July 2025 Update

Another busy month as well as our clinging to the cliff’s edge by our fingernails. Richard’s macular degeneration has been confirmed, but at least it is dry and not wet. Richard also had his thoracic scan, but with the doctor now on vacation, it will be a month before the results are to be discussed. I learned from Gin that Steven Rose (Chloe’s brother’s grandfather) had died and from Jimmy that Marco has as well.

And on the 24th, my dear friend Jay Wilson passed. He had been ill for some time and was prepared to go. Jay had been the Peter Lang editor who published my first book in 1986, The Roman Festival Calendar of Numa Pompilius. He had been a Yale and Oxford academic and an associate professor at the University of Rochester in New York. Jay’s intellect was stunning, and the range of his interests and endeavours seemingly endless. His passing in Florida I have been informed was peaceful. As a one-of-a-kind, he is now poignantly missed.

More mundanely, Magda, the Golf, was serviced and passed her road test for €587 on top of the initial €800 & after 6 weeks, and then the same for Mercedes, the Mercedes, for €900 but all in one day. The carte vitale applications have continued to be torturous as was the auto insurances and as is Richard’s renewal of his British driver’s license. I had Cécile do somemore notarisations since I seem to be unable to get my Buffalo birth certificate & even with Drew helping. Bron helped with our getting Richard’s from California. We now have an appointment scheduled for the 5th of August, and Mercury will still be retrograde.

I have read both Andrew Holleran’s The Beauty of Men and Alan Jay Lerner’s The Musical Theatre: A Celebration. Loved especially the latter. And now it is Stephen Fry’s autobiography, The Fry Chronicles. Films have included The Tall Guy with Emma Thompson and Jeff Goldblum, Everything Will Get Better and then, as a double-bill just with Penny, Blonde Venus. The film on the final day of the month: Accountant 2. For Soteria, there were Shakespeare passages from The Merchant of Venice, Cleopatra and Troilus and Cressida.

For the Poplifugia, we went to the Roman Bridge Argens river swimming area in the next town. We have had a family Zoom with Coral, Nancy and Anna, and I have had phone calls with Gin, Jimmy and Marie-Laure. Natacha & Jonathan have come a couple of times to swim chez nous. We have had margaritas with Joanne and again with Yvonne and Ulrike and finally with Joanne once more. On the last day of this month, we had another family Zoom with Nancy, Coral & Anna.

There was a jazz concert on the town place one night, but our real musical ventures have been at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence between the 9th & 13th and the 17th & 20th. We stayed both times at the Hotel Roi René. Our first night was Sivan Elder & Ganavya Doraiswamy’s interesting, rather long The Nine Jewelled Deer for which we were coached to Arles. The next night was the Quator Diotima at the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud for Ligeti’s First String Quartet and then with the barytone Stéphane Degout Respighi’s Il tramonto and Othmar Schoek’s Notturno. It was the Ligeti which for me was the highlight of all. The following two evenings were Charpentier’s Louise at the Théâtre Archevêché and Mozart’s Don Giovanni conducted by Simon Rattle at the Grand Théâtre de Provence. Both were splendid.

Then we dashed back for our annual non-fireworks Bastille Eve party. We hired Julian to help serve champagne and mont blancs. Liliane, Pâris & Sophie were the first to arrive. The rest included Penny and Guy with Jim & Anne, Robert & Petra friends of Stephen’s and their two children, Joanne, Yvonne with Kathleen, Stephen, Anne-Marie, Boyaca & Hubert, Dieter & Cindy, Philippe & Monica, Philippe & Cécile Menard. Paul & Diana, Philippe & Virginie, Jessica, Susie and Marijke. I think we were 35 in all.

Back then in Aix, it was again the Grand Theatre de Provence where this time we enjoyed Helmut Deutsche as pianist with Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufman singing Richard Strauss and Mahler songs. Steve and Annie had to cancel lunch with us the next day at the Caumont and where I enjoyed the exhibit of Niki de Saint Falle’s work. That night at the Archevêché it was a fascinating performance of Francesco Cavalli’s La Calisto. For our final night in Aix, since the concert version of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers had been sold out since day one, we enjoyed negroni and dinner at the Jardins Mazarin.

We had a couple of days before Liliane’s birthday party. I set the table outside and fortunately the wind stopped by the evening. Jessica’s cuisine was superb, and Julie’s service was excellent. Jérôme cancelled, and Susie did not show, but we were Liliane, Jean-Francois, Sylvie, Pâris, Anne-Sophie, Joanne, Natacha & Jonathan, Penny with Jo & Richard, Pierre & Catherine, Yvonne with Ulrijke, Becky with Gabrielle and Will – 20 of us in all.

The contrast of our ‘good life’ with the Gaza genocide, West Bank atrocities and political horror show has forced me to reflect more strongly on the counterbalance to myopic infantility or whatever else one might wish to call it. The remainder of my life will not belong or at least only a fraction at best of what it has already been, but for me, the counterbalancing concentration is on wonder. My mantra is still ‘one-two-three for wishing; four-five for health; six-seven for wonder; eight-nine for freedom’ and I recognise that health/totality/wholeness includes inspiration, but wonder is what is actively pursued through nature, art, religion/spirituality, magic/enchantment, and sports. It includes beauty but is also something more and other than that. Patrick refers to enchantment which may be the same thing but is perhaps more the route to wonder and the wonderful themselves. Maybe wonder is a spell, a sortilege, but it is both natural and alien – it partakes in yet transcends all dimensions. Wonder is what the world has at heart and needs out front rather than violence, greed and the lack of noble imagination.

Some other random thoughts. Richard says that even a vacuum wears down. I have read in the past in a Scientific American, I believe, that complete nothingness may be unstable – hence the Big Bang. While eternity is forever, a story is something that has an ending. If it is not complete in itself in some way, it is not a tale. Whatever reality really is, movies too are a reality. And what we all really want is to contribute something positive to the cosmos. For Richard, this contribution is to be brought down to the earth. For me, it includes the earth as an important part of the cosmos. But, yes, we must recognise the sacrality and primal oneness or immediacy of the physical earth. And for wherever we are mindfully, it becomes and is the centre - the true centre of the cosmos. And in navigating an understanding of cosmic centricity, my favourite is that ‘the centre of the cosmos is something that is both relaxed and wonderful’ – the true centre, that is, and wherever it happens to be.