About two years ago, I canceled our subscription to Sotheby’s fine art auction catalogs. I canceled our subscriptions with Christie’s and Phillips too. During auction season, which is roughly twice a year in New York, the catalogs would come fast and furious, hand-delivered by a bicycle messenger, sometimes twice or three times a day, a battered delivery log for me to sign, a creamy white “With our compliments” card tucked into the package. 

For a while I liked having the catalogs around. They were printed on thick, glossy paper, one artwork per page, the color reproductions expensive and gorgeous. When the boys were young, we cut up pages from the catalogs and made collages and Christmas cards out of them. We made paper snowflakes and taped them to our dining room window. We once pressed fallen leaves between a catalog’s pages then laminated them with a machine we had bought at Staples. Sometimes, before dinner, I would use a stack of five or six catalogs to press the water out of a block of tofu. 

Some of the particularly interesting catalogs — one on kinetic art that seemed obscure and unfamiliar — or ones that featured photos of my husband’s father, the art dealer Leo Castelli, I would save and place on the shelves downstairs with our other art books. But mainly I would let the catalogs accumulate on the kitchen counter, unread, in increasingly teetering towers, until I had the time and inclination to flip through them. 

Eventually I would place them in a neat stack in the pantry near the recycling bin or down in the basement, just in case one of us wanted to look at them again. My husband would sometimes transfer a catalog from the basement back onto the kitchen counter: “Hey, you’re not throwing this away, are you?” he’d ask. It would then stay on the counter for quite a while, the base for another stack of catalogs. 

Some of the catalogs wound up in Montauk, but I don’t remember how. Some I gave to artist friends. Twice I hauled a box of the catalogs across town to the boys’ school and gave them to Liz, the art teacher. I don’t know if she ever used them. 

As the boys grew older, I would try to interest them in some of the catalogs’ images. They liked the work of Lucio Fontana, the idea of a knife-slashed canvas being particularly compelling to grade-school boys. They liked Salvatore Scarpitta and his racecars. They liked a print by Bruce Nauman that read “EAT SHIT AND DIE.” But, for the most part, they’d rather look at something else. 

And, frankly, after a while, so did I. The problem, of course, was the prices. All those zeros! No matter how lovely the Mark Grotjahn painting or smart the Cindy Sherman photo or riotous the Rauschenberg combine, one could not ignore the 8-point type marching across the bottom of the page: $16 million . . . $6.7 million . . . $12 million. . . . And in case one didn’t have a calculator handy, prices were given in pound sterling and euros as well. Chinese renminbi, too. 

In the city, we live down the street from the painter Lois Dodd, who is 90 years old and still painting. One day an artist friend took me along to visit her. We brought sandwiches and berries and walked five flights up to the apartment/studio where Dodd has lived and worked for over 50 years. She welcomed us warmly, dressed in jeans and a cotton button-down, a no-nonsense digital watch on her wrist. Inside, there was a small kitchen, a wooden table and chairs, a mirror. But mainly there was art: In racks, in boxes, on shelves, on tables, on easels, on the floor. She had been painting for over 70 years. Seventy years! She had founded a gallery, taught, applied for fellowships, raised a son, found larger studio space in Maine, sold paintings when she could, but mainly she painted and painted and painted. 

After the sandwiches and berries, Dodd showed us some of her work. She yanked the canvases out of the racks, dusted them off with a flick of her hand, propped them up without ceremony on a chair. A barn. A tangle of flowers. White windows against a blue-black sky. “I don’t know about this orange,” she laughed at one painting, as if it were alive, as if it were some zany relative. She pulled out another and shrugged: “This one is good.” And another: “No one seems to like my tunnel paintings, but I do.” 

The room turned golden as the afternoon drifted into evening; the air, cool and still. We drank tea. We looked at art.

Shortly after that visit, I gathered all of our auction catalogs, bundled them up with twine, and set them out on the curb for recycling to pick up. “They are a horrible way to look at art,” I told my husband. The next morning, on my way to Whole Foods, I noticed a man selling books on the sidewalk. Lined up neatly on a red blanket were the auction catalogs I had just tried to get rid of. 

“Ten dollars each,” the man told me when I stopped to look. “But for you, I’ll take 5.”

Lisa Silver is a freelance writer who has been spending summers in Montauk for the past 16 years.

It’s gone. I know. Another summer, another year barreling by.

That title up there actually has a second meaning. Summer is the name of a poof of a poodle, under six pounds, jet-black hair, now aging with some white around the mouth. She’s got this very (purposely) unkempt look — her hair covering her eyes and dangling haphazardly in soft twirls off her bony body. She also appears as if she’s walking on tiptoe. Everyone on the street wonders what kind of dog she is. 

She’s Summer, dark and small and shapeless, hard to tell her front from her back. At rest, she resembles a black mop head. Or a fake-fur throw pillow.

Her owner passed away this past winter. A lovely and courageous woman named Carol Lee, of Southern heritage. The dog wound up outliving her at 14 years old. Carol Lee was 74 when she died but told everyone, for years until the end, that she was 59. (Except, of course, when she was 59; then she recalibrated to the mid-30s.)

Sam, her brother, had a summer house this summer in Sag Harbor. A rental, a spectacular one on the edge of the cove, a more remote part of Sag — you travel along Long Island Avenue to Redwood Road to Cove Road, and there it is. About a mile from the American Hotel.

It’s a gorgeous house, modern and chic, with stunning views of the cove — a tranquil body of water, smooth as glass; it ripples slightly when a family of ducks glides by, or a lone paddleboarder drifts along, or a kayak, a canoe, or a rowboat. There’s a low bridge at one end, so larger boats are blocked from entering. You rarely hear a motor. It is quiet and serene and reflects the ever-changing skies above. Even the recently complained-about noisy helicopters don’t seem to pierce through, but, frankly, the workers who trim the hedges on a Saturday slightly annoy. 

The house has a small fenced-in pool, but the rest of the grounds, with an elaborate grill and an outdoor dining table where we would often dine, is open to woods and nearby houses. After dinner, we would sit outdoors, look out at the water, and listen to music, the air glittering with fireflies as night began to fall.

“Where’s Summer?” is what Sam asks a thousand times a day. Even when the dog is on a leash, sitting under us at an outdoor table at Page restaurant, for one, inches from our feet. 

“Where’s Summer?”

Maybe I passed over too quickly how the dog came to be Sam’s. She belonged to Carol Lee since May of 2003, and my husband and I were there on her first night in Carol Lee’s East 60th Street apartment in Manhattan. For years, when we had a house in the Amagansett dunes, Sam and Carol Lee would come and visit, Summer tiptoeing behind them.

The two of them (make that the three of them) would rent houses each summer in various locations but seemed to settle on Sag over the last few summers. Houses, some grand, some simple, with pools and without, and always walking distance to town.

There were dinners and backgammon and rosé wine. Carol Lee’s passing was sad for many people who were touched by her. But no one was more bereft than her brother. They were closer thanthis.

This was his first summer in decades that she hadn’t been there with him, often in the city, and constantly in the summer houses. Shopping together. Museums and movies together. Gabbing and laughing together. Screaming at each other.

David (he’s my husband) and I became sort of grateful stand-ins for Carol Lee this summer. Sam was lost without her, and we would show up. David would cook — David and Carol Lee often cooked together on summer weekends, and also holidays and birthdays, for as long as I can remember.

And now she’s gone. And summer is ending. But Summer, the dog, is always right there no matter how many times Sam asks where she is. We wonder if she misses Carol Lee. We always do wonder: What do dogs think? (They must think something.)

Maybe Sam believes that Carol Lee lives on in Summer. He takes her everywhere, in his arms on the subway to his office (she’s that tiny). She’s there at any outdoor restaurant here and in N.Y.C. Carol Lee may be gone, but the dog seems to be thriving.

But back to the house where we have spent weekends, four in all, since Memorial Day. There were lots of laughs and lots of reminiscing about Carol Lee, the dog a constant reminder among other reminders and stories shared. How we would curse at each other over backgammon moves. How we thought how she would have loved to see Glenn Close in “Sunset Boulevard” or Bette Midler in “Hello, Dolly.” Carol Lee was a sometime actress, along with her other gifts. Gifts of interior design, of fashion styling — the greatest gift-giver I have known. (Lorne Michaels, in fact, used her for a time as his personal shopper.)

I would write pieces in this column and on my blog and she would insist she portray one of the characters in my stories. She wanted me to write a one-woman show for her. In the end, she would have been much better qualified to write her own story and portray herself in a one-woman show. She had an Imogene Coca comedic quality. And she looked somewhat like Carson McCullers. It was often discussed how she could play those two women in that never-to-be-done one-woman show.

Meantime, summer does speed along. It is August as I write this; my husband and I are in Provincetown for the month, a new summer spot since selling in Amagansett.

But I’m lucky enough to still spend time in Sag Harbor and the Hamptons, driving around, getting takeout from Round Swamp Farm and Cavaniola’s, eating dinner at the bar at the Palm, shopping at Turpan. Reading and reminiscing.

Weekends in June and July were not great, weather-wise. Some sun. More clouds. Rain.

What happened to the summer of 2017? Where did it go? And, more specifically, where is Summer, that wayward, but always underfoot, shadow of a dog?

Where is she?

Oh, there she is. Right there.

Hy Abady has collected his “Guestwords” essays in two books, the latest of which is “Back in The Star Again Again! Further Stories From the East End. And Beyond.”

While some politicians claim that climate change is a hoax, and climate scientists try to refine their models and forecasts of exactly how much warming will take place in the next few decades, marine scientists can see clearly the evidence of what has already happened. 

Everyone has heard about melting glaciers and dying coral reefs, but climate change is doing something else that is equally dangerous. The oceans absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted from burning fossil fuels. In one way that’s good, because it slows down the warming, but it is making the seawater more acidic. CO2 in the ocean combines with water to form carbonic acid and makes the water more acidic — in fact 30 percent more acidic in recent decades. 

This affects marine animals; the most severe effect is impairing shell formation in animals with calcium carbonate shells, such as clams and mussels. This has already occurred: In the Pacific Northwest, oyster larvae in hatcheries are unable to make their shells properly. Tiny planktonic snails are showing eroded shells. Acidified water poses an additional stress to corals already suffering from rising temperatures. Another effect is on behavior. Acidified waters impair the sense of smell of fish, causing them to be unable to find their home reef and to move toward, rather than away from, the odor of a predator. 

Another reason global warming has not been too bad yet is because the ocean absorbs most of the earth’s excess heat. But oceans are warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, half of the increase in ocean heat content since 1865 has occurred over the past two decades. Warmer water holds less oxygen, but the respiration rate of animals (except for marine mammals) increases with temperature, so they need more oxygen at the same time that less is available. A warmer ocean has less turnover (vertical water movements), which normally brings nutrient-rich water up from deep water to the plankton that photosynthesize near the surface. With fewer nutrients, they photosynthesize less and animals can’t get enough food.

Many species are moving north to find more suitable environments, including species of commercial importance. Lobsters are disappearing from Long Island and southern New England, but increasing in the Gulf of Maine and Canada. Commercial catches are regulated by regional management agencies, but now these animals are fewer where they had been, and are increasing in places where they weren’t important before. 

The most dramatic responses to warming oceans are in corals. When stressed, corals eject the single-celled symbiotic algae that live in their tissues, which normally photosynthesize and provide the coral with most of its nutrition. When they are ejected, the coral is “bleached” and appears white. While they can still get some nutrition by catching plankton with their tentacles, most species get less than half of their nutrition this way, so if the stress persists and zooxanthellae do not return, corals die. About 30 percent of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia died in 2016-17. This is devastating not only for the corals, but also for the thousands of other species that depend on the reef, including humans, who depend on it for $6 billion in tourism revenue annually. An excellent documentary about this tragedy, called “Chasing Coral,” is available on Netflix.

Major changes are occurring in the polar regions, where the extent of sea ice is diminishing rapidly. As ice melts, the water gets fresher and normal algal blooms diminish, providing less food at the bottom of the food chain on which the rest of the ecosystem depends. Some species that rely on sea ice, like Adelie penguins in Antarctica and polar bears in the Arctic, are in trouble.

Closer to home, sea level rise is one effect that is apparent in coastal regions. Sea level rise results from water expanding when it warms plus addition of new water from melting glaciers. It is happening faster than was predicted. Increased flooding from storms is common, and many areas (e.g., South Florida) have flooded streets even on sunny days. Since much of the world’s population lives in coastal areas, threats to human lives and well-being are becoming apparent. 

In Bristol Bay, Alaska, the ability of local communities to access subsistence resources is impaired. Changes in the timing of ice freeze and melt are affecting safety, making it difficult to travel to neighboring villages and in some cases causing loss of life. Residents of some small low-lying Pacific islands have already moved elsewhere, and such “climate refugees” will increase in the future, which can cause political and social problems. Despite this, the Trump administration has recently undone a regulation that required that development near the coast take sea level rise into consideration, to reduce the risk of future damage. 

Natural communities are also at risk. Coastal salt marshes in the intertidal zone are very important ecosystems that reduce storm surge and winds, absorb pollutants, and provide habitat for a variety of crabs, shrimp, fishes, birds, and mammals. In the face of rising seas, marshes must either increase their elevation or move inland. Increase in elevation results from new sediments being deposited and organic matter accumulation from marsh plants. Many marshes in the Northeast do not have adequate input of new sediments to increase their elevation, so moving back is the only option. (The marshes in Accabonac Harbor are increasing with sediments but not organic matter from plants, and have not been keeping up with sea level rise over the past decade.)

In developed regions, there are roads, sidewalks, etc., immediately inland, so there is no place for the marshes to go. Subject to “coastal squeeze,” many marshes that protect us from storm surge and winds will disappear. Recently, the East Hampton Town Board very wisely used the community preservation fund to buy some properties adjacent to marshes to allow for migration. 

Another component of forecasted climate change is increased rainfall in the Northeast. This will intensify the nitrogen problem in estuaries, since more rain means more runoff and nitrogen going into the water. Much of our local nitrogen problem is due primarily to leaching from septic systems, but the expansive green lawns in the Hamptons suggest there is a lot of fertilizer runoff also. Warmer water in the future will also accelerate algal blooms.

What can be done? We need rapid decreases in emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. While governmental actions are vital, and it is important to keep up the pressure on elected officials to do more, collectively individuals can make a difference. Examine your “carbon footprint.” Does your car use a lot of gas? Next time, buy a hybrid or electric. Do you drive short distances that you could walk or bike or take public transportation? How high is your electric bill? Could you keep your house a bit warmer in the summer and a bit cooler in the winter to save energy? 

I am surprised and saddened to see so few houses around here with solar panels. Solar technology has improved greatly and the price has gone down. Could you eat less meat and more vegetables? Animal agriculture, especially beef, creates a huge amount of greenhouse gases. Studies indicate that the most important thing you can do — if you are still in a position to do this — is reduce the number of children you have. 

All these actions will make the quality of life better for the children and grandchildren you do have.

Judith S. Weis is a professor emerita at Rutgers University. She has a house in Springs.

I fall in love regularly.

With a red spindly flower that blooms for only a few days in the backyard. With a rush of tall grass swaying in the delicious South Fork breeze. With family. Old and just-met friends. The band of turkeys roaming our yard. In love with poems and the anticipation of penne with fresh tomato sauce. The surprise of dolphins lifting and diving arcs through the exhilarating waves with which I am in love.

I fall in love with a nugget of promise lighting my path when my eyes are open.

On Saturday evening, Aug. 12, like people throughout the country, I felt the need to stand together with others in our community in a public showing of outrage, grief, and commitment to stop the calculated madness that erupted this time in Charlottesville, Va. A number of local activists began an email thread discussing the idea of a vigil. The wharf in Sag Harbor, 3 p.m. Then 4 p.m. 

We were reminded that Willie Jenkins, an East Ender who was a leader in local Black Lives Matter events last summer, was organizing the first Bridgehampton Day at the Bridgehampton Childcare and Recreational Center on the Turnpike. We needed to show support. To show up. After more back and forth and an invitation from Bonnie Cannon, the director of the Center, who was on the thread, it was agreed the vigil would be held there, at 6 p.m., following the celebration. 

I arrived around 4:30 p.m. to a vibrant gathering of families and neighbors, plentiful with food, a cacophony of music, conversation, and the scud, slide, shout, and bounce of basketball. The flowers in the garden seemed as if they were talking. T-shirts marking the day decorated torsos of every size. The barbecue grill sizzled. Whatever was happening in a place called the Hamptons, on Shinnecock land, where houses get torn down and rebuilt adorned by instant installation of humongous trees mostly with the labor of Latino workers threatened by deportation, where S.U.V. Porsches line the roads leading to beaches, and where white supremacy also hides and doesn’t hide in every village — while the realtor in chief was not condemning the terror in Charlottesville, thereby condoning as he wagged and roared a threat of first strike — on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Childcare and Recreational Center on the Bridge-Sag Turnpike in the heart of the black community, life was happening. 

The people gathered seemed to be doing what they needed, taking pleasure in their community. I asked Bonnie if we shouldn’t change plans, invite those who would be coming for the vigil to just join. She thought it was important to take a few moments to honor the losses and pain in Charlottesville, speak our commitment together. But it seemed like there would be two distinct events, possibly with two separate groups of people — one mostly black, already there and engaged, and the other mostly white, joining soon.

When the vigil group began to arrive, they gathered in the front area of the grounds, waiting for instruction, while the celebration, although diminishing in size as it was set to end at 6 p.m., continued. Willie announced there would be a vigil. 

There was some confusion. I worried that Bridgehampton Day was being invaded and in that sense disrespected, although the opposite was the intention. The situation would have been funny, had it not reflected something so serious, to see the awkward separation of lives, cultures, and colors. How would someone from another planet interpret the human checkerboard?

Bonnie called everyone into a circle. She acknowledged Bridgehampton Day, its great success, announcing officially that it would be annual, thanking Willie. She spoke about Charlottesville, asked for a moment of silence. She noted that white people were on one side of the circle and black people on the other, as usual, and asked the white people to cross to another part of the circle, join hands with a black person, speak to someone they didn’t know. Any who then wished to take signs and go stand by the road for a vigil were invited to do so.

She and I suggested that those who didn’t know the Center could get to know it. Willie called for volunteers for next year’s Bridgehampton Day. There was an animated rearrangement of bodies and voices, an excitement and release that happens during a cellular shift. A momentary lightening of spirit.

People chatted and moved around the parking area between buildings, and then some walked toward the road. Soon a group stood at the side of the road in front of the Center, some with signs, some calling out. Passing drivers honked, offered a V with their fingers and yelled affirmations.

We don’t want and can’t afford for these small, resonating steps toward what the late Grace Lee Boggs called “growing our souls” to come only after an explosion, to rewind a few days or weeks later. That’s not change. (Bonnie reminded me that the Center was built in the ’60s after a tragedy, to offer safe care to children of the seasonal farm workers.) What’s happening is not new. And the daily subtler behaviors of white supremacy didn’t end or just begin. But it’s all out there now, raw and unfiltered — a big, naked, many-tongued body of a nation bleeding out.

It shouldn’t be that in 2017 this is where we still are. It shouldn’t be that the black woman has to fix it. Just as it shouldn’t be that talks and exhibitions offer the work and voices of only or predominantly those who are white identified, planned by the same, or that young people of different ethnicities, gender identities, or sexualities aren’t regularly affirmed by accessible curriculums, books, programs, and teachers. None of the historical and ongoing affronts and assaults or the treachery spewing from the whitest house threatening to unravel any shreds of decency, safety, or democracy, should be. There are a zillion shouldn’ts. And here we are. 

Bonnie and I, and it seemed others I encountered, agreed that a glimmer danced in that place among ordinary humans of different ages, skin tones, living on different neighboring roads, on Aug. 13, 2017, following a jubilant celebration in the hub of a black community. 

Adrienne maree brown writes in the introduction to her visionary and hopeful book “Emergent Strategy”: “If love were the central practice of a new generation of organizers and spiritual leaders, it would have a massive impact on what is considered organizing. If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression.”

Being at the Center again after having spent time there some years back reminded me that the essential work of building takes plodding persistence and tenacity, along with vision. Long and slow. Hard to keep in mind as the very future of life on earth daily becomes more precarious. And yet this is the work of being alive. The work of love.

James Baldwin wrote: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace — not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

I shared with those gathered at the Center a phrase I had heard in the ’80s in a country experiencing war and also promise: “The joy of the people is what the enemy fears most.” 

The enemy and opposite of love is hate. The opposite of remember is dismember. The opposite of facing whatever has been and is, is denial. Denial can last for only so long. Then, like acid, it eats the soul. Of a person. Of a country.

I wake to an email from a dear friend, the writer and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller. His words lyrically cry a succinct warning and challenge, including this line: “The only cure is love yet so many refuse to accept or take their medicine.”

Here, once again, in the pregnant portending of August, as afternoon turned to evening on a piece of earth emanating past spirits and struggles, in a living project actively caring for and preparing those who will carry on, as one morning glory planted by Mr. Doug, the Center’s director of culinary arts and Sol Garden, began its blue overture, I fell in love.

Kathy Engel is associate arts professor and chair in the department of art and public policy at N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts. 

The women in my book club, all in the Medicare stage of life, are planning our yearly trip. Grand Canyon? Paris? A posh resort where we can experience the life of the rich and famous? No. After much contemplation, we’ve agreed on Lourdes, site of the most famous healing shrine in the world. It’s practically an emergency. The group is falling apart.

Claire has a breathing issue. Mary has a knee thing. Dorothy is close to deafness — at meetings, a tiny microphone that enhances her hearing aid is passed to whoever is speaking; a hindrance, in my opinion, because we need constant reminding to talk into it, thus forgetting what we’re talking about. But when it comes to falling apart, Miriam was the champ. She just up and died. Right when it was her turn to host.

At Lourdes, we will be renewed, as was St. Bernadette before she was a saint. Her story is simple yet miraculous: While at the site, visions appeared that enhanced her well-being, in particular the healing of her paralyzed arm. A shrine was built to mark the site of the occurrence so others could come and try their luck. Why not us?

Note #1. There are three rules for declaring a miracle, and they are not complicated. First, you cannot be a crackpot. Second, you must be diagnosed with a legitimate affliction; something’s really got to be wrong with you. Third, after all medical science and home remedies, including green tea and the like, have been exhausted and one is declared incurable by any worldly potion, not even all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can put you together again. But then, hopeless as it seems, all suffering due to said affliction vanishes. Miracle!

Note #2. One does not need to have inclinations to sainthood to achieve results. All are welcome to plead their case at the shrine and wait for an outcome. Usually instantaneous. You’re fixed or you’re not. No excuses given if it’s the latter. You can return at will. Maybe the first time you really weren’t in the mood, went along for the walk, didn’t want to be miracle-deprived. Now you’ll be a little more respectful.

Note #3. There are two Catholics in our group, so we assume we can get in on their coattails. It is a Catholic shrine, after all.

We will return from Lourdes with our faculties in order. Our wrinkles smoothed over. We will dispense with the part of our book club known as the Organ Recital, wherein we discuss our organs — those that work and those that don’t. A depressing preamble to the discussion, but important because it offers opportunity for comparison: What our doctors say — fats okay, fats not okay; red wine okay but, according to Adele’s doctor, no more than four glasses a night. Finally, a doctor who knows what he’s talking about.

Exercise, which most doctors say is vital to good health, is getting on my nerves. When I get to Lourdes I will pray that exercise moves over to the “will kill you” list. Much deterioration of our knees and elbows is caused by exercising beyond a certain age (again my opinion).

Case in point: In my youth and still I blast rock ’n’ roll music through the earbuds of my iPod (formerly my Walkman), transforming myself into a power-walker! Still power-walking now, but a bit deaf, it’s hard to hear the cars whizzing by and honking for me to get out of the way. (Just one of many hidden examples of how exercise can kill you.)

What to wear: In the old photos, most people approaching the shrine are in rags, presumably thinking little about wardrobe, concentrating on the mission, throwing away the crutches and going for a run — a short one, of course, they’ve only just begun. Blind eyes seeing where before they could not. So we too will wear rags. Whatever it takes.

But now I’m feeling a little angst. What if only some of us are cured? Will there be resentment? What if nobody has a miracle — all that time trudging uphill to the shrine for nothing, maybe even falling and breaking a hip? And what if by some miracle we are all cured? What will we talk about? The book? Please.

The book discussion is a substitute for companionship; companionship includes complaints. But if all goes well we will be free of complaints. Talk about the world situation? That eliminates fun. Family troubles: also too depressing. A joke, shortened version: Two moms talking. First mom: “Oy!” Second mom: “Oy oy.” First mom: “Okay. Enough about the children.”

Nobody wants crying on a night out. What then?

I’m coming up empty. Maybe the book club is the real problem. Somebody picks a book, may not be our style, but we’re committed. Much preparation and maybe even missing a new “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” on book club night.

So now I’m thinking when I get to Lourdes I’ll pray for the end of the book club. If things go bad for us, it’s back to the organ recital (really boring unless it’s my turn, then it gets good).

But wait. I don’t need a miracle to end the book club. I can just quit. Now I’m not sure I want to go to Lourdes. Probably they won’t want me. I haven’t been that good — although my last new year’s resolution was to do one good thing a day, to make up for past infractions; I posted it on stickies so I don’t forget. Yesterday I helped a wheelchair person up an incline. This morning I talked to my doorman about his family instead of hot outside/cold outside.

And then it happens! Last night’s meeting. Claire practically danced on the table. Pacemaker was all she needed. Dorothy announced the recovery of her hearing through a cochlear implant — you could tell she had it because of the little light that blinked through her hair signaling low battery. Mary’s knees kicked in.

Am I fantasizing? Did the miracle come to us? Yes. Believe it. The mystery of life all over again. I accept. So I don’t need to make the trip. Life just keeps getting better.

Hinda Gonchor’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Gannett newspapers, and previously in The Star. She lives part time in East Hampton.

Over the past 25 years covering the Hamptons International Film Festival for newspapers, TV, and radio, it has been a wild ride of different theater venues, celebrity interviews, after-parties, and films that often went on to win Academy Awards.

Sir Patrick Stewart, of Shakespeare and “Star Trek” fame, said it best at one of the festival’s “A Conversation With . . .” programs on Saturday when he emphasized the importance of the arts. Whether it’s painting, writing, music, or dancing, he said, the arts give a community its soul and inspiration.

This is certainly true of East Hampton and Southampton Towns, which turn into “Hollywood East” each fall. Who would think, I asked myself, watching Stewart speak at the East Hampton Middle School, that this used to be my little high school, and it now hosts movie stars?

Of the scores of events I cover each year throughout the Hamptons, this festival has always been my favorite, for the major actors I get to meet and for the educational value of the top-quality independent films. Before this festival, I never realized how different an independent film was from a mass-produced one, with filmmakers for the most part creating films they really care about, rather than just to make millions. 

It’s been an amazing journey to see this festival grow from small parties and brunches at Nick and Toni’s restaurant in the early 1990s to bigger gatherings at the Wolffer Estate Vineyard, at the home of Stuart Match Suna, a founding HIFF board member and chairman emeritus, and at other venues. It was fun to wait among throngs of press to interview and photograph guests at the opening night parties at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk, East Hampton Point, and the former Lily Pond nightclub.

I remember the excitement of watching “The King’s Speech” at its 2010 premiere at the Southampton movie theater, and of going to the after-party at a nearby restaurant with its producer, Harvey Weinstein, its director, Tom Hooper, and writer, David Seidler. Seidler told me how he got the idea for the movie, about the king of England’s stuttering problem, because of his own struggle with stuttering as a child growing up in that country. I was even more excited as I saw the film go on to win an Oscar for best picture, as did the festival movies “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Moonlight.”

Besides getting an inside view of the best upcoming films, the festival has given me entree to interviewing the stars. I talked to Richard Dreyfus, Roy Scheider, and Steven Spielberg about the making of “Jaws” and the controversy with Capt. Frank Mundus, who claimed that Peter Benchley, the author of the book and one of the screenwriters, did not credit him for teaching him how to fish for sharks on his Montauk charter boat, Cricket II. The late Roy Scheider said later that of all the various roles he’d played, “I guess I’ll always be remembered for ‘Jaws.’ ”

But it’s not always easy to get these movie stars to talk, let alone open up. Following a “Conversation With . . .” in 1996 with Angelica Huston at Guild Hall, where she also talked about working with her famous father, the director John Huston, she refused all interviews with the press and hurried out the back door. At the time I was working for WVVH-Hamptons Television, and my cameraman, David Nadal, and I ran to the back parking lot and caught her climbing into her limousine. 

“Can we just have one interview for the local TV station?” we pleaded. To our surprise, she came over, just for a second, she said, but we ended up getting a 10-minute interview for our show before she darted off. Once we got her talking about her first film as a director, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” she couldn’t stop.

Following Richard Gere’s “A Conversation With . . .” in 2012, I saw him at an after-party and asked him for an interview. Of all the stars, he turned me down in the best possible way, putting his arm around me warmly and saying he was sorry, he just didn’t want an interview. I was so happy to be hugged by Richard Gere, nothing else seemed to matter, and I never forgot it. 

Then there was an enjoyable evening sitting on the porch of the Maidstone Arms, laughing with another of my favorite actors, Paul Giamatti, who was in town for the opening of “Barney’s Version.” He was funny, easygoing, and gave me plenty of time as he discussed the film. I had to tell him how much I enjoyed one of his most popular movies, “Sideways,” and how much I admired his various roles.

And last year I finally met someone I’d always wanted to meet, the globe-trotting Anthony Bourdain, outside the East Hampton movie theater after the screening of “Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent,” about the famous chef, which he produced. When asked if he lived in the Hamptons, Bourdain said he often visits here and loves to shop at the farm stands, and that he usually lets his daughter decide what’s for dinner.

Over 25 years, the times were not always funny or magical. On the afternoon of Oct. 24, 2005, tragedy just missed the festival. While watching a film by Polly Draper in a packed Guild Hall, there was a loud explosion, and I ran out of the theater to see that a small twin-engine plane had crashed across the street on Mill Hill Lane. Smoke and fire were coming from it as emergency crews rushed to save the pilot, who died. He was the only one inside the Cessna, which just missed the Maidstone Arms and some houses on the street. Inside the theater with Draper were the actors Kevin Bacon, his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, and Miranda Richardson. 

But there was no shortage of happy times, through all the film festivals, hanging with the press at the Maidstone Arms, the Huntting Inn, and John Papas Cafe between screenings. Now celebrating his own 25th year in business, John Papas told me he opened in June of 1992, three months before the festival. “Being so close to the movie theater, I always enjoyed having the movie crowd come here and chat about the films,” he said. “We also served many of the stars, so it’s been a lot of fun over the years.”

Kudos to Alec Baldwin, a HIFF co-chairman, Stuart Match Suna, Anne Chaisson, the executive director, and David Nugent, the artistic director, and their whole crew for all their hard work in helping to reach this big silver anniversary. 

David Nugent made a good point while introducing Rob Reiner at Sunday’s “A Conversation With . . .” in East Hampton: “Movies change your life,” he said. “I was 13 when I saw Reiner’s film ‘Stand by Me’ for the first time, and it had a big effect on me.” He said it made him want to see and study more films, which eventually led to his passion for the industry. 

I look forward to seeing more great films and stars over the next 25 years at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Debbie Tuma is a freelance writer and a host at WLNG Radio. She lives in Riverhead and can be reached at [email protected].

An open letter to Diane Patrizio, director, Department of Human Services, Town of East Hampton.

Re: Disturbing changes in the Suffolk County Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program, or EISEP.

Dear Diane,

As I noted to you in my email of July 5th, your recent one-store-only food shopping order for the town’s EISEP clients requires me to defy my doctor’s orders.

This results from diagnoses over recent years of such old-age-related conditions as a carotid artery blockage, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and low red cell counts, which translates into my need to consume fresh fish and meats. I have not found the fish at our local supermarkets, the I.G.A. and Stop and Shop, to be reliably fresh.

If your home care workers are to shop for me at a nearby location, my fish should be bought at Citarella, and I should continue to rely on the I.G.A. and/or Stop and Shop for basics, many of which are not available at Citarella and are usually much more expensive when they are.

Additionally, I often need sandwiches on hand for occasions when, because of an injured hip and temperamental back, I am unable to prepare my meals. So, over the four years I have had the good fortune to be an EISEP client, the shopper assigned to me has picked up fresh poultry sandwiches from Mary’s Marvelous. The supermarket sandwiches are generally made from processed food, which my physician discourages.

Surely, these health challenges and consequent dietary regimen are not unusual among a client pool made up entirely of senior citizens. But when I tried to inform your social worker who called to inform me of your one-store edict of my diet necessities, she told me that nevertheless town helpers could now food shop at only one location.

If this restriction would actually save money or time, I could see some reason for it. But it does neither. Shopping at the I.G.A. (or Stop and Shop), Mary’s Marvelous, and Citarella is a compact undertaking. Everything is central. For me, it involves driving in one direction in a four-mile circular route from and back to my house. A similar ease of access to the necessary healthy foods exists throughout the town and probably most of Suffolk County. No one is asking you to send your shoppers all over the countryside.

The one-store rule also does nothing to save wage costs. EISEP’s structure precludes this. A worker is assigned to each client for two hours once a week. My shopping list and mail collection have seldom if ever required the two full hours to complete. The remaining time is used to clean my kitchen and bathroom, help that I welcome. But my priority is healthy food. I am grateful to have been getting that.

What difference can it possibly make to your office and EISEP funders how much of the two hours is used for food shopping and mail pickup and how much for other tasks? Am I not, with my 90-plus years on this earth, qualified to make such decisions for myself, especially when it has no meaningful bearing on your employees’ workload or EISEP’s expenses?

I have other questions. Prior to issuing this order, was thought given to findings that healthy diets actually save taxpayer money by reducing demands on emergency medical services? Was thought given to the psychic cost that enforcing such nonsense will have on our young social workers, many of whom entered the field to help make the world a little better? Or to the effect such needless micromanaging will have on your efficient and committed helpers, who take such pleasure in helping us thrive?

Why mess with it, Diane? EISEP is, at root, a lovely, productive program. So, let’s dump this dehumanizing edict.

We survived the Depression, fought great armies in World War II and the younger among us in Vietnam. We also fought for race and gender equality, disabilities access, and peace. We supported families and educated our kids, often by working long hours at grinding hardscrabble jobs. And now, for no good reason that I’ve been told, we are faced with senseless, nitpicking little orders that treat us like irresponsible children.

On a recent Friday at the East Hampton senior center, I had the pleasure of being honored along with other East Hampton 90-plus-year-olds. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc gave a nice speech in which he extolled our wisdom, leadership, and integrity. During the same week, I got the call from your social worker about the one-stop rule and was blown off when I tried to inform her of my doctor’s inevitable reaction.

So, Diane, what are we old folks? Stalwart members of the community? Or demented old farts to be infantilized?

I look forward to receiving your response.

With best regards, 

Richard Rosenthal

Richard Rosenthal recently celebrated his 92nd birthday.

The harrowing tales of sexual assault and harassment have continuously bombarded my computer screen for the last two weeks. I knew this kind of abuse was happening throughout the world, but I didn’t know how ingrained it was in the everyday lives of American women. I thought Harvey Weinstein, who tyrannically harassed and assaulted Hollywood actresses, was a phenomenon, but I was wrong. The trending #MeToo has opened my eyes to see that sexual violence, assault, and harassment are far too common. 

Yet we don’t need Facebook or Twitter to teach us about the timeless harassment of women. Just open up the Bible.

#MeToo: Sarah is forcefully inducted into the harems of Pharaoh and Abimelech (Genesis 12 and Genesis 20).

#MeToo: Jacob’s daughter Dinah is raped by Shechem (Genesis 34).

#MeToo: Bathsheba is sent for by David, taken into his bed, and returned by messengers later (2 Samuel 11).

#MeToo: Tamar is brutally assaulted and raped by her brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13).

#MeToo: Queen Vashti refuses to be sexually displayed before the guests of her husband (Esther 1).

Why are these stories in our sacred scriptures? Because they stand as warnings to us about the dangers of the power imbalance we see in our society. For far too long have men abused women and subjugated them to harassment, assault, and rape. Nothing is new under the sun. Such was the biblical reality, such was the medieval reality, the Renaissance reality, and this is our reality. 

In the Talmud, a legal code and compendium of Jewish wisdom, the rabbis recognize that there is danger in certain social situations and offer a set of societal safeguards. For starters, they stipulate that any time there is a power differential between two people, their interaction should have a third party present. In other words, if you are in a position of power, it’s improper to meet someone in a private hotel room alone. Instead, meet them in the hotel restaurant. And if for whatever reason there is an issue with a public space, defuse the tension with a third person. 

The social attention given to #MeToo should be a wake-up call. I don’t believe it’s about redefining entrenched power inequity. We need leadership roles, we need elected officials, and we even need some sort of hierarchy in business. #MeToo is about hearing the cries of women. #MeToo is a call for all of us to see that the trauma is real and has been swept under the carpet for far too long. It’s about saying that the actions of those who take advantage of, harass, and sexually assault others are unacceptable, and anyone who perpetrates them should be punished. It’s about making this kind of harassment marginal, instead of an accepted norm. 

The teachings of religion should embolden each of us to stand up and be righteous. Religious teachings remind us not only to be upright in our own actions, but also to stand up when others are being victimized. Proverbial Jewish wisdom offers that “in a place where there is no one, stand up and be the one” (Avot 2:4).

The biblical character of Noah is antithetical to the idea of being an upstander. In Genesis, he is described as being “a righteous man of his generation” (Genesis 6:9). We should see the words “of his generation” as a negative qualifier. Noah was righteous among a group of the world’s most terrible people. He was a moral Cyclops in the land of the morally blind. Even the etymology of the name Noah (Noach in Hebrew) implies that he was at ease or apathetic to the corruption around him. 

The Bible steers us instead toward the example of Abraham, who enters Sodom and Gomorrah to raise a wicked people from their depravity. To the men out there, perhaps we’ve been like Noah, upright in our own ways but not advocating when we see the exploitation and abuse around us. And perhaps this is why Noah is ascribed little biblical importance. He isn’t the example that we look to as a model of what it means to be a good person. He is only as good as others are bad, and that is not quite good enough. 

I can’t from my own life say #MeToo. All I can do is stand up and say that we’ve turned a blind eye far too long. To quote Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “while only some are guilty, all of us are accountable.” 

This I promise: I will never turn a blind eye to those who cry out, or to those who aren’t able to cry out. I will never put anyone in a situation in which his or her safety is compromised by a power imbalance. 

I will work to create a community here at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, and in East Hampton, that will not tolerate sexual abuse, assault, or harassment in any form. I will always be here to listen to the stories of #MeToo from anyone who needs to share. I will hear you, I will see you, I will support you, and I do my best to ensure that the East Hampton community is a safe place for all genders.

Rabbi Joshua Franklin was installed as the rabbi at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in September. He lives in East Hampton.

Recently I joined a group on the Viking Ferry to Block Island to see and hear more about that island’s experience with its five offshore “windmills” and the proposed farm of 15 or more, 35 miles over the horizon from Montauk in federal waters. Deepwater Wind’s proposal to provide clean power for Long Island with offshore turbines was chosen by the Long Island Power Authority as the least expensive bid, and it is clearly the environmentally preferable one too.

I was impressed with what I saw and heard, as well as by the scientific articles I have since read. Block Island’s turbines supply 100 percent of the island’s electricity usage. They do so at a substantially lower cost and greater reliability than the diesel-fueled power plants that were shut down as the wind power came online. In addition, Deepwater Wind funded valuable community projects as a way to give back, including a significant contribution to help restore the Southeast Lighthouse.

These windmills succeed where the fossil fuel power sources failed. Our bus driver and residents told us that the diesel-fueled power was unreliable and that their electricity bills varied wildly from year to year, depending on the cost of the fuel. With wind turbines, the power is reliable and the bills are stable, enabling households and businesses to plan better.

On the East Coast, the ocean wind is considerably stronger and more constant than on land, and it blows hardest during peak demand periods. The cost of wind power is declining rapidly, down 50 percent in the last two years, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis of bids in the United Kingdom. This giant leap results in large part from 25 years of commercial offshore wind experience and advances in Europe.

In East Hampton, residents broadly agree with the town’s commitment to generating all our energy from renewable sources by 2030. The South Fork Wind Farm off Montauk has wide support here too.

The local fishing industry has expressed concern about the farm’s impact on fisheries. All of us feel a special affinity for the commercial and recreational fishing community and treasure our glorious fresh local fish. (Block Island has recreational and tourist fishing, but little commercial fishing.) The evidence to date from ongoing scientific studies of the Block Island farm provides reassurance. They find no adverse effect on the hauls there since the modern windmills went online, nor have birds been found killed by collisions. Similarly, the experience in Europe, which has installed nearly 4,000 offshore turbines, is overwhelmingly positive. The turbines act as reefs, attracting and harboring a rich mix of marine life.

For the year and a half of construction, moreover, Deepwater set up a fund to pay Block Island fishermen for any smaller hauls, using a comparison with revenue from the year before. It should do the same here in East Hampton.

Some people have expressed fear of potential harm to marine life aside from the commercial catch. So I called the National Wildlife Federation to seek advice. The federation has a venerated 80-year history of fighting to protect wildlife. With the proper protections in place throughout the development process, the group finds, the risks to marine life from offshore wind power is minimal, especially compared with fossil fuel sources of energy that create air and water pollution, degrade wildlife habitat, and drive climate change.

For marine animals, noise during construction is the most worrisome aspect. Of most concern is the North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species that migrates along the Eastern Seaboard and is highly sensitive to noise. The National Wildlife Federation has not seen any evidence of harm to marine life (including larvae, dolphins, and whales) from the low-frequency vibrations of wind turbines once in operation. It is important that construction activities not occur during peak whale migration seasons, and vigilant year-round monitoring should be in place to ensure that the turbine operation and maintenance vessels do not place whales at risk.

In addition, techniques developed and deployed in Europe can muffle the underwater construction noise. Deepwater Wind has a strong track record of environmental protection with the Block Island Wind Farm, where it adjusted its construction schedule to avoid whale migration periods, earning the broad support of environmental advocates in New England, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and Oceana.

Deepwater Wind is eager to develop good relations with residents here. That’s smart because succeeding with the exceedingly complex approval process is worth a lot to Deepwater Wind. So support not only for our fishing community but also for energy-related community projects is a reasonable expense for the company. What should we and our elected officials press for in our participation in stakeholder consultations and negotiations? Three main things: Protect marine life, provide decent jobs, and fund community projects.

Deepwater Wind should maximize the opportunities for local engagement and jobs throughout all stages of the project development process. Rhode Island has added 300 jobs in the construction of the Block Island Wind Farm, many of which are well positioned to become long-term jobs as the offshore wind industry takes off in this country. Let’s get it right and create as many decent local jobs as we can in order to meet New York State’s goal of 2,400 megawatts from offshore wind by 2030.

When it comes to community projects, East Hampton has the first shot at the site where the deeply buried cable could come safely ashore. Ask Deepwater for a generous water and energy-related community benefit package for the town: How about helping the quality of our waterways by restoring critical wetlands and providing grants to homeowners who install state-of-the-art septic tanks that remove nitrates, to add to the rebates the town already offers?

Or how about funding a community solar farm? Or better landscaping for the eyesore substation PSEG put next to the Amagansett railroad station? Or burying those ugly overhead PSEG transmission wires? Deepwater plans for all of its transmission wires to be underground.

Our local politicians have an important role to play both in approving permits and also in assuring that state-of-the-art environmental protections are built in and that residents benefit. The Democratic candidates for town board in Tuesday’s election — Peter Van Scoyoc, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, and Jeff Bragman — are supportive of the wind farm. Most of us know less about town trustee candidates. It is critical to keep the Democratic majority on the trustees because they have created a constructive dialogue between the concerned commercial fishing community and Deepwater Wind.

The South Fork Wind Farm, if approved, would be the first offshore industrial-size windmill farm in the United States. It would generate 90 megawatts, enough to power 50,000 homes annually on the East End. That’s a huge win for slowing climate change and for energy independence for the nation.

It is the only practical way that East Hampton Town can fulfill its commitment to deriving 100 percent of its power from clean renewable energy. We all need to get the free energy audits available from the Long Island Green Homes Initiative and to install geothermal or solar where practical (we have it on our house). But that alone won’t be enough. I urge all of us to support this clean energy initiative. I urge our government and trustee agencies to grant all the approvals in a timely manner, while seeking Deepwater’s good-will support of local energy-related projects.

The East End needs wind power. It is time to return wind power to its 350-year history in East Hampton. That’s the story science, economics, and common sense tell us. And it’s the story our windmills tell us.

Alice Tepper Marlin was named distinguished fellow at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business, where she teaches a course in business and society. She is a board member and president emerita of Social Accountability International and lives part time in Springs.

Last fall my mother and I planted 16 hyacinth bulbs in five municipalities in three counties all over the northeastern Pennsylvania countryside. Our pilgrimage took us to her Zionsville cemetery, the Kutztown church where she had a nearly nasty fall, and a Moore Township tree almost as old as her 94 years. 

The floral odyssey is part of a master plan to help Mom forget her fading body, to raise her game during her final innings, as her fellow Brits like to term time. The mission includes kicking items off her Bucket List: whitewater rafting; nibbling a marijuana brownie; reuniting with the Englishman who painted her portrait in Ireland in 1954. It also includes turning virtually everything we do into a comic, cosmic school: visiting the E.R. for everything from irregular heartbeat to constipation; signing her cremation contract; playing bridge with two 80-something friends in a group we call Three Queens & a Joker and I call My Three Moms. Every adventure, every laugh, every twist is grist for my book “Planet Mom: Keeping an Aging Parent From Aging,” a crazy memoir married to a sneaky self-help guide.

Pat and Geoff’s Great Hyacinth Planting Spree began in late October on Gehman Road, named for another branch of the family tree rooted in Berks County’s Washington Township in the late-18th century. We cruised for 20 minutes, up and down and up again, until we admitted defeat. We decided that my trowel couldn’t make a dent in the lush grass framing the farm fields, and that the low-flying hyacinths surely would be wiped out by a tractor or a runaway car on the wide-open, naked berm. We drove away disappointed that our flowers couldn’t be neighbors of the Butter Valley Golf Port, a course/runway owned for two generations by a Gehman. 

We headed to another Gehman sanctuary in Doris, a 2000 Honda Accord named for a dear friend who willed Mom the money to buy her. Ten miles later we stood in the cemetery of the Zionsville Bible Fellowship Church, co-founded in the 1850s by my great-grandfather William, a Mennonite minister, after a feud with a nearby congregation. His gravestone borders memorials for my grandfather, another Mennonite minister named William, and my father, Larry, a Madison Avenue advertising man who fancied himself a lay preacher. 

After we buried Dad’s ashes in 2001, I planted a Montauk Daisy to thank him for planting us on the gorgeous South Fork, where I fell in love with Montauk daisies, which have fluttery white petals and a center resembling an egg-yolk button. Three months before Dad died, he and Mom agreed to share a headstone, a gorgeous gesture for a couple divorced for 37 years. His inscription, courtesy of Thomas Jefferson, is typically vigilant: “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Her inscription, courtesy of John Greenleaf Whittier, is typically benevolent: “If thou of fortune be bereft, / And in thy store there be but left / two loaves, sell one, and with the dole, / buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”

Under Whittier’s lines I began digging holes for four hyacinths, one each for Mom, Dad, my sister Meg, and me. I was on the second hole when Mom convinced me the bulbs would grow better in a trench. Within 30 seconds she was scolding me for shallow troweling, using the same stern, singsong voice she uses when my fly is down.

“That’s not six inches.” 

“Hey, will you lay off? I know what I’m doing. I’ve been planting flowers for 40 years.” 

“Well, I’ve been planting flowers for 70 years and I say that’s not six inches. Don’t argue with your mother superior.”

Pissed off, I decided to settle the score with the cardboard ruler stapled to the bulb bag. Lo and behold, my trench was two inches short. My mother, bless her benevolent soul, refused to gloat over her victory. In fact, she apologized for her chiding.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mensch.” 

“Actually, mensch is the opposite word for what you are.” 

“Grinch?”

“That’s more like it.”

We left the cemetery with a good laugh at a gravestone for the Trumps, never thinking that in eight days they would be very distant relations to America’s new president. We hadn’t even exited the parking lot when I was slammed by the strangest sensation, a sort of déjà-vu tsunami. It took me three seconds to realize that it was the 15th anniversary of the day we buried my father’s ashes right here in Zionsville. I quickly chalked up the incredible coincidence to divine justice for a cemetery caretaker chopping down Dad’s daisy, ambushing it after it sprouted into a wild bush.

The next day we scouted suitable spots in rural Northampton County, one of six territories for the weekend countryside jaunts we’ve been taking for six years. After two hours of futility we felt as bleak as the gray, grim weather. We were bouncing along Beacon Road in Moore Township, a rolling, rutted lane between Bath and Nazareth, when we found our grail. There, by a bend by a sweeping field of corn, was a gently magnetic oak tree: huge, ancient, charmingly gnarled. It reminded us of shrine trees in County Clare, where Mom’s mom grew up; where Mom discovered paradise during World War II, safe from the blitzing of her native London, and where I set a book about seeing old rural Ireland through Mom’s eyes.

Under the oak I dug a hole in a mound choked by vines and gravel. Carving and chiseling, I cursed myself as a third-rate Johnny Appleseed and a first-rate Doubting Thomas, doubting that any flower, even a spring-awakening, faith-reviving hyacinth, could rise from such a tomb. I felt better knowing that the hole-filled tree was already holy, sanctified by a yellow 15 m.p.h. sign with an arrow bent in its direction.

The next weekend we roamed the Blue Mountain bowl, a series of slaloming valleys between Fogelsville and Kempton that I’ve nicknamed the Gods’ Steeplechase Course. We ran into obstacles at two of our favorite pit stops. We were thwarted by an overflow crowd for an annual oyster dinner at Jacob’s Union Church in Jacksonville, and by impenetrable plastic weed cover at Jerusalem Red Church in Kempton, site of one of my favorite Mom epiphanies. One afternoon we were strolling through the Jerusalem cemetery when we came upon a gravestone for the family Seltzer. After a perfect, poker-faced pause, Mom asked: “Where’s Alka?” And that’s when I realized my elegant, earthy, elderly mother was a true-blue, honest-to-goodness, fox-sly comedian.

We found happiness at Mount Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kutztown, site of an unhappy event. It was here in 2015 that Mom had a frightening fall after slipping my grip when I tripped on an uneven sidewalk. After I yanked her up, she prayed hysterically that she wouldn’t add a broken hip to a broken pelvis (2013) and a broken rib (2014). She ended up intact, cushioned by the grass and saved, she swears, by her guardian angel. In honor of her No. 1 deity, we planted three hyacinth bulbs in a garden bed by Mount Zion’s parking lot. As we rolled out of the lot, Mom rolled down a window and shouted: “Hallelujah — you are forgiven!”

This winter was unforgivably harsh to Mom’s health. A scary tumble in the lobby of her apartment building in Bethlehem was followed by a two-week hospitalization and rehab for the flu. Every time she caught her breath she was left breathless by bouts of irregular heartbeat. She was buoyed by the thought of seeing her hyacinths in bloom, a living memorial to her buoyant spirit. She even coined a rallying cry, suitable for bumper sticker and banner: “The hyacinths have to push up before I push up the hyacinths.”

We started our second pilgrimage at Mount Zion, where our three hyacinths were perfectly perky. We were happy to see them nested among equally happy tulips. We were happier to think that churchgoers would think our flowers were planted by angels. 

In the Zionsville cemetery we witnessed a minor miracle. The four hyacinths by my parents’ headstone had five blooms. Better yet, the bonus bloom was purple, Mom’s favorite color. I plucked a blossom for her to smell, knowing she couldn’t. Two years ago a .virus planted a wicked bacteria in a sinus cavity that blocks her from most smells and tastes, hell on earth for a big tfan of food and fragrance.

We found heaven on earth under the oak tree on Beacon Road. Rising from a heap of weeds and stones, our one white hyacinth was a noble sentry, a tiny tower of divinity, a bloody marvel. After staring at it for a good five minutes, I removed a bloom for Mom to smell, hoping for a bigger miracle. Filled with grace, she caught a whiff of perfume, her first truly enjoyable smell in 24 months. The car flooded with her larkish laugh and joy.

Driving away, we passed a woman walking a dog. Being a gregarious guy, I wanted to tell her to stop by the hyacinth under the oak, there because of the grace of us. Mom, being an exceptionally modest, exceedingly private English woman, told me to leave her be. I agreed, against my better nature.

A few hundred yards later, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the woman standing at our tree shrine. I peeked at Mom peeking at the stranger in a side-view mirror. Her smile blossomed.

Mom died, suddenly but not surprisingly, on June 11 at St. Luke’s Bethlehem, where she spent six splendid years volunteering in the O.R. waiting room. Her heart, and will, wore out before she could test her brand-new pacemaker. Her ashes were buried next to Dad’s on July 23, 10 days after the 60th anniversary of their wedding. In the spring she’ll be pushing up 16 hyacinths in five municipalities in three counties.

Geoff Gehman, a former resident of Wainscott, is the author of “The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons” (SUNY Press). He lives in Bethlehem, Pa. His email address is [email protected].