the cassandra pages

Lunch and a Letter

“OK,” I said. “We’ll see what we can do… Now would you like some lunch? I made kibbeh.”

“What?”

“I brought you some kibbeh, you said you wanted some.”

“No. Food is the last thing on my mind!” He shook his head vigorously. “I refused breakfast.”

“Yes, we heard you did. OK, J., would you like some lunch?”

“Sure,” he said, and I went out to the kitchen. The caregiver stared at me through the pass-through.

“Are you a psychologist or something?” she asked.

“No, not at all,” I said, turning on the stove. “Why?”

“Because you seem to know how to talk to him.”

“I’ve had some experience with this sort of thing,” I said, “but really I just know him very well. We’ll get it sorted out, don’t worry. Would you like some lunch? It’s a special Lebanese dish.”

She came into the kitchen, cautiously, and looked at the pan I had uncovered with its rather odd contents of browned beef, scored into lozenge-shaped pieces. “OK,” she said. “It smells delicious! I’ll try some.”

I fixed three plates of warm kibbeh, rice pilaf, and yogurt, gave her one, and took the other two into the bedroom. I offered it again to my father-in-law, who was lying flat in the bed; he waved me off. I put the plate on the table and went back out to get some water. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hand reach up from the bed toward my husband’s plate, take a chunk of kibbeh, and retreat. “Hey!” I heard my husband say. When I reached the bedroom door my father-in-law had the entire piece of kibbeh in his mouth, his eyes shut tight, and my husband was staring at him in amazement.

My father-in-law’s eyes opened and he looked up at me. “This is good!” he said.

“I’m glad!” I said, standing with my hand on my hips. “I put lots of salt and onions in it, just for you.” I handed the other plate to my husband. “Would you like some more?”

“No, this is just fine.”

J. and I looked at each other; we were getting to the point where nothing surprised us. We all finished our lunch, the caregiver pronounced the food delicious, and we assured her that we’d straighten out the medications and call the doctor. My father-in-law got up and went to the bathroom, and then headed for the living room where he sat in a chair while J. went to the nursing station and I read him a letter from his brother and sister-in-law in Florida.

“Don’t waste your time on me,” he said when I finished, after reacting with pleasure to his younger brother’s unique voice and humor coming across in print. He reached over and patted my hand – an unusual affectionate gesture. “Go home and work while you’re still young.”

“I’m not wasting my time,” I said, but knowing that he meant, “I’m tired now, time for you to go away.” His head leaned against the side of the chair and his eyes were shut. “OK,” I said. “When J. gets back we’ll go home and let you sleep.”

His eyes fluttered open once more. “You know that story about the children? I have no basis for it, none at all. I was just going along with the nurse. I think she made it up.”

“OK,” I said, shooting a look at the caregiver over my shoulder; she smiled and shrugged. The bouquet of forsythia was glowing behind her. “Get some rest,” I said, touching his arm, and stood up to leave.

Missing Children

When we arrived a day or two later my hands were full with a tray of kibbeh and a bouquet of forsythia from our bush at home, just beginning to bloom. The caregiver said he was fast asleep. They had been having a bit of a crisis, she said, her voice betraying her agitation though she tried to speak calmly. She was young, and obviously worried whether she’d done the right thing during an unexpected situation. He’d had another episode of confusion in the middle of the night, she said, when he insisted two children had been entrusted to his care but they had become lost and were somewhere in the apartment. At one point he even wanted to call the police. When the nurses tried to dissuade him he’d become angry and belligerent, ordering them out of his sight. (“It’s so ironic,” J. said to me later, “for someone who never seemed aware of his own children.”) In the morning, after initially refusing to take any medication at all, an additional sedative had been given and he’d calmed down and gone to sleep. We felt responsible; in discussion with two of the caregivers and J.’s brother, plus listening to my father-in-law’s complaints about his inability to do anything but sleep, we’d decided the previous day to ask for less daytime sedation in the hope that he could function better, with less drowsiness and more focus, during the day. They had cut out two doses of the usual tranquilizer and this, possibly, had been the result.

But at the time, I sat and listened to the caregiver, who was clearly upset, recounting what had happened and how she had dealt with it, while J. sat by his sleeping father’s bed. When I heard my father-in-law’s voice I excused myself and went in. “Hello!” he said. “How good to see you!”

“How are you?”

“I’ve been confused,” he immediately admitted. “There’s been this story about two children…but now I can’t figure out if I made it up, or if the nurse made it up and I went along with it. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Do you think it was a dream?”

“It seems like it must have been, but it felt very real.”

“Do you think they’re here now? Are you still worried about them?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He smiled faintly. “I’m afraid I got quite angry. But these people who stay here were driving me crazy! They watch me like hawks. The minute I move, they pop up out of nowhere and want to help me – it’s maddening! So I told them, ‘Get out!! If I need you I’ll call you!’” His face softened: “They are all very nice people, kind and decent. But they’re stupid, and fat. And now I think they’ve been out there talking on the phone all day – probably about me – but I can’t make out what they’re saying.”

The caregiver had indeed been on the phone a lot, and he was able to hear more than he let on. “It’s got to be really frustrating for you. Do you feel trapped?”

“Yes!”

“We know you’d rather be on your own – anybody would - but if you want to stay here, the place requires this kind of care if they feel you’re at risk for falling.”

“I just don’t want them to hover over me this way.” He mimed a woman’s voice: “‘Can I get you a glass of water? Can I help you go to the bathroom?’” and then thundered, “Leave me alone!” His face, angry and mournful, turned to look up at us. “Well, never mind. But it’s not fun.”

“I know, Dad. I’m sorry,” said J.

“C’est la vie. And I haven’t seen a doctor in weeks. She’s made three appointments and canceled them all.”

We didn’t realize the doctor had canceled. “Has your nurse been in to see you, you know, the black woman who you like?”

“Yes, she comes regularly, she takes my blood pressure and listens to my heart and massages my back, but she doesn’t tell me anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t tell me what’s wrong, or suggest anything they can do about it.” This same hospice nurse had told us on the phone that when she came he had seemed to be sleeping, and she didn’t want to wake him, so she hadn’t said anything to him.

‘You’d like someone to give you more information.”

“Yes! And I’m suspicious of the medications. The night nurse gives them to me in yogurt, which is awful – and I don’t trust her.” (She was the one who had sent him the hospital, the event he considers to have precipitated this whole crisis.) “So last night and this morning I refused to take them.”

“I thought you said you could swallow the pills better in yogurt,” said J. His father made a face.

“So you’d feel better if you could talk it over with your doctor.”

“Definitely.” He lowered his voice, just slightly. “I don’t think they know what they’re doing here, really. They mean well, and they are awfully kind, but…they are not the same as a doctor. And I also want something for my digestion.”

“OK,” we said. “We’ll see what we can do…

(to be continued tomorrow)

"Think of them in Spain"

A few weeks ago we were talking about memory and remembering, when I asked him what the word for “remember” was in Arabic.

“Thakr means to remember,” he explained. “That is, to remember by thinking. In Arabic we have a number of words for different aspects of memory…thakira is the storage of memory – as in, ‘I have no memory of it.’ Thakkirini means ‘remind me.’” He thought for a minute and then announced, “Strangely, thakr is also the word for male…tadakirru is to exchange memories, tathkira is an identity card.”

“It’s an incredibly rich language – you can play around with it and say a great deal…and still be vague if you wish! It’s terribly imaginative and yet unreal. I came to love Arabic not so much because of my teachers but because it stimulated my thinking. It’s beautiful, romantic, picturesque… “ He shut his eyes and smiled while pictures of gardens and fig trees laden with ripe fruit, no doubt, played in his mind.

“Can you remember any lines of poetry with these words for memory in them?” I asked.

He said, “Oh yes, we have a poem… just a minute…“ and began reciting. Then he translated, as usual:

“'If you want to think of the Arabs, think of them in Spain’…and the second line I recited was ‘Remember me every time the sun sets in Andalucia.’ Spain, you see, became the paradise of the Arabs, it was the height of Arab artistic and creative achievement. “

“Did you ever go there?”

“Oh yes. I loved it. But when I stood and looked at the Alhambra I felt like a tourist.  I mean –it’s magnificent – but I didn’t connect with it as if it had anything to do with me. “ He paused.

“I’d like to see it myself.”

“Yes, you should go. Actually, if I were younger and had time left, I’d want to do a study of the Arabs in Spain.” He lay there and thought for a few minutes, and then opened his eyes wide, looking mischievous. “Sometimes I have secret doubts about the creativity of the Arabs. But they were great borrowers! Look even at the Dome of the Rock – copied! Whatever they found, they said ‘give it to me!’ Even taboulleh, probably!”

Beauty and Truth

This is a continuation of an exchange begun several months ago with New Zealand photographer Tony Bridge. Tony has been waiting for a response from me all this time, while I've been snowed under by work and by family crises. So here is a letter, and I hope to be able to post his response soon. Please feel free to comment on this post in the interim.

Tony, I'd like to continue talking about beauty in art. In our last exchange you wrote:

Those moths dancing in the moonlight was a moment that can be laid down in an image, yet require a novel to convey.  Small wonder then that imagery is increasingly replacing text.  I suspect however that is a topic for a future letter!

Re-reading this passage made me reflect: are we, as artists who depict nature in words or images, trying to show and share the beauty we discover there, or do we find in nature an expression of an abstract ideal of beauty that already lives in our souls? What did your moths represent on that night? Didn't they stir something in you that was already present, just as a landscape may, or the flocks of snow geese I stopped and watched a few weeks ago, and this is what moves us to try to create, to try to express the emotions that arise? In other words, I think there is an interplay between the human being and the natural environment which is, itself, natural: we are meant to be part of each other, and to feel something - but we realize that a lot of people are much less in touch with this aspect of themselves.

Like you, I also made a choice: to try to write more about positive aspects of life and less about argument and politics and what is wrong. Some of that choice is based on self-preservation, some on personality and temperament, but some of it is simply an artistic decision: I want to try to share what moves me, and to express something about my own journey through life, a journey which is a search for meaning, connection, and truth. The longer I live, the more sure I am that the sages are right: that truth and light are within each of us - and that everything is connected. But it is also true that everything has its opposite: for the light, there is the opposite side of darkness; for truth, falsehood; for beauty, ugliness; for order, chaos.

In the assisted-living home where my father-in-law lives, the walls of the hallways are hung with beautiful pictures: bouquets of flowers, children playing, lovely landscapes, pastoral meadows, calm pictures of houses and seashores and gardens. I go by them often, and think about why people choose these sort of images: when I was a young painter I painted my fair share of them too. But now, at mid life, they all feel like cliches to me, except for the occasional image, often a watercolor, where instead of a frozen perfect moment, the sky indicates change and movement and a more complex emotional state than calm-happiness-that-once-was.

The truest art, for me, does this: it tries to hold the dark and the light together. There is a sense of edginess or uneasiness, as Pete and Dave and Miguel mentioned before, which may not mean literally showing the garbage on the side of the trail, but does indicate an awareness of the change that is ever-present in life. (I feel this in some of your landscapes but it's hard to describe or point to what does it.) The beautiful moment passes, a cloud obscures the sun, calmness and upheaval alternate in our lives, death follows birth. As humans we know this, while we may we try forever to deny it. While we may be drawn to beauty for its own sake, and need it very much, it is the poignancy of this deep knowledge of passage and change that stirs me as an artist and writer. Frankly, I find it much easier to express in words than in pictures, but you may disagree!

With best wishes from Montreal --
Beth

(related article from today's NY Times: "What (Ansel) Adams Saw Through His Lens")

What's at Risk?

My morning began (after checking email, of course!) with reading several articles about education. An editorial in the New York Times commemorates the 25th anniversary of the publication of "A Nation at Risk", the report of a national commission in response to “the widespread public perception that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.” I had forgotten about the report and what it found, except that - contrary to what the administration expected - it corroborated the public perception. What was interesting about today's article was the before/after discussion of one of the report's conclusions: that a strong educational system focussed on "the basics" would result in greater economic competitiveness. American educators back in 1981 were very concerned about being outstripped by the much higher-performing, rigorous Japanese and Korean school systems. But then the American economy improved, while the Asian economies began to falter:

With the wisdom of hindsight, it is clear that the link between educational excellence and economic security is not as simple as “A Nation at Risk” made it seem. By the mid-1980s, policymakers in Japan, South Korea and Singapore were already beginning to complain that their educational systems focused too much on rote learning and memorization. They continue to envy American schools because they teach creativity and the problem-solving skills critical to prospering in the global economy.

Indeed, a consensus seems to be emerging among educational experts around the world that American schools operate within the context of an enabling environment — an open economy, strong legal and banking systems, an entrepreneurial culture — conducive to economic progress.

To put it bluntly, American students may not know as much as their counterparts around the Pacific Rim, but our society allows them to make better use of what they do know. The question now is whether this historic advantage will suffice at a time when knowledge of math, science and technology is becoming increasingly critical. Maybe we need both the enabling environment and more rigor in these areas.

My question, on reading this, is much broader: should the purpose of an educational system even be economic competitiveness? Does it distress anyone besides me that this is stated so bluntly as a given fact? First, who benefits from such a goal, and how? Are we raising children who are capable of thinking about the effect of globalization, for instance, or children whose primary goal is to make as much money as possible; i.e., are we raising yet another generation of capitalist consumers, or world citizens? On the other hand, I know that many young people today are quite idealistic - where are those values coming from? And is it only my perception that, 25 years later, an even greater percentage of kids are falling through the cracks, both in terms of secondary education and access to higher education, due to racial inequality, poverty, troubled family environments and many other factors?

What do you think? And I wonder if Canadian readers see differences between the stated goals of education between the two countries. In Quebec, at least, the values of the society are quite different, and it's hard for me not to think some of this comes from the focus of education, as well as what children learn at home.

Little House on the Pond

All right, it's not a real house. And the lack of windows would be a problem. But this strange little reservoir house in the middle of the pond, with no boat in sight, always makes me stand on the bank and ponder that green door.

There were small-mouth bass in the shallows yesterday, and newts suspended, legs dangling, just beneath the surface. Nearly all the snow had vanished from the woods in the suddenness of a seventy-degree week, but the forest floor was just beginning to wake up; no wildflowers in bloom yet, just the first fronds of Christmas ferns unfurling from their frozen, sleeping curl beneath the snow, and clusters of tightly-budded arbutus flowers hiding under the leaves. I chose the uphill trail and walked the long way round. Halfway up I saw a woman coming down with a young German shepherd; at the same moment we recognized each other - she was an old friend I hadn't seen for ten years. We stood and talked while the dog ran exuberant sprints up and down the trail, overjoyed by spring.

(Responses to the comments on the previous post are in the comment thread; I didn't have time to write everyone back as I like to do. Thank you for all the terrific comments and for our obvious shared passion for tiny houses, treehouses, and Rooms of One's Own!)

Looking Out from the Branches

When I was nine or ten, my father built me a treehouse in a beech tree near our house on the lake. It was as simple a treehouse as you can have: a platform - no sides or roof - and a ladder. The platform was big enough for me and another small friend, and nestled into the crotch of the tree so that two children could lean their backs against the trunk or a large branch in comfort. I could reach underneath, into the crotch, and store things there. I had a basket and a pulley for raising and lowering supplies, and that was about it. I could see the house, the lake, the lawn and the woods beyond, but I felt hidden from adult view by the leaves, high in my own private world.

I loved it.

The tree itself had to be cut down sometime when I was quite a lot older, but the feeling of that space is something I've always desired. Before it, I had a secret spot under a snowberry bush, and another on an inwardly-curving mossy bank near a stream, overhung by shrubs and pine trees. Many years later, I had rooms of my own, a studio and meditation space, corners of rooms rendered sacred by their collections of particular books, natural and ritual objects...maybe there are people who don't need or want small private places, and many more for whom it's an impossibility. For me it's something I'm uncomfortable without. I can manage, but somehow life feels harder...what about you?

Today I got intrigued after seeing a brief article in Dwell Magazine on the HELP house (left), a tiny, totally self-contained living unit designed to shelter victims rendered homeless by the Katrina disaster. This led me to look at other so-called "tiny houses", such as the designs of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, the sleekly modern Weehouse,  or the rustic cabins and woodland hideaways in this book from the Taunton Press.

Back in the hippie 60s, there was a book called Handmade Houses that featured a few very small, handmade structures built of twigs, found and  recycled, bits of stained glass and mosaic...homes an individual as their inhabitants. Here in Vermont I knew and visited a few houses and cabins like that, and they've always felt magical to me. Watching my own reaction today as looked at these tiny dwellings, I realized they touch something very deep: both a desire to be unobtrusively within the natural world, and for a personalized place of peace and solitude where I can renew my spirit before re-entering the world of human interaction. Finding that place within is, of course, the mature and usual adult way to do it. But I can also dream of tiny houses, treehouses, and secret gardens...and who knows what may happen in life? Maybe there's a rooftop LoftCube in my future!

Housekeeping

(click for larger image) I passed this poster for an exhibition in Montreal the other day and was riveted; has anyone seen the actual show?

Inspired by several friends who have been doing some impressive work on their blogs, I figured it was time to at least do some upkeep.

ROLLING: Today I finally did something I'm embarrassed to have put off for so long: I cleaned my blogroll. It's not completely finished - I know I have left off some blogs I read but don't have listed in my feed reader  - please drop me a note if you're a regular reader or commenter and I've missed you. Even though I don't think readers consult blogrolls as much as we all used to, I apologize for the dead links that have been hanging around, and for the lack of updating. I'll try to do it regularly from now on.

PAGING: Under "PAGES", at left, I've also posted this year's list of books read, so far.

PILING UP: Also under PAGES, you'll find a partial compilation of the posts about my father-in-law, titled "The Fig and the Orchid." I'll endeavor to complete the draft manuscript in this form soon; right now it goes back to October 2007 but the posts actually began several years ago.  Please let me know if this backwards story is helpful, or if it makes more sense to simply list the permalinks in proper chronological order, or what.

Finally, Cafe Days

(click for full-size image)

Two days in a row of sun and temperatures in the high 50s have the city smiling. The cafes have set out sidewalk tables, the bikepaths are clear, the children and dogs run toward the parks. We all know we're in for a few more thrashings of the dying winter, but no one could mistake the smell of warming earth and the clarity of the sky for anything other than real spring.

Yesterday I did a bit of cafe sitting myself, near the Mont Royal metro station. Everyone was out, in various stages of weather-accommodation: girls in parkas and scarves and wool hats next to girls in next-to-nothing, baring their ample decolletages to the sun. I watched a CBC news crew interviewing people on the street, all of whom seemed to answer with Canadian ease. It made me happy that the warm weather had opened up the streets to people who've no doubt had trouble all winter; a disabled elderly man covered by a granny-square afghan was pushed across the street in his wheelchair by a friend, and then they sat in the sun and watched the pedestrians and traffic, while another man in a self-propelled wheelchair perused the street, balancing a huge telephoto lens on his lap.

We submitted our American and Canadian tax forms, too; it's the first year we won't be paying nearly half of every tax dollar to support the American military. While it feels like a personal weight has lifted, I know that I cannot read news like today's from Iraq and sit in a safe, lovely cafe -- halfway around the world from those that are shattered by bombs -- with the carefree ease of my Canadian neighbors, or cheer for the local hockey team as if it were the most important thing in the world. I'll probably never be able to do that. This country, in spite of its minor present role in Afghanistan, in spite of past wrongs against native people, in spite of environmental damage, has earned the right to live with a less-guilty conscience and less anxiety than America. Ironically, those Canadians sitting in the cafe's reading their newspapers are generally considerably better-informed and more concerned about the world than most of their southern counterparts. Here in Quebec, opposition to war and military spending have a long history. So does a compassionate social compact that provides health care and old-age benefits for all, along with much greater per-capita expenditure for social services, parks, support of the arts...it's a long list. That extra fifty cents per dollar goes far.

I read the news and viewed the BBC's photos from Iraq today, and came close to weeping: so many innocent people destroyed as they sat in the sun, drinking coffee, reading a paper, eating kebab: living their simple daily lives as each human being on earth surely has the right to do. I'm not blaming all of this violence on the United States, that would not be accurate or fair, but neither am I willing to ignore my complicity in the perpetuation of a violent world, or the ways in which that violence and its effects seep into my own spirit. I feel, to my core, that I am a different person than my Canadian neighbors, and marked forever by this legacy of decisions in which I had no active part.  I am also a different person from the many immigrants who have fled here for refuge, those who bear in their bodies and minds the scars of knowing the violence of war first-hand. And yet here we all are, welcoming the spring, and those first moments of forgetting and relaxing into the universal warmth of the sun.

(I'm breaking my own prohibition against political posts here, because I need to express some of my own sadness and ambivalence today. It's not my intention to invite rancorous debate here. I am, as always, anxious to hear your views; but please keep your comments polite and respectful or they will not be posted.)

Al-Sidq

Al-Sidq: Truthfulness that permits neither falsehood nor hypocrisy.

“How are you tonight?” I ask on the phone.

“I’m dying.”

“It doesn’t seem imminent…”

“I’m losing substance. I feel detached from the world, from everyone and everything.”

There’s a forlorn note in his voice.  I ask if he’s had any visitors today, and he says he’s had only one. Did he get up? No, he had spent the day in bed.

“I feel totally out of touch with the world, in a way I’ve never felt before,” he repeats. “They brought me the New York Times and I couldn’t read it. I can’t  hear, I can’t read, I can’t get out…”

“It’s got to be very difficult. Can someone read you the headlines at least?

“My friend M. did that. She’s a very good girl.” He pauses, and the silence stretches out.

“I’m going to become a Muslim,” he announces suddenly.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh yes. As the end approaches… ‘lā ilāha illā-llāh, anna muḥammadan rasūlu-llā…’ I listen, dumbfounded – this, I know, is the shahada, the Muslim confession of faith, which, if said with complete sincerity, knowledge, and attention defined by seven conditions, including al-Sidq,  is all that is required for a person to become a Muslim. After the simple Arabic profession, “There is no God but God and Mohammad is his prophet,” he continues reciting more verses, perhaps some of the kalimias, which are further professions of faith.

The Arabic is beautiful and he’s putting a lot of feeling into the recitation. I am holding my breath.  He gets to the end and then says, “It’s amazing that they got so many people to agree to this.” I exhale silently; this time, at least, he is proving true to form.

“But you are actually rather sympathetic,” I say.

“I’m sympathetic because Mohammad gave us a way to be unified, a cultural identity. ‘Today I am making you a nation!’  It’s a beautiful concept! But the Arabs never fully embraced it.” He sighs. “I need to teach you some more Arabic.”

“I’d like to learn more. I wish I had done it earlier.”

“I really wish I had someone to speak Arabic with. It’s necessary for expressing the truth. Mashallah.”

“Well, that’s not going to be me. Maybe we can find someone,” I suggest, but he’s already moved on to a different subject:

“I wish I knew what happened to the kibbeh that was in my refrigerator.” He utters an Arabic word that I don’t catch…”That means thieves,” he explains, referring to the staff who regularly – thank God – clean out his refrigerator.  “They stole it.”

“I’m sure they didn’t know what it was.”

“Aaach,” he says. “My legs are weak and my conscience is sick.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m afraid I’ll get to the other side and find out it’s true. And that would be terrible.” There’s a long pause. “What’s my son’s conclusion?” he asks.

“I don’t know what he thinks. I think he’s still figuring it out.”

“And what about you?”

“Well, I don’t believe a lot of it. I do believe that the Gospels are right about how we need to live here, right now.”

“Such as?”

“That we should love one another.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

There’s another long pause. “That’s difficult,” he replies.

I don’t answer.

“Will you make me some kibbeh tomorrow?” he asks then.

“I can’t, I’m in Canada. But when I get back I’ll make you some.”

“Good. I’ve been dying for it.”

“Did you want some cheese?”

“Yes, some of the soft Arabic kind.”

“The one with the little black seeds in it?”

“Yes, that would be good.”

“OK, I’ll bring you some.”

“I wish I could just close my eyes tonight and say au revoir. I am really tired of it. And it feels like there is nothing to look forward to.” His voice becomes more cheerful. “Don’t cry over me when I’m gone!” he commands. “It’s not worth it!”

“Well, that’s your opinion!” I say, and he laughs. In the distance I hear the doorbell ring: the night nurses, undoubtedly.

“Look who’s here! Hello, my dears,” he says, turning on the charm. ”Two angels just came in!”

Into the phone, he says, “They are silent. They stand next to the bed, and don’t say anything. Do you think they are Catholic angels?”

“I have no idea. Whatever they are, they’re good to you. Tell them hello for me, and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” he says, sounding energized, and hangs up.

(This is the latest in a many-year-long series of posts about my father-in-law, collected under the title "The Fig and the Orchid"; please click on that name under Pages, in the sidebar at left, for the whole series.)