Christmas 2009:
The annual report from Gideon Lawton Lane

Annual Christmas letters get a mixed reception: tossed unread, browsed lightly, responded to. In the aggregate, though, they have some historical value, some bits of information about who’s doing what. So here’s the archive.

30 December 2009
Eve of the Blue Moon
The Fifth Stollen

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Gideon Lawton Lane. Late greetings perhaps, but heartfelt nonetheless. We blame a mid-December bout of flu for putting us a couple weeks behind the rest of the world, but there was an ironic upside. With flu- and cough-ravaged voices, Mark and Alli joined son Dan in the audience for Messiah on the 19th – the first time they’d heard the Providence Singers perform. It was a reassuringly wonderful sound.

Alli continues her work as the Singers’ executive director. The group is putting the finishing touches on one of its characteristically ambitious seasons, which to date has included a recording of Lou Harrison’s La Koro Sutro for chorus and gamelan (with performances in Boston and Providence); the group’s third performance with the Dave Brubeck Quartet (the day after our concert, Brubeck went to Washington to receive his Kennedy Center honor); and the world première of a work by Tarik O’Regan – the first composition commissioned by the Singers’ Wachner Fund for New Music, an endowment we raised several years ago.

Mark has spent the year serving on a Town Council-appointed committee to consider whether Portsmouth might be able to establish a community center for the arts. It’s been a fascinating experience both because of the subject matter and because it has afforded a glimpse into the world of public affairs (compliance with state open meetings laws, even a formal swearing-in as a committee member). The committee will launch a public opinion survey of Portsmouth households in January, write its final report, and present the whole thing to the Town Council later this spring.

We didn’t leave the lower 48 this year, but with Skype and IM, it feels as though we did. We had periodic dispatches from China, where Dan was traveling and taking courses for law school credit. We were amazed at the air pollution even though we never drew a breath on the mainland. Dan is finishing his second year of law school at the University of Minnesota.

Alongside the dispatches from China were reports from France, where Susan spent the summer traveling and studying French. France – Annecy, especially – turns out to suit her astonishingly well. (Who knew?) And who needs postcards when the iPhone can send such remarkable photos? Susan can see the finish line for her master’s in arts management at American University in Washington (though at the moment she is back here on the Lane, recuperating from pneumonia).

The second-hand traveling will continue this year as Anson heads to Paris. After he graduated from Brown in May, Anson moved to New York and this fall began a one-year post-graduate program in architecture at Columbia. His first semester was in New York; the second will be in Paris – springtime in Paris – with required side trips to Brussels and other cities. It’s been a few years since we were last in Paris. We might head over and experience it again first-hand.

While Anson has finished his work at Brown, Mark continues his. Beneath his office window in Maddock Alumni Center, the alumni/ae walkway now includes side-by-side bricks named for Allison McMillan ’74 and Anson Nickel ’09. Mark is now officially on the University’s books as Mark Nickel P’09, but that does not quite qualify him for a brick.

Now that the nest is officially empty, getting the entire crew together in the same spot at the same time is a complicated proposition. Help arrived from Alli’s mother Molly, who turned a very robust 90 at the end of July. People from four generations and all points of the compass – China, France, New York, Spain – gathered in Minnesota to celebrate. It was a wonderful, memorable, and – for guests who are nudging up against Medicare eligibility – inspirational gathering.

Twenty years into the home garden, there’s quite a bit that needs attention. This tends to telescope, of course: Replacing a section of fence suggests a grandiose plan for a new patio. And if a shady sitting area might be a good idea, why not construct an entire grape arbor? And so forth. The Wall Street Journal says the combination of a tough economy and the “eat local” aesthetic is driving a boom in home gardening. Sitting here with a freezer full of blueberries, sour cherries, and minced jalapeño, we understand all about that – and we enjoy feeling decades ahead of the world.

The bottom line: All is well here on the Lane in these final days of the oughts decade. We hope it’s the same for you wherever this note may find you.

With love and warm wishes for a terrific New Year,

Mark and Alli
Dan, Susan, Anson