Renovated Riverfront Darryl and I enjoyed a week at the Connor House in Savannah. We celebrated brother John's 69th Birthday on Monday, he and I having delicious fried shrimp overlooking the Savannah River at a new café near the West End's new hotel transformation of the old electric company. Darryl took fabulous photos of the area on Thanksgiving Day. Darryl also baked two Pecan Pies we all loved.
Will drove down on Tuesday and treated John and me to brunch Wednesday morning. We three drove to Tybee and walked on the windy, sunny beach and took photographs from the pier. A couple of people were actually swimming. The waves were beautiful to watch, mystical. John's friend Kevin joined us for two of the days. We dined at Fire, the Asian Fusion place on Perry St. He and I talked about the political situation, about climate change, and Black Lives Matter, decrying the Rittenhouse acquittal, but glad for the conviction of the three murderers of young jogger Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, Ga.
Walking repeatedly to the Forsyth Fountain, strolling the streets and cemeteries of Savannah, gave me a certain joy; but as Keats put it, veiled melancholy always had a shrine nearby. I find an increasing psychological distance to accompany the physical distance of many friends. Instead of sincerity, intimacy, and shared feeling, I find mostly pretense and posturing.
We drove home yesterday, like the drive down, past fields of cotton. Those lovely fields, as if covered in snow, also conjure the evils of slavery and intense suffering in the past. However much better things seem at times, there is no escape from continuing evils and prejudice. The changing climate, the gathering storms, may bring the end of prosperity for humanity. All the more reason for me to go into nature, hike the trails in the mountains, and live out my life with ataraxia.
Orange Tree,
