Bump in the Road Ahead

Bump in the Road

In 1986 I returned from 24 years in Nigeria to enroll in the two-year Master’s program at Yale University’s School of Management. Our younger son Sam came with me. He had been accepted at Lawrence Academy near Boston.

In our first days back in this country I drove him to his school.

It was early fall and there was road construction underway. Three times we saw a huge sign that warned us of a bump in the road ahead.

“Where was the bump?” Sam said after we passed the first one and had felt little jarring. Same with the next – it was hardly noticeable. We laughed at the third!

In Nigeria, there are not even warning signs if the road has been washed away! When driving from Lagos to the East, we often have to cross to the “wrong” side of the highway, or we find oncoming traffic on “our” side!

No one would expect a sign to warn of a bump in the road that one can barely feel!

In the last couple of days I noticed several “bump in the road” signs on the Post Road when I was going to or coming from the nail salon or the gym. I laughed and remembered that early trip with Sam. I could hardly feel the bumps!

Like so much in life, the seriousness of a bump in the road is relative to what you’ve known and what you expect!

The Recluse Spider and Its Bite

On Sunday evening our daughter sent me a text with a picture of her red, swollen hand! It looked painful. She said something had bitten her, but she didn’t know what.

She said it was actually the third bite! The first was on her face a few days earlier and didn’t hurt. The second was on her elbow. That had been swollen and a little painful. This on her hand was the third!

I began searching online and found a picture of a recluse spider bite. I sent it to her and she confirmed that was probably the one! Then I found where recluse spiders tend to hang out.

“Have you been cleaning closets?” I said.

“Yes!” she replied.

I’d read that the recluse spider hides in closets among other places. When you brush up against it so it’s pressed against a surface, it bites!

This evening Beth confirmed that her hand is better. The swelling has gone down. Now you can see two dots. We concluded there must have been two spiders that attacked her hand on Sunday.

No more closet cleaning until there is serious spraying!

Frostiana and Other American Music

I’ve been rehearsing with the Music on the Hill Summer Chorus for several weeks. We’re singing American music, including Randall Thompson’s Frostiana, commissioned for the 1959 two-hundredth anniversary of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts.

If you know any Robert Frost poetry at all, you are probably familiar with “The Road Not Taken,” which is the first of seven songs in Frostiana.

In 1959 I heard Robert Frost speak and read his poetry at an evening assembly at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, just a few miles from Amherst. Maybe he was in the area for the premier of Frostiana on October 18th! I can’t believe that I just found a recording of Part II of his talk!

We’re also singing “Dirait-on” by Morten Lauridsen, on a text by Rilke, pieces by Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland, and Bernstein’s “Make Our Garden Grow” from Candide. Here’s the Barber piece sung by the Gondwana Singers.

The concert is this Thursday evening. If you’re nearby, please come! It’s free, open to the public, and there will be refreshments afterwards.

Hidden Figures

The New York Times has a segment called “A Word With,” in the Arts section. Kathryn Shattuck wrote “Uzo Aduba Gives Voice to Hidden Figures.” 

Have you watched “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix? I’m still on Season 3 or 4, but plan to catch up soon so I can get into Season 6 which just started. Uzo Aduba plays Suzanne, also known as Crazy Eyes.

For those who don’t know the series, it takes place in a women’s prison in Litchfield Connecticut.

Piper, the main character, is a white woman who was convicted of a drug offense some years after the crime had taken place. She is surprised to find herself in prison, but gradually adapts.

Uzo Aduba is the daughter of Nigerian immigrant parents. Her first name Uzo means “the way.” It’s probably part of a longer name, maybe Uzoamaka, or the way forward is beautiful.

In the interview she talks about her role. She plays Suzanne who is mentally ill. Because Suzanne speaks without inhibitions, she often reveals truths that others won’t say.

Shattuck asks Aduba about an episode in Season 5 (which I haven’t yet seen), where “the meth-heads painted [Suzanne] in whiteface, and she gave a soliloquy about the beauty of her skin.”

Aduba said she recalled growing up in a mostly white New England town, where blonde and blue-eyed was the standard for beauty, and her black skin was not a source of pride.

About that soliloquy, she said, “For myself, Uzo, I was feeling that I was saying it to not only Suzanne but to all the Uzos that were, are or will be: “Your skin is beautiful.”