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Writers’ Block

Writers’ Block

 by Leo Racicot

For nine years, I was lucky to live on what’s known as The Writers’ Block; two streets, Francis Avenue and Irving, a stone’s throw away from Harvard College, Cambridge.

In exchange for my room, I worked for two former members of The Roosevelt Era, caring for their disabled son and cooking for them and their live-in staff, a rotating door of handsome jocks and scholars matriculating at area universities (Harvard, M.I.T., B.U., B.C.).

My job was hard. To keep from going stark raving mad, on my day off, I’d make little forays into this illustrious enclave.

My first stop was always 104 Irving Street where e e cummings plied his trade. I loved standing there. There was about the spot a green, leafy magic, playful, ghostly, strange. You could feel the creative spirit bubbling out from every corner and crack. This was before the city encased e e’s house in a too-tall wood picket stockade. Still, this didn’t keep me away. The blue, oval sign remained: “e e cummings Birthplace of the Poet and Painter who wrote of “the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls” 1894-1962. Literary nerd that I am, just being able to stand there gazing at the plaque brought vertiginous delight.

Wending my way from here toward the Moorish arch (Irving and Francis Ave. form a horseshoe), I liked next to hit the William James estate at 95 Irving, as dignified, stately and coo-coo eccentric as the man himself – it’s said James fell in love so completely with his own design for the place, he moved himself and his family lock, stock and barrel in way before the work was completed. So much for Pragmatism!

Oral and written accounts by neighbors have it that “a lamp was going 24 hours in the old thinker’s second floor study.”

Being in the shadow of Harvard, always there were the celebrity encounters, the unexpected run-ins. The area, known by some as “Professors’ Row”, was home to scholars of the time: noted historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who wrote so glowingly of his friends, John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and his wife, artist, author, Marian Cannon Schlesinger, became acquaintances, as did the Lords, Albert, Harvard Slavic and Comparative Lit. expert, and Mary Louise, still a Classics legend at Bates College where she held sway for decades. Through the years, I met, ran into, chatted up or saw Wynton Marsalis, Peter Gomes, George Plimpton (tall as a sequoia) standing sturdy, commanding the corner of Francis and Kirkland. Jamaica Kincaid, a regular visitor, could always be counted on for a courtly, “How do?”. She smelled like a garden. When she was teaching at Harvard, she was often a guest at Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr.’s house, a screaming Miami yellow Art Deco wedding cake totally out-of-place on tony Francis Avenue. He, sad to say, was one of the worst-behaved people I have ever met; Gates raised self-importance to new heights and was openly hostile to our autistic charge, Hilken. I admit I dined on the most delicious plate of Schadenfreude the time a cop caught Gates climbing into his own home, mistook him for a burglar and hauled him in to the station.

Our neighborhood also claimed as residents Justin Kaplan, author of the definite Walt Whitman biography, and his wife, the writer, Anne Bernays. Justin’s crusty, crotchety exterior belied a splendid, gentlemanly interior. Anne could be serious but loved to share tales of how smart her friend, Marilyn Monroe, had been: “She read Chekhov. She had a totally different voice in private, you know. Not at all the purring baby kitten voice you hear on screen. That girl knew what she was doing.”

One time, I saw John Cage and Merce Cunningham stop mid-Harvard Yard to do an impromptu, little ballet. I gasped. I also got chummy with the heralded statesman of the Kennedy years, John Kenneth Galbraith and his darling, fashionista wife, Kitty. John Kenneth was even taller than George Plimpton, a spellbinding raconteur and fine art collector. Kitty enthralled annual Block Party audiences with her stories of Camelot and D.C.  Her decline became evident when, at what was to be her final appearance, she related “the time Jackie, atop a ceremonial elephant, came riding right here up Francis Avenue”, likely confusing a trip she and John Kenneth had made with Jackie and Lee Radziwill to Pakistan and India in 1962. John Kenneth and Kitty were both beyond liberal. When Kitty found out I was a practicing Buddhist,  she said, “But what good is all that navel watching going to do The People ??”

Across the street from e e cummings, at 104 Irving, was Julia Child’s place. I’d met Julia courtesy of our mutual friend, M.F.K. Fisher. Then, sometime after I moved to The Writers’ Block, we reacquainted. I spent many happy hours in that now-iconic kitchen. Julia, interestingly, didn’t care much for shop talk. She was a whiz though on other topics: politics, space travel, world religions. The one subject I recall her waxing poetic about was McDonald’s French Fries. Through Julia I got to meet James Beard, Cynthia McFadden. Olympia Dukakis. The most fun I ever had with Julia was at the Wilbur Theater production of “Bon Appetit!”, Lee Holby’s operatic monologue starring Jean Stapleton as a singing Julia. Jean’s husband, John Putch, was a wreck fearing Julia would be offended by Jean’s portrayal but Julia ate it up. This was in around 1989.

Not everyone on The Block was a well-known; a plumber and his wife, the Lawtons, lived next door. He was genial. She liked to drink and when she got bored would spend her afternoon throwing heavy appliances out the window.  Masa Higo liked to joke that our employer, Ilda Shea, was “sooo full of herself and yet – nothing to back it up!” This wasn’t true; Ms. Shea studied philosophy at Radcliffe and was a favored pupil of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. She went on to become the first female to lead the class at Yale Law School. “The men hated me”, she liked to say. Ilda was also instrumental in the formation of the F.C.C. and counted among her friends and colleagues, Alger Hiss, Abe Fortas and Edward Bernays. More than once, Fortas asked her to marry him. She said, “I mean, a Jew marrying a Jew ?? Too obvious.” I didn’t know what she meant but it still gives me the chuckles. Ms. Shea wasn’t as ostentatious as her neighbors and had a marked disdain for those who flaunted wealth though one time, a grease fire started in the companions’ pantry. Ms. Shea refused to leave without her mink coat. The sight of her (mind you, she was in her 90s), carefully inching her way down the driveway in her fur and ever-present white platform pumps is one I hope never to unsee.

My lifelong friend, professor, mentor, Brother Bob Bousquet, a Xaverian, loved The Writers’ Block as much as I did. Every Thursday, Bob, now wracked with Parkinson’s Disease, would come in from far Danvers to join me on my strolls. He was so companionable: scholar, linguist, musician. Brilliant. Bob was the absolute soul of decorum, discretion, almost saintly in his bearing. So you would never in a million years think he had a habit of busting into places he knew he wasn’t allowed. I was his partner-in-crime the time this truly holy man cooked up a scheme to get me into Widener Library’s banned-to-outsiders stacks. From his walker, he instructed, “I’ll create a diversion. I’ll pretend to fall. When the guard responds, you run as fast as you can into the stacks.” Before I could protest, Bob threw himself on the floor, the guard dashed over and Bob yelled, “Run, Leo, Run!” I leave it to you to guess the outcome of that fiasco.  Another time, Bob was drawn to the lush plants of a greenhouse near The Divinity School. Clearly, the greenhouse was the foyer of a private home. Bob went right up to the door calm as you please, opened it and walked in. Soon, we were confronted by a very nervous woman who said, firmly, “Can I help you??” Bob remained calm and smiled a beatific smile. The woman, her voice louder now, asked, “Do you realize this is a private home ??” Bob looked innocently into this woman’s eyes, a stranger in whose house he had no business being and asked, “Is Paul home?”   No doubt these “break-ins” were Bob’s small salute to Naughty. I loved that man.

Magic abounded in this magic place; it attracted birds not indigenous to cityscapes: sandpipers, loons. Once, I saw a blue heron on the grounds of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. As I approached, he didn’t spook, kept gulping hungrily at the cloud of new mosquitos around his great head, paid me no mind as if I was a tree.

Honeysuckle and wisteria walked with you as you walked. One season, the flora was so redolent, so everywhere, it near-rivalled what I imagine the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were like; you couldn’t see the sky. No summer ever was like that summer. Creative sustenance and comfort amazed me in that place; I put together many satisfying sentences. Exciting years!

These days, I live a very not-exciting life in a very unenticing city, made even less enticing by the pandemic, by lockdown, etc. Not that I’m complaining. It’s just so different, so downsized, a lesson in patience, I suppose, resilience, solitude. If I walk the streets here, I’m likely to get rolled. No celebrities knock on the door. Not every phase of life can be exciting; that would be unnatural. I’m learning, slowly, to be excited, uplifted by small blessings: the first tulip boldly popping its head, against all odds, up out of the frozen ground, a V-note in the mail from a long-forgotten friend asking how I’m doing “in this siege”. Heck, just waking up in the morning amazes me, at this age, at this stage of the game. A whole extra day to be alive. to savor Life. What a gift.

But I ramble on here. Time to put the barrels out — it’s trash night. Time to feed the cat. Time to start the supper for one instead of for 20. Time to hope I’m still around to greet the coming summer, just me, myself and I…

17 Francis Ave, Cambridge

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Blue Heron

e.e. cummings home plaque

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith and wife Kitty

Jamaica Kinkaid

Julia Child’s house at 103 Irving Street

Julia Child at Barnes and Noble in Lowell

The green, leafy magic of the Writers’ Block

William James house, 95 Irving Street

‘Tis of Thee

‘Tis of Thee

By Jessica Wilson

(Re-posted from Jessica Wilson’s own blog, A Year of Firsts.)

There was a very specific moment in my life when I formed my idea of what America means – what she is.

I was a junior in college, and because I was almost done with all of the requirements for my major, I decided to register for an Alternative Spring Break course. It included a semester-long class, as well as a trip to do community service during spring break.

That spring, I went, along with about 20 mostly white kids from Massachusetts to an all-Black settlement in Virginia called the New Road Community. While we spent the whole semester learning about the place, I was still utterly unprepared for what I saw when I arrived there.

The community was a 9-acre parcel of dirt-roads and tar paper shacks, with limited electricity and almost no indoor plumbing. People literally pumped water from big outdoor hand pumps to bring into their homes to cook, clean and drink. Folks used outhouses and families lived in just a couple of rooms. There was a chicken processing plant close by, where most people carpooled to work. It was 1997, and if you had told me just a few months earlier that people in America lived in such conditions, I would not have believed you.

The New Road community is part of the larger town of Exmore, where white people lived in suburban comfort just a short distance away from where we stayed.

The community group that hosted us was led by an amazing woman named Ruth Wise. They were in the process of raising funds for and building new homes. Her goal was to replace all of the current houses in the community with well-appointed, modern homes with electricity and running water and all of the functionality that would help New Road residents to thrive.

That week, my classmates and I slept on the floor of the New Road community center. Four amazing elders from the community made us lunch and dinner every day. We used porta potties because there were no bathrooms. We were brought to the local high school for one shower that week. While we were there we helped pick up trash in some of the lots where construction would happen, we painted a temporary home where people would live in-between when their current homes were demolished and their new homes would be completed. And mostly, we provided childcare for the many kids in the town who were also on vacation that week.

I remember a handful of kids who found us so interesting, and spent their week hanging out with us. We played games and talked and danced with them. There were little girls who wanted to play with our hair, jump rope, and get piggyback rides. There was a young boy who was so smart and was so conflicted about our presence that he had nothing nice to say to us. We loved him anyway. And there was one boy who had the body of a linebacker but just wanted to color, and laugh and eat candy and play.

There was an older man, Mike, who didn’t seem to have a steady home. He was happy-drunk most days and hung around in our vicinity. He was friendly and sweet, and told us lots of stories. I could tell the community understood his was not a sickness that would be cured, but they made space for him and cared for him, knowing doing so would reduce harm. I remember he lamented his situation, and said no one around here understood that he just liked his drink. When I told him I drank too (I was a college kid, I definitely drank!) I remember vividly he hooted and smiled and said, “thank you, thank you for saying that. I’m gonna give you a big Black kiss for saying that!” and he gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. I am not sure if it was just that I was acknowledging that I was human too, or not shaming him for his drinking or whatever made him react that way, but I just remember being overwhelmed by his joy, and feeling a kinship with him, in all of his humanity, in that moment.

After our trip, I interviewed Ruth Wise for a radio show on our college station. I wish I still had the tape, because she was amazing, and she unfortunately left this earth in July 2017. She told me about how she left the community to get her education, and came back with a dream to create better housing and a path to homeownership for the hundreds of families that called New Road home. She knew that homeownership would help families build wealth and stability for future generations, and would mean a way out of poverty for the entire community. She worked so hard to make it happen. We saw the beginnings of her dream coming to life back in 1997. Today the community of New Road has been completely built out, and the community development group she founded recently bought 30 more acres to build a new community development.

And I know that while we were helpful while we were there, Ruth obviously could have met her goals without us college kids. But part of her goal was she wanted people from outside Virginia to see what she was doing. She wanted the story to be told, she wanted allies, she wanted to spark change. And as a former teacher, she told me saw value in bringing college students to the community of New Road and introducing us to her community kids. She wanted them to understand that college was an option for them. (And maybe to see some of the weird white kids they might meet there one day!)

The reason I tell this story is because what I learned that year is that the America I had been living in had only been part of the story. I faced the big truth of what had been hidden from me when I went to New Road.

America is a two sided story. Those like me who were raised in comfort are granted a privilege to ignore the needs of those who are without. I was living 470 miles away from the folks in New Road, but the white residents of Exmore were only maybe a ¼ mile down the street. And all of us were just letting them live without running water, without the comforts we take for granted, without a thought. I had always believed growing up that Americans took care of each other no matter what, and when I saw that just wasn’t true, it stung. It definitely had an impact on the trajectory of my life and career, and is a huge reason why I’ve always worked for organizations that build community strength. If there was one New Road, there are definitely more, and the fact that we don’t see all of the people in our country equally, and care about their needs equally, is an indelible part of my American story.

America is an argument. There is “the fight” that started our country. The fights we have every day about what it means to be a democracy, how our laws should be interpreted, who should get what resources. It has always been, and probably always will be. This is our relationship pattern as a nation. Even when couples go to therapy, no one says it’s to help them stop fighting, it’s to help them fight better. The positive side of this is that America traditionally allows us to have that fight, right out in the open. People bring all kinds of weapons to that fight – real weapons as well as lies and propaganda – but hopefully we can still keep talking.

America is an opportunity. Opportunities aren’t available for everyone all the time (despite what the best selling self-help books have told me), but they do come around. And what I saw Ruth Wise do was find opportunity and create a space where she could take advantage of it on behalf of the community she loved. She knew that a bunch of modern homes, and the capital to make 250 families in poverty homeowners, wasn’t just going to happen, so she got an education, she learned the system, she found a path to funding, she found a voice to speak the truth, she found the people to walk beside her and she made it happen. That is one of the things that is beautiful to me about America – that once in a while, the people who deserve an opportunity actually get it.

America is a push and pull. Our progress has never been linear. We’ve proclaimed equality, and then taken years and years to grant everyone equal rights. We’ve ended slavery, but created new systems to mimic that unholy institution. We wobble in every direction on drinking, drugs, abortion, labor laws, and on and on. We talk a big game about personal liberties, but those liberties are not afforded to everyone in the same manner. But we keep at it. We keep pushing or pulling, because it is worth it to get it right.

Above all, to me, that trip taught me that America is a beautiful group of people. We are here for such a short time. We are granted the opportunity to live on this magical one-in-a-million planet, and care for this incredible land. It would be a shame if all we did here was fight with each other. We are so much better when we come together in joy. We are meant to work hard for each other, to care for those who need it, to raise each other’s children with the same love and care we give to our own. We are meant to use our whole brain to learn, and then teach others. We are meant to see each other in all of our flawed humanity, and admit that we are not better than anyone else – that we are just the same, and we all are divine, and we all deserve to be loved.

And that’s why, despite (gestures broadly) I think there is a lot to celebrate on July 4th. There is knowing that we are still writing the history of this country, that we can still be the heroes of our own story. There is the memory of people like Ruth Wise – people who don’t make it into history books but absolutely deserve to be learned about, and who are as much a part of the fabric of our nation as anyone you’ll need to know for an AP history test. And there are the people in my life, the ones who I am lucky to call family and friends, who make me proud to get out of bed every day.

I will forever celebrate this beautiful America.

Ruth Wise reading guide:

Ruth Wise, Activist for Better Housing, Dies. The Daily Times, July 28, 2017

Ruth Wise Kellam obituary

Virginia Senate Resolution Celebrating the life of Ruth Wise, 2018

New Road Community Development Group Facebook page

Go Jump in the . . . Seine! 2.0

Go jump in the …Seine! 2.0

By Louise Peloquin

     During the summer of 2024, seven blog pieces covered the Paris Olympic Games with three on swimming in the Seine. (1) A year later, Paris mayor Annie Hidalgo and her team want to keep Parisian dog day blues at bay with a plan. What better way to cool off heat-heavy heads than by opening swimming sites as part of the yearly “Paris-Plages” event? (2) 

At a swimming project steering committee meeting on May 21st, Mayor Hidalgo announced the creation of three river swimming zones from July 5th to August 31st and added that she would slip on her Speedo on opening day. “Yes, I shall swim in the Seine” she declared.

This was surely the most awaited heritage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Following last year’s Olympian triathletes, the general public is finally be able to take the plunge after a hundred-year Seine swimming prohibition.

Three sites are open: Bras Marie in the city center; Grenelle port in the XVth arrondissement (3) and Bercy in the XIIth arrondissement. However, getting one’s laps in will not be possible on a daily basis. “According to a sanitary protocol established with State services and the regional health agency, the sites will be closed when conditions do not allow for swimmer security, for example in the event of strong water current or overly abundant rains” according to a City of Paris communiqué. Flags of three different colors indicate the condition of each site and information related to water quality is available online. “We shall make sure that the sites are accessible” Annie Hidalgo promised. “Transparency is the key to confidence” she insisted.

More than 1000 places alloted to three sites

The three swimming zones are free of charge and supervised by life guards. An experience which is “much wilder than that of a swimming pool” assures Annie Hidalgo. “We wanted the installed infrastructures to be as lightweight as possible. The Bercy site is separated from boat navigation by lateral protection.” This site can welcome a total of 700 people, 300 in the water, every day between 11 AM and 9 PM. Two pools are set up to face the Bibliothèque National de France. (4)

     The Grenelle site, in front of l’Île aux Cygnes, has a shallow pool for children in the middle of a large pontoon. A zone dedicated to kayaking is also planned. This site can welcome 200 people, 150 in the water. Opening hours are Monday to Friday from 10 AM to 5:30 PM; Saturday from 10 to 12 then from 12:30 to 2:15 PM and Sunday from 2:45 PM to 5:30 PM. “This schedule allows passengers to safely board Seine cruise boats” explains Pierre Rabadan, Mayor Hidalgo’s Deputy for Sports.

Here are two AI photos of the Grenelle site:

Finally, the Bras-Marie site accommodates 150 swimmers in a 70 by 20 meter area from 8 AM to 5:30 PM on Sundays and from 8 to 11:30 AM the rest of the week. This schedule allows for the steady traffic of tourist cruise boats in the area off the right bank of l’Île Saint Louis. “On this site, it is necessary to stop navigation during swimming hours because some 350 boats pass there each day” Mr. Ramadan pointed out. Recently, in a joint communiqué, the CPP and the ETF expressed their serious concern. (5) They especially fear that these new swimming zones may “seriously perturb the balance of Paris river use.”

Our own photos of the Bras-Marie site:

 Water quality even better than in 2024

Marc Guillaume, Île-de-France and Paris régional Prefect, announced: “The water will be of even better quality than it was last summer. Since then, we have repaired 2000 plumbing connections from buildings and houses which discharge their waste water directly into the river.”

Since 2016, with the 2024 Olympics in mind, a vast swimming plan costing 1.1 billion euros – 50% State funded – was launched to improve the quality of the Seine and the Marne water. (6) “Together we have succeeded where many believed we would fail despite difficult meteorological conditions” bragged Marie Barsacq, France’s Minister of Sports.

Here’s hoping those who go jump in the Seine find refreshing waters during the brutal urban heatwaves. Cannonballing into the Seine is a leap of faith!

****

1. Here are last year’s pieces on Olympic swimming in the Seine:

https://richardhowe.com/2024/07/09/the-last-lap-pariss-summer-olympics/

https://richardhowe.com/2024/07/16/olympic-happy-hour-ahead/

https://richardhowe.com/2024/07/24/go-jump-in-theseine/

2) Since 2007, from July to the beginning of September, the City of Paris sets up artificial sandy beaches along the Seine – “Paris-Plages.” All are welcome and entrance is free.

3) “Arrondissement” translates to city district or borough. Paris has 20 arrondissements.

4) National Library of France.

5) CPP – Comité Portuaire de Paris (Paris Port Committee) and EFF – Enterprises Fluviales de France (French River Enterprises).

6) The Marne is an eastern tributary of the Seine in the area east and southeast of Paris.

Literary fireworks for the July 4th holiday by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is one of the most captivating works of fiction I’ve read in a long time. (I thank my reliable source Beth G. for the recommendation.)  Set in rural England, this is a story of youthful passion,  class differences, family loyalty, secrets, crime, coverups, abiding love, wrong decisions, their consequences, guilt, and ultimately redemption. The story starts with a trial, which hooks the reader from the beginning.

A key question is: can a woman love two men simultaneously? What are the consequences if she does? The story is told from the perspective of fictional “Beth Johnson,” a teenager and aspiring poet. Her first love, Gabriel Wolfe, who shares her literary interests, comes from an affluent family living at Meadowlands, an estate in Hempton, England. His mother makes it clear that Beth is not deemed a suitable match for Gabriel.

The story goes back and forth largely between two time periods, around 1955 at the time of their summertime involvement, and, more pivotally, 1968, when major life-changing events take place. A later period, toward the end of the book, brings the reader to 1975 and still more revelations. Using the time periods as chapter titles helps the reader navigate.

There’s a teenage pregnancy, miscommunication between the two teenagers and malicious interference by Gabriel’s mother.  But Broken Country is definitely not chick lit. Young farmer Frank enters the picture. Clue: he’s a mensch. There’s a much beloved child and a terrible tragedy.  There’s a deeply troubled, alcoholic brother given to acting out as a youngster and violence as an adult with issues unresolved since his mother’s untimely death.  There’s a returned lover, an affair, guilt, rage and a killing.

Beth Johnson herself raises the most probing questions: How does someone tremulously cross the line into infidelity? And how does that infidelity become daily routine? How can she continue hurting her husband, whom she also loves? To what extent is the scandalous affair rooted in nostalgia for the past? How can her husband look away?   We know from the beginning that there is a trial, but who exactly is on trial, and who was the victim? Who lies under oath, and why? Who will emerge from the love triangle, and who gets hurt from it?  How do marriages and lives get mended?

The story lines here are quite messy, but life isn’t tidy, and Hall dives deep into her characters’ humanity. She includes a poem at the end, proving, I suppose, that she does finally get back to her writing, but the poem, written to her husband, is somewhat perplexing. I’d welcome readers’ reactions to it.  (It didn’t add much for me.)

The bottom line, however, is the following: Set against the well-described natural beauties of the landscape and the arduous daily work of farm life, Hall’s debut novel presents a blend of story telling and setting that is riveting. A reader can easily succumb to the lure of a compelling narrative that will stay with you throughout and beyond the quickly-consumed 304 pages.