay; I have seen her so far five times, and Gin thinks I should continue doing so on a regular basis. However, when checking through Facebook about Hecate from whom I had not heard for a long time, I learned that she died last year on the 4th of December. This is what I posted in remembrance of her on FB:

“I have been suspicious but only thought today to check on Facebook why I have not heard from Hecate for a long time and, as a result learned that she passed last year. Hecate had been the girlfriend of Jimi Hendrix at the time of his death. His family would not allow her to attend his funeral. She was among the more fascinating people I have have known. There was a dude who was threatening her once in Manhattan claiming that she owed him money. "Do you want this money?" she asked finally. "Then come with me!" She took him to Harlem and walked him into a large room with this dude sitting on a throne and surrounded by attendants. Seeing her, he asked, "Hello Hecate! What can I do for you?" "This fellow says that I owe him money!" she replied. "Oh, really?" and the dude then pulled out his wallet and started counting out bills. "How much does she owe you?" he asked. "Nothing, nothing!" the fellow exclaimed and fled. Subsequently he pleaded with Hecate not to have anything happen to him. She agreed and added, "But I never want to see you again!" And she didn't.
Her son was recognised as a *tulku*, Karma Trinlay Rinpoche, and was raised by Tibetan monks in Kathmandu where is where I met her. As a 'Holy Mother', she had a home on the grounds adjacent to the monastery.
She passed last year in Perigueux, France. Absolutely one-of-a-kind, she was a privilege to have known for the decades that I did. She has been and will continue to be missed. But as a firm believer in the 'bodhisattva vow', I know she will be back.”

Following Phil’s Covid death in Reno, we had a ‘family’ Zoom with Coral, Nancy, Rosanne, Marlowe and Saint Lynne. Richard and I have completed and signed our LPAs (lasting powers of attorney). Meanwhile, Chloe and Matt got their mortgage approved, bought the house in Bristol and have moved into it. I have replaced TalkTalk with Hyperoptic, and my download speed and connection consistency is significantly better. I have talked by phone to Darby, Saskia, Marie-Laure, Elisabeth in Oxford, Jimmy and Liz Green. Online, we have attended one blót and two moots (the first with Maxim Borozenec on “Proto-Indo-European Religion: Then and Now” and the second with Inija Trinkuniene on Romuva. Seeing Jonas in the slides she showed was nostalgically moving for me.

Richard did his biometrics on Mark Lane in connection with his naturalisation process. Because his residency card has expired and the Home Office is staggeringly behind on renewals, we learned that if Richard were to leave the UK at this point, it would cancel his entire application and what has so far been a more than five-year process. So, though as much because of the pandemic, we cancelled again our re-booked visit to Amsterdam on the Eurostar that had been scheduled for the 19th of October. We watched both the first Presidential debate and the one between Pence and Harris. I found the first shamefully unbelievable. We posted our ballets on the 5th of October. I had them tracked, and they were received on the 10th. I have very much enjoyed reading Daniel Pincbeck’s “A Delicious Bowl of Bat Soup” and his thesis that the vacuous rule by emotionless psychopaths without moral compunction flourishes in the hierarchical structures of corporate enterprises, the military and the government. My own final comment on the US elections is the following:

“For those who believe that allegations of climate change are a hoax and that the extreme weather disturbances, the droughts, floods, famines, and ocean acidification are all temporary and only media-exaggerated blips, that there is no real need for air protection, clean water and public health, that there is no necessity for the Endangered Species Act and wildlife protection, that our energy requirements take precedence and the EPA should accordingly be operated by fossil fuel advocates and their beneficial agenda, that America’s special interests and powerful corporations must come first, that the Wall with Mexico is necessary with no need to preserve wildlife corridors and sacred places, that pardons in exchange for illegal actions at the border undermines our President’s ‘law and order’ message, that the continual build-up of the American military remains vital, that police brutality is necessary to control left-wing mob violence, that the U.S. will achieve the solution to the Covid-19 pandemic without wasting our resources by reliance on any kind of international cooperation, that America is absolutely right to withdraw from the W.H.O. as well as the Paris Accord, that Social Security will be bankrupt by mid-2023 and should be defunded along with termination of the payroll tax, that pesticides are important for the maintenance of agriculture, and that absentee voting will rig the election and must be stopped, your choice is clear. End of debate!”

We have been to two films: Tenet (long, laborious, interesting and utterly confusing but with fabulous locations) and Hope Gap with Anette Bening and Bill Nighy (thoroughly enjoyable, and Bening is always terrific). Online, I was able to hear Saskia Macris’ percussion composition, a part of which was performed at the Muziektheatre in Amsterdam). She was not particularly happy with what the players had done to her piece without letting her know in advance. I still enjoyed it. On the 23rd of September, Juliette Greco died at the age of 93. I have sent my “Sacred Mountains” article to Chas and The Pomegranate. Otherwise, I have managed to read Michael Macrone’s By Jove! Brush Up Your Mythology, Frank Gelli’s interesting but still controversially questionable Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome, and Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. This last thrilled, disgusted, fascinated and annoyed me, but by the time I finished it, I found it a most marvellous creation. And this more or less sums up the last two and a half months. At the Royal Academy of Arts, Richard and I did at least very much enjoy the Ordrupgaard collection of Wilhelm and Henny Hansen, “Gaugin and the Impresionists.” Gaugin is a favorite of Richard’s. All was lovely, though Odilon Redon’s Still Life was probably what I liked the most. However, the many scenes of France, especially rural France, provoked a deep longing for the Midi. But it looks as if it will be England for some time yet to come.