Montreal to Naples.
November 4, 2025
Over Ireland, dawn on the eastern horizon. Below us, blackness, and to the north, a planet or bright star that’s kept me company each time I’ve opened my eyes. After taking off I watched a video interview with Garrick Ohlsson that I’d downloaded – he had chaired the jury at the recent Chopin Competition in Warsaw in which I’d been so interested, but I’d disagreed with the awards. There was a decent meal on this Lufthansa overnight flight, and afterwards we watched a new movie about Leonora Carrington, much of it set in Mexico City and the Mexican countryside. Then an attempt to sleep. I managed perhaps 45 minutes. Got up and walked a little, visited the restroom, drank some water in that bizarre dim atmosphere of a night flight filled with hundreds of uncomfortable passengers trying to sleep. We’ll arrive in Munich around 9 am local time, which will be 3 am for us, and after a two hour layover, fly south to Naples.
Over the sea now past Ireland. My star has disappeared and there’s a perfect gradient of deep blue down to pale gold over England in the distance.
It’s been such a hellish time for the past two weeks, as we made the decision to say goodbye to our 18 year old cat Manon, and then received the shocking news of Jonathan’s brother’s death on Wednesday, two days after we took her to the vet, when we were still in deep sorrow. It was good that we had a lot to do to prepare for the trip. I was still recovering from the dental surgery the week before, and wiped out and achy from the antibiotics. By Friday I was feeling much more stable. On Sunday, All Saints Day, we decided to go to Evensong at the cathedral. It was a beautiful liturgy with music by Tompkins, Elgar, Greyston Ives, Caroline Shaw, Schutz. The names of the dead were read, and then the Dean invited everyone to come forward and light a votive candle and place it on the altar steps. My eyes filled with tears, but it was good, and felt like a fitting way to remember and bid farewell, along with so many friends who were there for the same purpose, remembering people dear to them, some of whom we had known too.
Shiori Kuwahara, one of my favorites among the Chopin Competition competitors. Pen and ink, 9” x 6”.
One of Garrick Ohlsson’s observations on the Chopin Competition was that most of these young players didn’t seem to understand Chopin’s dances. He found the Mazurkas were often played with accents on the wrong beats, even though the accents are clearly indicated in the scores, but even worse were the waltzes in the first round, which were often played with wildly varying rhythms. He smiled: “Human bodies dancing simply don’t move like that! But how do they know? I’m not a great dancer, but I’m old enough to have taken a few lessons before my senior dance in high school — I doubt if any of these young players have ever waltzed.”
We’re over Belgium now, almost to Germany. My friend M.K. must be nearly beneath us, starting her morning, getting ready to go and teach.
Over the Alps.
—
9 p.m. In our apartment in Napoli. It’s in an old stone building, reached by going through a gate, past shops, into a small interior courtyard and up three flights of heavily worn stone stairs. The apartment is large, comfortable, well-equipped, and looks out from two small second-floor balconies onto Via Toledo and the narrow market street where we’ll shop in the morning. We took a harrowing, high-speed taxi ride here from the airport, narrowly avoiding two serious collisions, then unpacked, fell asleep for maybe two hours — my body now has absolutely no idea what time it is — and then went out to a neighborhood trattoria for a dinner of salad, pasta, delicately fried baby calamari, and a large glass of local red wine.
Flying into Naples, over the bay, then the tile roofs of the city, with Vesuvius looming behind it, was astonishing.
I’m going to sit on the balcony and see if I can draw a little. We want to try to last until at least 10:00 pm, which right now feels as impossible as it would be to drive in this city.
—to be continued