the cassandra pages

A Mexico City Sketchbook - Part II

The Quiet Lives of Objects

 

 

Sculpture by Gabriel Orozco at the Museo Jumex, Mexico City.

Because I was dissatisfied with the first page of my sketchbook (oh, that first blank page! No wonder it stares at us!) I was reluctant to do another landscape right away. On our first full day in the city, we went to the Museo Jumex, a relatively new contemporary art museum in Polanco. We had visited it seven years ago, not long after it had opened, and loved both the building itself and the three floors of related shows. This time, after a good lunch in the small ground-floor restaurant, we spent most of the afternoon looking at a retrospective exhibition of Gabriel Orozco (no relation to the muralist, though his father worked with David Siqueiros). His work is inventive, often humorous, wide-ranging in both subject and media, and original.

 

One of Orozco’s carved river rocks in the foreground, with distressed soccer balls beyond the glass wall.

In one gallery, hundreds of distressed and altered soccer balls filled a corner and were scattered along a corridor, while inside the glass walls where they rested, a giant skeleton of an invented whale-like animal hung from the ceiling, while carved river rocks — echoing the soccer balls nearby — provided grounding.

Orozco’s creations make the viewer question the notion of time and creation — what creature’s skeleton is this, hanging here like a dinosaur in a museum? Who made it? How did these pieces of rounded stone that look so familiar become carved with natural forms? What are they doing here?

 

River rock carved by Gabriel Orozco. Watercolor, 5 1/4 x 8”.

I was very taken with these altered rocks, and that evening, I did a painting of one of them. It was the first detailed, dry brush watercolor I’ve done in a long while, and it led me to make several others over the course of the two weeks. I also did one pencil drawing, of a bottle brush tree flower.

 

These pictures feel appropriate, not just because flowers and fruit are common subjects for me, or because I’m drawn to natural forms. Orozco’s soccer balls and rocks felt like still lives. They made me think about a more expansive definition of “still life”, especially in Mexico where color and form are omnipresent.

But they are also quiet. “Still.” Now, these drawings and paintings punctuate my sketchbook, providing moments of reflection for the viewer between busier scenes.

 

The hyper-realism is a way to remember that goes beyond photography…

 

…and the study that’s necessary to do one of these paintings means that I’ll never look at an citrus peel or a bougainvillea flower the same way again.

 

Or a cut pineapple, for that matter.

 

Looking back, remembering myself making these small paintings, I realize that they were important meditations for me at the time. Our days were busy, and full of intense sensory impressions. Sitting down to make one of these paintings was a way of centering myself and concentrating with focus and intention. And, for me, they were a witness to beauty that, belying their subjects’ fragility, stood as a bulwark against the daily onslaught of news from the north.

A Mexico City Sketchbook - Part I

 

Street scene with bougainvillea, Bahía de Todos Los Santos, Mexico City. Direct watercolor, 5 1/4” x 8”.

TECHNICAL DECISIONS AND SOLVING PROBLEMS

Our trip to Mexico City was planned for 15 days, essentially, with the first and last taken up with travel. I’d hoped to do about one sketch a day - so 12 or 13 - but managed to complete 18 pages. I’m hoping to be able to do some more from photographic references or objects over the weeks to come, while my eyes still retain the light and color memory of being there.

It’s actually hard to keep a daily sketchbook with the way we travel. We were on the go so much when out of our lodging that I never brought my watercolors with me, since I knew I wouldn’t have the time it takes to do a color sketch. Although I prefer direct watercolor sketches (like the one at the top of this post) to anything else, I decided to take a couple of fountain pens and the sketchbook with me in my purse when we went out, and to do watercolor work — either direct watercolor paintings or watercolor added to ink drawings — when we were back in the apartment.

In both of the places where we stayed, I ended up setting up a little space to work, and paying attention to the sketchbook for some time each morning and evening. The second apartment, in Coyoacan, actually had a drafting table and excellent light fixture, so I was very happy about that!

 

Working on the kitchen counter in our first apartment.

I hadn’t expected to do detailed watercolors of objects, but it just kind of happened because of working at home. I gathered some blooms and pods when walking around, and also used fruits that we had purchased to eat. This became a thread that weaves throughout the sketchbook, as well as a meditation for me as I worked on them. I’ll devote a post to those pieces later on.

 

The very first sketch, done in ink on location in the Chapultepec woods, displeased me when I added the color:

 

Chapultepec woods.

I tend to prefer landscape scenes drawn in ink or pencil alone, or done in watercolor only, because they look to me more like art and less like illustrations. It depends what you’re trying to do. Nevertheless, as it turned out, I did use ink-plus-watercolor, or ink-plus-light washes, for quite a few of the pages. I made sure to take photos of the ink drawings alone before adding color, to keep a record of both.

 

In this pair of before-and-after drawings, the washes in olive green and light blue-grey, below, are really helpful in bringing out the depth and definition of the scene depicted.

 

Saturday street market and neighborhood seen from the Vasconceles library, Buenavista.

A problem arose halfway through our trip - my favorite fountain pen ran out of ink. I had brought more ink (in a repurposed eye drop bottle). The pen uses a cartridge that I refill with a dental syringe with a thick tip, but I hadn’t wanted to fly with that, thinking it might be flagged. First I went to an art supply store, but the best they could do were some pipettes. When I tried using them to refill the cartridge, the holes were too big and the ink flowed way too fast — I narrowly avoided making a huge mess. A few days later I went to a pharmacy and asked (with the help of Google Translate) for a syringe the size I needed. It was no problem to purchase, so I was able to get my pen back in order.

 

An ink drawing in the cactus garden of the Viveros arboretum in Coyoacan, using my fude-nib pen.

In the meantime, though, I had been using my Sailor fude-nib pen, which creates a variable line depending on the angle and pressure. It was filled with the same olive green-grey ink (Noodler’s “El Lawrence”) as my preferred fountain pen, and I decided to use it rather than my back-up fountain pen, a Moonman filled with blue ink, because at that point the sketchbook had a coherence, I felt, because of the same color ink being used throughout.

 

View southwest from a Coyoacan rooftop

However, one of my favorite drawings (above) was done during that interim period with that blue ink pen, which has a very fine nib. I had gone up on the rooftop one morning to hang up some laundry to dry, and was struck by the landscape I saw. The fude-nib pen was simply too thick to do justice to the drawing I imagined, so I used the blue ink pen with its fine nib. Its problem, in addition to the ink color, is that it tends to leak during flights. I didn’t realize the seal had leaked until I was nearly done with this sketch, and suddenly a large blob fell on the trees in the upper left! Nothing to do but accept it as part of the accidental nature of life and art! This sketch, which didn’t take too long to create, showed me that I’ve progressed in my ability to simplify and draw complex urban perspectives.

As you can maybe infer from what’s written and illustrated here, I’ve been trying to figure out what I want a travel sketchbook to be, and how to give it coherence as a document or record of a place or a period in time. I didn’t impose a single vision on this one, but tried various techniques and styles (and you’ll see more subsequently). I was happy that my work feels solid enough now that I can experiment and think in this way, rather than just being gratified to get something down on paper and not ruin too many pages. I wanted to allow spontaneity to show me things too. If I’d been rigid and refused to use my blue pen that day, for instance, that sketch wouldn’t have happened, and I’d be sorry. A sketchbook, after all, isn’t meant to be a book of finished, perfected drawings, but faster impressions of distinct moments in time that contain, one hopes, traces of the artist’s hand as well as their choices of what to stop and draw, and their feelings as they do so.

 

 

 

International Women's Day, Montreal

This morning, my husband and I participated in a demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Montreal in observance of International Women’s Day, and in protest against the assault on women’s rights taking place in the U.S. The leaders spoke, both in French and English, in solidarity with American women and the American people, while saying “We are strong, we will never surrender.” During ten minutes of silence we remembered women who have been victims of violence in both our countries, and particularly the young women who were killed in the anti-feminist Ecole Polytechnic Massacre in 1989 — an event that shocked and further galvanized the already-strong women’s movement here in Quebec.

I was very glad to be part of this event today, to feel the intensity and deep emotion of the crowd of thousands gathered in freezing weather, to read the signs they had brought, and more especially to see the emotion and determination in the faces of the people.

 

 

This great sign says, “Know Your Parasites! Prevent fascist-borne disease in Canada!” and under the photos: “Deer tick,” “dog tick,” “Lunatick” (under Trump). and “Psychotick,” (under Musk.) Photo © 2025 Jonathan Sa’adah.

It’s been a very difficult week. We are beginning to see how far this administration intends to go to stifle dissent and free speech, both inside and outside the government; to attack the economic security and sovereignty of nations including Canada; to steal from the people and destroy the very foundations of government. Staunch allies and defenders of democracy have been attacked and disrespected, as the administration sides with Putin and other right-wing dictators. They’re talking about pardoning the killer of George Floyd. Arts events featuring black and ethnic artists are being cancelled all over the country. The removal of 400 million dollars of federal grants and contracts from Columbia University, on charges of antisemitism for allowing pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year, bodes very badly for the right of universities to free speech, dissent, and autonomy — and may result in widespread purges of faculty and staff. This is McCarthyism. Worse yet, all of these accusations are based partly or fully on lies.

The majority of Americans, and the majority of the world, know this, but the Republican Congress, cowed by Musk’s threats to defeat any disloyal members by buying the next elections, is almost entirely acquiescent, ignoring their vow to uphold the Constitution. Institutions, fearing the loss of funding, are caving in prematurely. Most faith leaders have been disturbingly silent. The Democrats have yet to mount any kind of coherent, organized opposition, leaving this to elders like Bernie Sanders, who, in his 80s, is on a tour of town halls in the Midwest, taking directly to voters.

Racism, misogyny, and hatred of anyone who isn’t white, heterosexual and male lie at the bottom of this far-right doctrine. I read a good part of Project 2025 this week. It’s all in there, laid out clearly, and it is chilling. Take a look at the list of words the Trump administration is banning from government websites and using as grounds for withdrawing grant awards (this list was culled from search terms searched and flagged in National Science Foundation grants). Do you see anything referring to male, men, masculinity? Of course not. But the rest of us are in the crosshairs.

 

 

The signs read: “C’est mon corps” - “It’s my body”; “Femmes souveraines” - “Sovereign Women”; C”e ne sont pas le femmes qui sont fragiles, ce sont leur droits” - “It’s not women who are fragile, it’s their rights,” “Queers Against Trump, Nazis, Poilievre” (Pierre Poilievre is the conservative candidate for Prime Minister) and - my favorite - “You can’t erase the one who creates.” Photo © 2025 Jonathan Sa’adah.

In Canada, and in the media and on talk shows, some are still treating Trump’s anti-Canadian threats as a joke, but he’s absolutely serious. We have to act quickly and decisively to strengthen our bonds and our country and prepare for a rough near-future. In a published comment to The New York Times on the article linked in this paragraph, I wrote:

Cassandra | Montreal
@Stefan Bichis Thank you for stating the clear and present danger, and the lack of serious reporting, Stefan. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd lie awake at night thinking about real possibilities like these, while much of the media are still treating them as a joke. Have Americans considered how rapidly their government is making them far less safe from terrorism, through Trump's threats against Gaza and support for the annexation of the West Bank, for instance? My father fought alongside Canadians in WWII; now Trump trashes the sacrifices and trust of all of America's allies. When are people going to get real?

Make no mistake: we cannot count on our elected governments to do this for us — we, the people, have to make ourselves heard. That means you. I’ve been an activist all my life, so it’s not difficult for me, but I understand why it can be hard for those who’ve never gotten involved. If you need encouragement, write to me, and I’ll try to help! But please find something to do, and do it; don’t expect others to do the work of upholding your current way of life. That’s what protecting democracy means. It comes down to WE, the PEOPLE.

Put your feet on the ground during demonstrations at your state capitals, in your own city, at Tesla dealerships— numbers do matter, and you will feel better to be in company with like-minded people. Get off Facebook and X. Stop buying from Amazon and supporting the billionaires who are bankrolling the far-right. Sign up and write Postcards for Voters. Join Indivisible or MoveOn; donate to these and other progressive organizations such as the ACLU. Keep contacting your representatives. Canadians, join the Pledge for Canada. As much as possible, buy Canadian. Cancel your US travel.

 

There were a lot of kids whose parents had brought them, and a number of supportive men too. Photo © 2025 Jonathan Sa’adah.

On this important day, I want to say a final word to my fellow women: there are those who want to silence and erase us, but that will never be possible. Women’s solidarity is the most powerful counter-force in the world against violence, hatred and the destruction of human rights and human life, and it has always been so. Don’t ever forget it! Please use your one life and your one voice in support of what you know to be true, and never allow fear to stop you.

(I promise the next post will be about art, beauty, and self-preservation in the face of all the negativity we’re exposed to right now.)

A Letter from the Neighbors

 

Mural on Cierre de Circuito Cetram, Chapultepec, Mexico City

I’ve just returned to Canada after two weeks in Mexico City. Just when our return flight left the Gulf of Mexico and entered American air space, the pilot announced that we would be entering “a zone of moderate or severe turbulence.” He wasn’t being ironic. As it turned out, the turbulence we felt wasn’t too bad — but we were, after all, far up in the sky and the pilot was able to make adjustments...

During those two flights, which I’ve taken a number of times, I was never more aware of Canada and Mexico’s positions as neighbors of the United States, and, now, of the unenviable status we share. I traced our route on the in-flight map, thinking about familiar places in the U.S., my original home. But I have never been happier to fly over it without stopping, to spend my time and money in Mexico — a country and a people I love — and then go home to Canada.

 

A small portion of Mexico City, seen from the air not long before landing.

Being in Mexico City was both wonderful and clarifying. In that vast metropolis of 22 million people, a small percentage are wealthy but the majority are definitely not. In the streets and subways you are confronted with human suffering and afflictions one would rarely encounter on the streets of an American or Canadian city. Water flowed freely in our hotel and rented apartments, but up on the sides of the volcanic mountains ringing the city, many Mexicans have none, and are forced to walk long distances to carry water back to their homes, or rely on spotty water deliveries by truck. The level of security on homes in more affluent neighborhoods — heavy locked gates, wrought iron pickets, mortared broken glass on tops of walls, and even coils of razor wire — as well as guards armed with shotguns or even machine guns outside some businesses, showed that theft and violence are feared and even expected.

 

Itinerant vegetable stall, with artichokes and asparagus, in Coyoacan.

Yet, it was clear that no matter what, daily life goes on. In that society, where the family is strong and central, people take care of each other; give pesos to beggars; support their local economies by buying from street vendors, many of whom are indigenous; participate in churches and other organizations that help those in need. Are they happy or unhappy? Some are definitely suffering. But I saw much more joy, laughter, awareness of others, kindness and genuine helpfulness than I usually do in public places at home. I observed this in simple interactions over food or travel; I felt it particularly when I talked to people in more detail or found myself in groups where we were all sharing or enjoying something together — music, dance, gardens, walking in a park, buying juice from a street vender. People are simply more human with each other. When someone gets up to give you their seat on the subway, they smile at you and speak, and make sure to make eye contact again when one of you leaves the car. Standing around a group of musicians playing on the street, the crowd interacts, dancing and catching each other’s eyes to share in the pleasure — and these are mixed groups of strangers, from the well-dressed to the tattered, all bonded by this moment of discovery and sharing of something joyful that is being given for free.

 

Dancing in the Alameda Central - a park in the center of Mexico City — on a Saturday night.

It made me think a lot about the time I spend sitting at my computer, versus the time I am with others. The time I spend in my head thinking, anticipating, and worrying — as opposed to really being in the present moment, doing things with my hands, actually learning something, having conversations, playing my instruments, observing the real world. The time I spend agonizing about politics and governmental failures, when so much of the power to make others feel better, and to make life happier, lies with each of us — and will continue to do so, no matter what happens in the larger world.

I did a lot of drawing while we were there. I tried to do at least one page in my sketchbook every day, and ended up with a bit more than that — with lots of material I hope to add now that we’re back home. I’ll show you more in subsequent posts, and try to share more of the beauty and complexity that we were fortunate to be immersed in.

 

Mural depicting Emiliano Zapata (8 August 1879 – 10 April 1919), peasant leader of the Mexican Revolution, by the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. Soumaya Museum, CDMX.

Most of all, I was grateful to fall in love again with this astonishing city I’ve visited many times before, but hadn’t seen for seven years. It’s big, it’s difficult, it’s very old and very new at the same time — amazing, and bottomless. In the Mexicans’ resilience, tenacity, and pride, I felt encouraged about humanity’s ability to rise above authoritarianism. I’m rooting for them, and you can be sure they are rooting for us up here in Canada.

Anticipation

 

 

 

Mexico City interior, sketched in 2018.

On Monday evening, we’re hoping to board an Air Canada jet and fly to Mexico City. Watching the snow fall all day, and listening to the strong winds howling outside my window, I’m glad our flight isn’t scheduled for tonight, because I’m not sure it would take off. There’s more snow coming over the weekend. Fingers crossed.

 

Same room, different angle. On the couch is a sweater-in-progress that I was knitting — and now wear all the time. I packed that same little ink bottle and sea sponge today.

For six or seven years, we went to Mexico City for a couple of weeks nearly every winter. Our last trip was in 2018. We had planned to go there in early March 2020: ill-fated timing. Here’s the beginning of a blog entry back then:

Monday, March 8, 2020

We were supposed to be waking up this morning in the warmth and color of Mexico City, but instead, I'm looking out the window at wan sunshine on melting ice, and the grey snow that lines the streets of Montreal. Like many other people, we reluctantly cancelled our travel plans at the last minute -- in fact, half an hour before we were going to call the taxi to the airport -- and have been trying to re-set our heads as well as our clocks, and adjust to an unpredictable and uncharted short-term future.

In the next paragraphs I write about what we’ll be doing “for the next weeks.” My choices of words brought home the optimism many of us felt — that the period of caution would be over in a matter of weeks or a few months. I wonder what we all would have done if we’d been told the pandemic would last for years, disrupt all of our lives, and cause the deaths of so many millions of people. Good thing we didn’t know. And I wonder what I’ll feel, looking back at this post five years from now, written at the beginning of another unpredictable and scary period of time.

 

A watercolor of a red bottle-brush tree flower, Mexico City, 2017.

Tonight, after a day where the view from my window resembled Siberia, I’m trying to concentrate on sunshine and the colors of painted stucco, bougainvillea, and jacaranda trees. I spent time this afternoon getting my art supplies in order, cleaning my small watercolor palette box, making a swatch strip to make sure those were the colors I wanted to take, cleaning and refilling fountain pens, choosing a small group of mechanical pencils and travel brushes, and packing it as efficiently as possible.

I’m anxious to see how my sketching has improved since I was last in Mexico City. There’s so much detail and complexity in every view — this used to be a big problem for me but I hope I’ve gotten better. The biggest obstacle I anticipate is not having enough hours for it, since we always go with the intention to take plenty of time for photography and drawing, but end up doing far more moving around each day than we planned. For the first part of the trip, we’ll be staying in Mexico City itself, and then we’ll move to the quieter southern area of Coyoacan.

I look forward to sending you some pictures of beauty from our North American neighbor in the south. I also hope that it will be a restorative and strengthening period of time, and that I return with renewed hope in humanity and more ideas for what I can do to help.

 

Colonia Roma, looking west.

Call Your Representatives

It's easy and makes a big difference. Here's how.

 

People have been asking me what they can do. Here’s one of the most effective things: call your U.S. Senators and Representatives. It makes a significant impact, even if they are Republicans. As the website linked below explains:

Other kinds of messages take longer. Emails have to be manually read and sorted. Faxes have to be digitized and emailed. Letters and postcards take time to arrive and get processed. By contrast, congressional staffers tally phone calls right away.

5Calls makes it easy for you to call your Senators and Congress People. You first enter your location. 5 Calls shows you the phone numbers of your delegation, and takes you through a very easy process in order. Prior to dialing, you will be asked to choose an issue, and then given a short script which you can read or adapt as you wish when your call is connected. You may speak to a real person or be asked to leave your message via voicemail. In my case, calling my three Vermont representatives, I talked to two real people, and got voicemail for Bernie Sanders. My message today was about Trump’s aggression against Gaza, and his threats against Canada, making it clear that I was a dual citizen. One of the call-takers said that my congresswoman especially appreciated personal stories, such as my witness to the anxiety of my Canadian neighbors and friends.

I will call again in a few days and choose another issue to speak about.

If you need more convincing, watch the video of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) in this post on Chop Wood, Carry Water. She explains why calling is one of the most important things you need to be doing, EVEN IF you have Republican representatives, and why Republicans are so much more consistent and committed to doing this than Democrats — a behavior that has to change.

If you’ve never done this sort of thing, it can feel intimidating, but it really isn’t. The script helps you from hemming and hawing; it’s a short, effective way of registering your complaint or outrage. And I guarantee you — once you’ve done it, you’ll feel better, and making the next call will be much easier. Bravo to you!

The Changing Landscape

 

View from my studio. 2.4.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)

This week, looking closely at the view from my studio window, and trying to capture it in a series of loose watercolor sketches, has helped me maintain my sanity. During the time I’m painting, I’m not thinking about anything else. There’s the perspective of parallel, gridded streets and rooftops receding into the north; the softness of bare deciduous trees with the occasional conifer; the urban buildings of northern Montreal and Laval in the distance; and most of all, the changing weather and what it does to the light, the colors, and the sky.

 

View from my studio in a snowstorm. 2.6.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)

And change it does. In a week, we’ve had bright sunny days, overcast ones, and a blustery snowstorm. Yesterday was sort of in-between: warmer, partly overcast, slightly dulling the colors, with wetter pavement from the melting snow.

 

View from my studio. 2.8.2025. Watercolor in sketchbook, 3.5” x 8.25” (8.6 x 21 cm)

I’ve been drawing and painting this view ever since we moved here two and a half years ago. It’s not gorgeous. But it’s interesting to me, it’s complicated, and it’s a challenge to make something of it.

 

When I wrote the essay for my book of winter drawings, Snowy Fields, back in 2023-24, I spoke about why I sometimes work in series. It’s exploratory, I wrote, but often it’s not until later that I’m able to see deeper reasons why I was doing a particular body of work.

The initial reason I began these watercolors this week was actually quite mundane. We are going to Mexico City in a week, and I was considering taking a new watercolor sketchbook, in a more rectangular format than an older, landscape sketchbook by the same manufacturer that I used on a previous trip, more than five years ago. I wanted to test the paper remaining in the old sketchbook to see if it still suited my technique, so I started the painting at the top of this post.

 

That one painting showed me what I wanted to know; the paper would be OK. But a day or two later, when it snowed, I decided to make another sketch. And yesterday afternoon, I did another.

 

When I stepped back from the absorbing time spent painting, I realized that I’ve been thinking about how the familiar landscape of my life, of all our lives, has suddenly and radically changed. We’re facing realities and potential outcomes that shake the foundations of everything we’ve taken for granted. It’s frightening, consuming, and unpredictable. Instead of running away from that, I want to see it clearly. I want to go deeper into it and know what we’re facing — not in order to be paralyzed with dread; or to cower despairingly while praying for some savior, human or divine, to fix it; or, worst of all, capitulating in advance — but so that I can make choices and act responsibly and with integrity, whether as an individual, a friend to others, or a member of society.

In order to do that, I need to take care of myself — therefore the establishment and continuation of self-preserving, self-healing practices. I need to be well- and selectively-informed about what is actually happening: governmental actions and the motives behind them, and the various forms of push-back and resistance that are now gathering momentum. And I must discover and decide upon concrete actions to take, because clawing this thing back in the U.S. and preserving democracy in Canada are going to require ALL of us to stand up for what we believe.

The good personal news is that I feel considerably better and stronger. The shock-and-awe tactics the administration has used are clear to me now, and I’m no longer feeling as buffeted by them. The dangers and the sadistic, evil intent are absolutely real, but if we look closely, we can see what we’re facing and exactly who these people are. That is a huge step forward, because it’s the opposite of what they want. Creating confusion and keeping people overwhelmed and emotional are the name of their game. Effective opposition, instead, is going to require awareness, steely-eyed steadiness, and the patience to stay in there through the long haul. It’s a changed landscape, but one that’s coming into focus — and that’s a positive development.

What is Home?

 

The last week has been…horrific. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve had trouble sleeping and controlling my worst fears as I’ve watched a coup unfold in my country of birth, and heard the threats and completely unfair accusations against the country where I now live — the staunchest friend and ally America has ever had. Yesterday, in particular, was very difficult as we waited to see if tariffs would be levelled against Canada or not, starting a trade war that would be extremely damaging to both economies. At the last minute, they were averted for a month, but I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this.

Rough times teach us things. I’ve discovered that I truly love Canada, and feel grateful and protective of what we have here. By contrast to the U.S., we aren’t particularly nationalistic or patriotic (although Quebec has its own reasons for hanging together as a society), and have been pretty complacent about what we have here, but this period of time has shown that we will pull together strongly if threatened, and that we do appreciate and understand what makes us different.

 

I also love the U.S., where I was born and lived for the first 50 years of my life. Watching the rapidity of this attempt to tear apart the government and seize control for the executive branch; the power and access given to unelected oligarchs; the vicious attacks on some of the most vulnerable groups of people; the bullying of allies; and insistence on “respect” by a would-be dictator have appalled me. Even if we knew much of this was coming, seeing it unfold is terrible. As a dual citizen who knows history and understands the fragility of democracy, the pain I feel is tremendous.

In the past few days, though, I’ve also come to a clearer place in my head. For me, “home” isn’t a country, but the internal place where my heart resides; I carry this with me wherever I am. In terms of the public sphere, I know where right and wrong lie, and what needs to be protected — and I will put my heart and soul into doing that. But in the private sphere, I recognize what I need, and what many of us need: places of rest and beauty where we can restore ourselves, and friends of like minds with whom we can talk, mourn, and build strong community. For me, music, art, reading, and nature are essential, and I plan to delve into them every day. We need to eat well and get enough sleep. Exercise is also important; swimming has been especially good for me lately. This is self-preservation. We can’t help anyone else, or any larger cause, if we ourselves are a wreck. We need, first of all, to do this work of making an indestructible home inside ourselves.

 

Part of the great difficulty we all face is our perceived powerlessness in the face of the forces currently at work. And yet, we are never without the power that comes from a strong inner life and the conscious decisions that flow from it. While that power may not be able to stop injustice today, it gives us the strength to endure and to help the people around us, and be ready when opportunities arise.

Here are some concrete actions I’m taking:

1. Practicing the piano or my flute every day.

2. Keeping up my sketching and art practice, and making work to share with you.

3. Working on building supportive and committed community here in Montreal and within my online circles of friends.

4. I’m getting off Facebook permanently, and encouraging the organizations and groups I belong to to do likewise. (I’ve never been on X, and would find it unjustifiable.)

5. Limiting my intake of news, and reading only what is most reliable. I read The Guardian, The New York Times (in which I’ve been deeply disappointed for a long time, but it’s still important), Al Jazeera, and the CBC. ProPublica and various Substack authors (see my feed for recommendations) round out my main sources. Here, for instance, is Robert Hubbell’s Substack - a legal scholar/observer and self-described optimist who writes about politics “through a lens of hope.”

6. Becoming more involved in the Canadian electoral process to help ensure that we don’t elect a conservative government here.

7. Insisting that my Democratic representatives (I vote in Vermont as well as in Canada) do everything they can to block, obstruct, and resist the administration’s unconstitutional attempts to dismantle democracy, and to be far more visible and active opposition leaders than they have been up until now. (Bernie Sanders is an exception, and I’m proud he’s one of our senators.)

8. Asking you, the readers, how you’re doing, what you need, and what’s helping. Let’s talk to each other.

A New York City Diary: Days 4-6

 

 

At The Museum of Modern Art with one of my favorite paintings in their collection, “Ladybug” by Joan Mitchell. (And no, I didn’t intentionally dress to match it!)

1/11/2025 Saturday

Finally caught up on sleep. I woke with a headache again, maybe sinus, but it lifted after a long hot shower and some breakfast in the room. Our plan was to meet B. at MoMA in the afternoon. We made sandwiches in the room for an early lunch and then walked up Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Outside Macy's, fervent Korean evangelists with bullhorns and banners proclaimed “Jesus is Lord”. Onward to Times Square, where we stopped to take photographs. It's hard to know whether to photograph the incredible digital advertising displays, which seem to have multiplied every time we're here, or the people taking selfies with Times Square behind them. And in this center of capitalism stands a large cube, covered with a glowing neon flag, and a sign saying “US Armed Forces Recruiting Center”.

 

 

We turned right on 46^th and noticed the facade of an Episcopal Church tucked between the office buildings - St Mary the Virgin. Do you want to go in, J asked and I said yes, even if it's just to warm up. A large interior, very beautiful and old, and a noontime Mass just finishing. Clouds of incense, Rite 1 from the old prayer book, four robed priests at the high altar, perhaps a dozen communicants seated beyond the altar rail, and someone playing what sounded like a very good organ.

 

Anglo-Catholic, I decided, but not conservative in mission. The current prayer book lay on a prie-dieu in one of the chapels, and the literature at the back of the church indicated welcome to all, an open door policy and a lot of social ministry for immigrants. Several homeless people slept in the pews with their belongings piled nearby. The list of upcoming organ recitals included David Hurd, whose name I recognized - we’ve sung some of his music at the cathedral – and he was listed as the organist and music director there. Wikipedia later confirmed that it's Anglo-Catholic, and considered one of the best neo-Gothic structures of the late 19^th century. Its nickname is "Smoky Mary's" because of the copious amounts of incense they use.

 

Paul Cézanne. Still Life with Apples. 1895–98. Oil on canvas.

At MoMA, we visited an exhibition of paintings from the Lillie Bliss collection, where crowds stood predictably taking selfies in front of “Starry Night,” while a gorgeous, glowing Cezanne still life next to it had no viewers at all except me. Bliss had valued that still life so much that, unusually, she stipulated that once given to the museum, it could never be sold. (note: What I especially liked about this painting was that, instead of the primary colors that often dominate Cezanne’s still lives, this one uses a lot of beige and greyed blues in the beautiful background curtain and the tablecloth, which set off the brilliant fruit even more. The effect is both peaceful and harmonious — and can’t have been simple to achieve.) I also appreciated the chance to study Picasso's early portrait of a woman in white.

 

My sketch of Picasso’s “Woman in White.”

We sat for a while near the new installation of a floor-to-ceiling tapestry, ceramic and rope hangings, floor rocks and sound recording by Otobong Nkanga, and then went to the cafe to have a coffee and wait for B., who arrived soon after a morning of struggling with cancelled trains on his way up to Harlem and back down to the Village to leave off his instruments.

 

Otobong Nkanga, Cadence. “An all-encompassing environment of tapestry, sculpture, sound, and text that explores the turbulent rhythms of nature and society.”

We wandered through the fourth floor galleries, which present works from the 1950s through the 1970s. Unlike us, B. knew many of the performance artists whose videos were displayed so we had a personal guide. When the museum closed at 5:30 we had made it to the Thomas Schutte exhibition on 6^th floor and were sorry not to have time for more than a fast walkthrough.

Back down to LaGuardia Place, pizza takeout dinner from the Italian restaurant downstairs. B. turns down the lights and the three of us hold hands in silence before we eat. At 75 he still has ten irons in the fire and is busy all the time, as well as composing and recording folk tales with other world musicians. Having the pandemic come so soon after J.'s death must have made everything so much harder, especially with their children far away on the west coast, but he’s done amazingly well. The apartment is a little like a shrine, but it's comforting too, with B.'s huge library and desk and all the figurines and carvings and instruments from Africa, Latin America, the Pacific in the heart of it. That's what happens when you never move.

1/12/2025. Sunday

A late brunch with B. at the Noortwyck on Bleeker Street, then back to his place to talk some more and wait with him until his friend C. came to practice some songs for a concert of B.’s songs, planned in the spring. The two of them had tickets to a concert of Middle Eastern music in a club that had sounded too crowded to us. But C. hadn't arrived before we left at 4:00; the trains from the Upper East Side were still all screwed up.

1/13/2025. Monday
Weather chilly but a lot warmer than home, and today was above 40 F.

 

Ambroglio Lorenzetti, The Annunciation, 1344, tempera on panel.

letter to a friend: “Today we saw the Siena exhibition at the Met, with T. who had come down to go to it with us. They've assembled treasures from all over the world, including the eight panels of Duccio's back predella of the Maesta. The panels are in various states of restoration, depending on the wealth and inclinations of the lending institutions, but Duccio's narrative power is clear in all of them. And the colors! I was especially struck by the panel where Jesus calls Peter and Andrew who are in a boat with a net full of fish by its side, in the water – ‘I will teach you to be fishers of men’ and ‘The Raising of Lazarus,’ which I've loved for years but never seen in person (it's in Houston). There were also some astonishing ivory carvings. (How were they made? Where and how did they procure such large pieces of ivory?) and many works by the Lorenzetti brothers and Simone Martini. The installation is extremely thoughtful and well-done down to the last detail — black walls, black columns mimicking a cathedral, and widely-spaced objects lit like jewels — and of course they are jewel-like, with all the gilding. A triumph of curation, to assemble these works, and I feel so fortunate to have seen them.”

 

Duccio. The two right-most panels of the back predella of the Maesta, about 1308-11.

In retrospect, I keep thinking about those eight panels by Duccio, separated for centuries, and together now, briefly, for this exhibition here and in London. Paintings aren’t living beings, but I can’t help but think of them that way, as if they are siblings reunited for this brief time, with some awareness of that fact. You stand before them and sense Duccio’s hand and his mind as well, making so many decisions that broke with the iconographic past. He told the story in such a human way, with a cohesive vision from panel to panel, carried out not only through color and composition, but with emotional content. When the panels are separated, most of this original intent cannot be seen or felt. As I look at the reproductions in the catalog, beautifully printed in Italy, even there you cannot see or feel half of what it is like to stand in front of the real works themselves. So perhaps that was what moved me so much: this brief moment of coherence when Duccio’s idea, and his brilliant execution of it, could again be appreciated by those of us who were privileged to be there in person.

 

A sketch of “The Raising of Lazarus”, done from my photograph after coming back, in order to study Duccio’s composition.

We also saw an exhibition of works by Jesse Krimes, who was incarcerated for six years and conceived several very large installations during that time, using materials that were issued to him or available at low cost in the prison commissary. It’s hard to describe these powerful works; you can see more about them in the video linked above. One installation was a whole wall of tiny pebbles, wrapped with different colors of string, and suspended from sewing needles stuck in cloth-covered panels. There are 10,000 pebbles in the artwork, collected by inmates and sent to Krimes at his request for “the ideal pebble from your prison yard.” I was stunned when I realized what I was looking at, and what this piece says about the vastness and anonymity of incarceration in the U.S.

 

Detail of installation by Jesse Krimes

—to be continued

A New York City Diary: Days 1-3

 

1/8/2025 Wednesday

9:00 am. The snow is very light, so the bare areas are ok. Just need to be careful. After the border it's supposed to be clear.

10:15. We’re through. Grateful for our NEXUS cards. Hello America.

Adirondack Mountains, from I-87.

2:45. Just boarded the train in Albany. It leaves in 5 minutes. A porter came around and asked if we'd like some help boarding early...I guess we looked old, or else he needed something to do...so we said sure, and he took our bags and escorted us down to the platform and into the first car, and hoisted our bags up onto the rack. So he got a nice tip and we got good forward-facing seats on the side next to the Hudson.

On our way down, we had eaten lunch at a diner. The menu indicated Greek owners...gyros, souvlaki...finally a man came out of the kitchen, in a blue T-shirt and khaki shorts, looking like he could be the owner. He stood in back of the counter surveying the room, nodded at us. A waitress brought him a coffee and I saw him take a tall glass bottle out from under the counter and pour some into his mug. Retsina, probably. The food was good - clam chowder, generous sandwiches, bottomless cups of hot coffee. "Are you going to talk to him?" J. asked. I shook my head and smiled. "Maybe.” When we were finished and paying our check I turned back, smiled at the owner, and said," Efcharisto!" (Thank you.)

"Parakalo!" he answered automatically, and then said, "Wait a minute, I have to talk to you! Do you speak Greek?"
"Ligo," I said. "A little. I can read better than I can speak."
"My kids are the opposite, they can speak but they can't read it."
"It's because of the way I'm learning, on Duolingo. You don't get practice speaking."
He nodded, grinned and looked at my husband, "When I saw you, I thought you might be Greek…?"
Jonathan shook his head. "He's Armenian-Syrian," I answered.

"Aha!" he said. "Then we can complain in common about the Turks!"

We ended up having a fast, wide-ranging conversation about our connection to his country. When we mentioned how much we liked Thessaloniki, he gestured toward the counter where two older men were seated. "That's where those guys are from! We were just speaking together."

His grandfather had lived in Montreal, near Park X, and he still has family in the city. " Next time," he said as we left, "I expect to hear lots more Greek from you!"
"Antio!" I said, giving him a big grin.
"Antio!" he repeated, correcting my pronunciation and waving back at me.

10:00 p.m. In our hotel room at 26^th and Broadway. We arrived at Penn Station around 5:30, and walked the six blocks to the hotel; it's cold and windy here but not nearly as bitter as at home. The room on the fourth floor is fine, with a small kitchen, a good bed and bath, large windows that look out on Louis Sullivan-era buildings as well as a new slightly-angled skyscraper of blue glass that towers over these earlier structures. This is a tech hotel; there's almost no staff and you navigate everything using your phone. It feels more like an Air BnB inside a hotel structure. We unpacked and headed out to Trader Joe's to buy food, and came back and ate.

I'm tired now, and a bit cold. The neighbors have their tv on and the wall is very thin, so it's going to be an earplug night. My bedside table has a white noise machine on it, with six settings: things like “ocean” “rain” and “summer night,” which is crickets. C. called about an hour ago to thank me for the calendar. She was amazed to hear we were in Manhattan, where she lived for so long, though she grew up in Montreal and California. She said she was glued to the screen, watching her old neighborhood of Pacific Palisades burn in the forest fires. "My old high school is in flames," she exclaimed. "My friend Mary has had to evacuate her house and she may lose it. It's horrific!"

Ah, the neighbors are finally quiet.

1/9/25 Thursday

Early to the camera store, where J. bought the components for my new computer setup. An unexpected thing happened: after helping us and entering the complicated transaction for our invoices, the salesman turned to us: "May I ask a personal question?" Because he'd learned we were Canadian, he wanted to apologize for the recent remarks by the president-elect about annexing the country, and he wanted to know how this had been received in Canada. He ended up speaking for at least half an hour about how upset and worried he is about his teenage daughters and what he fears will happen. He just stood there and said how he felt and how astonished he was at some of his colleagues who had voted for the man; I was worried they would overhear the conversation. I doubt that we made him feel any better, unless it simply did him some good to talk to some Canadians and fantasize about moving there if things get really bad. We didn't tell him how difficult that would be for him; he seemed to think he could just bundle his family into the car and drive across the border into a new life.

Then J. went upstairs to look at lenses and I walked up to Mood Fabrics after stopping to get a yogurt. Later on, I took a nap, and did some drawing, watching the late afternoon light on the beautiful old and ultramodern buildings we see from our window. In the evening, took the subway uptown to the 70s to have dinner at an Italian restaurant with good friends.

 

1/10/25 Friday

Slow start to the day; we slept late because we desperately needed to, and didn't leave the room until 11 or so. We took the subway to Houston St and walked to Greene and the Patagonia store, where I replaced my venerable black jacket, which must be 30 years old.

Trendy shops and fancy car on Greene Street in SoHo

Then we walked up to B.'s on LaGuardia Place. He made lunch for us while we sat around in the kitchen. (His daughter) R. called while we were there and we both talked to her - she had to evacuate her house in L.A. because of the fires; it seems to be OK but she's gone out to stay with a friend in the desert because the air quality in the city is so terrible.

 

I've wanted to do a drawing of some of J.'s ceramics for a long time, so today I managed to do a quick one while Jonathan was sitting in front of the windows where many of them are displayed. It's not good of him but it captures the ambience well enough. The apartment is still so full of her, even so many years later. B. showed us a video of a recent concert he did, and at 6:00 we all went to a nearby cinema to see Almodovar's The Room Next Door. Sushi afterwards at the Japanese place on LaGuardia, then we walked the 20 blocks back uptown on Broadway. Warmer tonight, and the wind has finally died down.

—to be continued