Good Morning! The rain has stopped and brought us clean air (really, much cleaner air), sunshine and low humidity. So far, the “heat dome” hasn’t hit Nashville, let’s knock on wood. Also my glamorous, big sister, Kay, has flown into town from New York City. I’ve figured out that as we age our bodies don’t regulate temperature quite so well; as the globe heats up, we ‘senior’ humans are cooling down. So Kay is perfectly happy sitting on our shady, front porch in 80+ weather waving at all the neighbors passing by – young couples with a baby stroller and a dog or two, our friends Kristi and Jay, and an older woman with a cane and an outrageously big sun hat.
Kay is an artist and a southerner-in-training. She attended the Art Students’ League in NYC and had a side hustle drawing meticulous medical illustrations for Mt Sinai Medical School. She is one of the reasons I never even tried painting. Even her clothes are artistically curated. She’s not exactly Iris Apfel, but at 88 she will still turn a head on the street. https://www.advanced.style/
So of course, we had to take a trip to the Frist Art Museum this past weekend. “Storied Strings: the Guitar in American Art” was the main exhibition and we borrowed a wheelchair to make everything easier. Don’t forget, Kay is only six months post-op on her second hip fracture. She uses a cane for mobility, and/or a rollator for stability when she’s outside. We enjoyed looking at each painting and reading the accompanying descriptions. Women historically were not taught to play the guitar, but artists always loved painting the female form; so lush paintings of women posing with the instrument were common.
If you were to walk into any room in our house, you’d encounter one of Kay’s drawings, paintings or needlepoint pillows: a beautiful watercolor of our Rumson home with two Corgis in the yard; a pen and ink portrait of the Flapper; a still life of flowers in a Delft pitcher. Almost every soft surface in our house is adorned with a gorgeous Kay needlepoint. I have fond memories of the Bride learning to look at life through an artist’s lens in Aunt Kay’s apartment. I remember roaming around the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a girl with my big sister; it was just a few blocks walk down Fifth Avenue.
After the “Storied Strings” exhibit, we strolled through an installation about Beatrix Potter at the Frist. Potter was born into a wealthy English family, but because she was a girl in Victorian England her future was limited. Writing stories came naturally and roaming around the Lake District, today we might say “forest bathing,” lead to her career of illustrating and writing children’s books. She called herself a “country mouse” living in the city. Eventually she became interested in fungi, drawing some of the most tiny, intricate mushrooms known at the time…
I feel like a country mouse living in this southern city with my city mouse sister. We walk across the street to swim in the mornings; we drive to Thistle Farms like ladies who lunch; we Zoom with my big and her little brother Dr Jim. Last night I made a salad from summer squash, whole wheat orzo, lemon and feta cheese with fresh herbs. Only the rabbits had eaten all my dill, so we had to improvise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/grilled-chicken-zucchini-orzo-salad/
We’ve also been enjoying Bad Sisters on Apple TV. So when we walked into Thistle Farms gift shop, a safe place for abused and trafficked women that sells tee shirts proclaiming “LOVE HEALS,” I was only slightly surprised when Kay asked if they had a shirt that said “LOVE HURTS.” They didn’t. I explained to the young salesgirl that my big sister was visiting from New York City.
MountainMornings 