May 2026 Update

Seemingly a full & quickly over month. I finished reading and then reviewed Freya Aswynn’s Walking with Wodan: An Autobiography. Re-read Robert Baird’s review of Ross Douthat’s Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. I’ve also read more about Darwin and the inheritance of acquired traits; also on Satie, Proust & Fintan O’Toole’s “Laugh Riot” article on the effectiveness of Trumpian humour. And now I’m reading Ursula Bloom’s 1954 most delightful Curtain Call for the Guv’nor: A Biography of George Edwardes (Twig’s great-

grandfather?) lent to me by Penny. And I managed to finish my review of Liz Hathway’s ‘Saturn’. Did listen to the Slavic paganism & Nazism BISA lectures which included Ross Downing. With the St Pancras fête bread distribution & procession, most village-intimacy moving, I forgot this month’s Soteria. I posted our San Francisco ballots on the 18th.

Following Becky’s suggestion, we voted for Tom Steyer for governor. And through DigiD, I have learned that I cannot keep the VW Beetle registered in The Netherlands in my name.

Our rituals this month included for the Lemuria casting black beans throughout the house on three different occasions. On the Ides, we put the beans along with the rush puppet oscillum into the Grave Torrent. Finally, we lustrated our tuba and with one of them ended the nearly three-month opening of the year.

Cinema this month was We Live in Time with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. This was sentimental but moving and enjoyable, and we watched with Penny, Wendy and Barbara. On another occasion, with Phil & Macia and Twig & Carol at Penny’s, it was The Wizard of the Kremlin. This was very long, a bit confusing and sad, but I’m glad to have seen it.

We had a family Zoom with Coral, Nancy and Anna, and there have been three calls with Jimmy. His exhibition has been a success – maybe 30 to 40 people attended the vernissage, and he has so far sold seven paintings which he says this will allow him to live for another month. I have also had a Zoom briefly with Theitic. What he is going through in caring for his partner is incomprehensibly agonising.

There has been the Villecroze brocante where we bought a garden room carpet

replacement for €100. We have also been to our town’s brocante. We’ve been so far three times to Paul & Diana’s about the carte vitales. Paul serves a most delicious cappuccino. The carte vitale business is ceaselessly ongoing so far. Paul & I have been to see Lydia in the process. I’ve also had to go to France Service to get my password reset and because we have have lost our carte gris for the Mercedes. The problem with the password is because, for some reason, the French records have me born in February rather than September. Richard

& I have also been to Marie Jacob, our excellent podiatrist, and in addition, Penny introduced us to Baptiste Bacci whose osteopathic sessions are pleasurably painful but incredible. On the first time with him, he eliminated the pain in my left leg that has been plaguing me for the last six months. We have been to Baptiste three times now. Pierre has given us our latest covid jabs.

I had planned to have a Dutch dinner, but Jan & Margit had to cancel their trip to the Midi when Jan suddenly went blind in one eye. Another sad and shocking thing was to learn that Shawn Arthur & his wife Karen were killed by a speeding car. Their car had broken down, and they got it to an offramp when the accident happened.

One day when we returned from afternoon coffee in town, we discovered a dying crow in our meadow. Richard went to get it water, but it had already died before he got back. The trees around were filled with a countless number of other crows squawking apparently in mourning.

I’ve had four computer sessions with Scott and am now hoping that my email sending & receiving will function better than it has. Philippe has repaired our bedroom dresser (it came with the house) when its drawers jammed & would suddenly not open at all. For the rest, I have been completing the various forms involved with our American citizenship renunciations.

Liliane came by one day & invited us to a lovely dinner at her place with Joanne, Sylvie & Yveline. We also saw Parîs. On another occasion, it was the Calalou with Penny, Joanne and Yvonne for drinks & dinner. Richard & I also went just by ourselves to the Calalou for two rounds of margaritas each. Chez nous, with Joanne, Yvonne & Teri we had a drunken & fun whisky evening (Coal Ila, Laphroaig & Lagavulin). Richard made a pasta; I, a fruit salad. On the 21st, we fetched Gin and Catherine in Les Arcs. The next night we enjoyed a lovely meal at Solea. The gals stayed with us for a week. In addition, Richard & I celebrated Joanne’s birthday at Yvonne’s along with Nadine. Dirty martinis & finally the champagne I had brought. Quite inebriated & the most delicious food. And, near the end of the month, Jessica picked us up & then Penny for La Table with Becky, Leonard and Matt. This was perfect. We also had coffee at the marché with Marijke.

The weather for much of the month had been cold, windy and even wet. Most dinners we had in the kitchen with a fire in the hearth. Around the 20th, the weather finally began to warm, and we have been having an un-May like heat wave since – frequently reaching to 32C. In all, Richard & I have been enjoying our Saturday evening negroni & weed rituals as infinitely cosmically radiating moments. Some of my thoughts on these occasions: The gods may be no more eternal as anything else, but they serve as here-and-now archetypes or metaphors to be thanked for what there is. In other words, the gods exist to be thanked; that's what they are for. And, “I laugh at you, immensity, in this moment here-and-now of utter happiness.” Probably, if there is anything that most sums up the core of my being, it would be Ravel’s Daphnis & Chloe.

On Facebook, I posted the following:

“It can be nothing other than an entire privilege to have the enduring & utterly happy relationship I have had. He is now 88; me, 86. And we are fully aware of the final ephemerality.

“Maybe there's absolutely no meaning ultimately to human existence. But all the same, what the human species has produced as animals with thumbs and tongues is incredible in terms of artistic and technological achievement. Probably in this incomprehensibly immense cosmos, it all comes to and means nothing. But despite our collateral production of dust, waste & pollution, what we have been able to achieve is nothing short of miraculous.

“It would of course be even more miraculous if we all could come together harmoniously and globally rather than the prevailing 'me and mine' alone divisiveness. Despite my insistent militant optimism, that last does seem less and less to be a tangible possibility. If so, so be it! What we have done is still a miraculous achievement, and let that then be our contribution to the overall history of the cosmos!”

The responses I have received on this have all been lovely.