Painting in Oil. John Everett Millais's masterpiece, "Ophelia," completed between 1851 and 1852. 

​Ophelia

When I was just a teenager, our front door was flanked by beautiful Daphne plants. Every time I walked through that door I was enthralled by the scent, the sweet scent of the flowers. At one point I even tried to pick the flowers and make perfume out of the oil, but unfortunately someone took off the lid off my pot and the fragrance was immediately absorbed into the air of the kitchen.


Much later, when I went away to college at the University of Oregon,  the campus was abundant with the plants of that beautiful shrub and the air redolent with its scent. I would wander across the grounds in the evening with that fragrance in my nostrils and dream and dream and dream… perhaps of a someday romance—although I knew not how to envision such a thing. It really consumed me. 


I loved Shakespeare. I loved my professor Dr. Moll. He was a poet laureate. A gentle older man, he delivered all of his lessons so beautifully, so well that no one could help but love Shakespeare, if there are such people who couldn’t adore Shakespeare. I was especially attached to Hamlet and in particular Ophelia. I felt like she was a part of me, someone I could really feel for. Abandoned by the men she loved and trusted, and feeling powerless to go on alone. Because of that affection for Ophelia and the scent of Daphne I have made this little poem:


Ophelia


Marble face,  
cheeks of roses
golden tresses  
stream amid reeds.


No power to divert 
currents of rage
pure love is transformed
and by disgust consumed.


Youth discarded
In clouds of treason
where evil dwells 
love stands no chance


Adieu Ophelia, 
neither father, nor brother,
nor lover
will save you.

We are having a lovely summer here in Oakland, California. I have been here all summer long but I will leave in a couple of weeks for Lisbon, Portugal for the month of September and that will be a lot of fun and that’s another chapter. The weather has been astounding here in the Bay Area in general. Other people are suffering from the heat waves and storms, and we luckily have escaped that.

My days have been full of just kind of puttering and playing with the kittens that we brought back from Mexico, Ariel‘s kittens. On days that she works, I’m in charge so today was a kitty playing day. 

I took time out for my morning walk, this time up to our local farmers market. On Sunday the West Oakland Prescott Market, a lovely new establishment that just opened in April, has a wonderful farmers market with beautiful produce and other treats. And  live music! 

Today’s band was a really fun couple, Leslie and Roger know as “Out of Town Couple. They played and sang low-key country western pieces and I enjoyed listening to them in the sunshine and then walking through the market. 

Yesterday was a musical day as well. I went over to the popular 4th Street area in west Berkeley to exchange something that I bought a couple of days before. When I finished, I noticed they were having live music from 1-4. It was sponsored by the local Mexican restaurant Tacubaya. There was a great Cuban group playing. I just sat there for hours listening to their music watching the people dancing and enjoying the sunshine. You can’t really ask for much more can you?  

So I plan to spend my days more or less like this until I board a plane for Lisbon on the 25th of August. I’ll be in touch on that one.

Some people travel for culinary delights. Others for rest, sun, or historical sites. I travel for music!

It wasn’t always that way. In my younger years, travel meant chasing art, studying architecture, or escaping the well-worn patterns of daily life. But somewhere along the line—perhaps during an impromptu jazz performance in a candlelit courtyard in Oaxaca or a flamenco night in Sevilla—music began leading the way. Now, it’s the pulse I follow across borders and through cities large and small.

Music is everywhere, but it feels different when it’s at home in its own landscape. A son jarocho tune in Veracruz carries both salt and story. A plaintiff fado drifting over the tiled streets of Lisbon strikes a chord far deeper than it ever could in a sterile concert hall. When I hear a local trio coax soul from strings in the plaza of a small Mexican town, I feel I’ve touched something ancient and essential.

This is how I travel now—by ear and heart.

The journey often starts with a whisper: a friend’s suggestion, a name I overhear in a café, or an album that makes me curious about its birthplace. From there, I follow the threads. Sometimes it leads me to festivals—like a classical series tucked into the meandering streets of San Miguel de Allende or the small jazz gathering beneath a canopy of tamarind trees in Puerto Vallarta. Other times it takes me to late-night jam sessions in smoky venues, where the rhythm is shared like bread.

What I’ve learned is that live music holds the power to break down barriers faster than language ever can. I once joined a circle of strangers in a left bank Parisian club as a jazz pianist kept time. Few of us spoke a common tongue, but we clapped and swayed in harmony, our connection wordless and complete.

These experiences are more than entertainment; they’re transformations. In the presence of live sound, I feel myself soften, open, and belong—to the place, to the people, to the moment. I never come home quite the same.

So yes, I travel for music. I travel for encounters that can’t be streamed or stored. For the magic that lives only in the now, in the very breath of a performance. And in doing so, I come alive again and again.
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