Christmas 2018:
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.

Saturday 8 December 2018
The Second Stollen of Advent

Dear Friends,

The good news: There are still places on this Earth where the insistent political dross of our times falls away, where access to social media is so cumbersome as to be worthless, and where sound itself can utterly vanish.

We found all that and more in the Galapagos Islands late last summer, snorkeling with sea turtles and (vegetarian) sharks, climbing along trails where Darwin himself hiked in 1835, seeing an erupting volcano light up the night sky, and closely observing an endless stream of flora and fauna: penguins and flamingos, iguanas and giant tortoises, newborn sea lions and spouting whales, muyuyo and lava cactus, a rare albatross and a passing orca. We could go on (and often do); the experience is still fresh four months after our return.

We are also re-immersed in the joy of newborns, the way their eyes seem to vacuum up every visual detail of the world around them, their steady progress from first smiles to first happy sounds, their early achievements from rolling over to sitting up. On May 2, Anson and Reva announced the arrival in Brooklyn of Archer Gaur Nickel, and on September 22 in Richmond, Susan and George introduced big brother Thomas to James Mark Knowles. Up here on the Lane, Oma and Opa are well beyond thrilled and fascinated with their three grandsons. We hit for the cycle* on the Friday after Thanksgiving, taking leave of Archie and his extended family after lunch and arriving in Richmond just before Thomas and James’s bedtime.

Life on the Lane continues to offer engaging discoveries. On November 17, we sang Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem with the Providence Singers and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. Vaughan Williams wrote it in 1936 during ominous, unsettled times, which may account for the impact it had on audience and performers alike last month. We had done it more than a decade ago, but this time around the music and especially the text — the bulk of it from Walt Whitman — seemed to have our troubled times in its cross-hairs:

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly, wash again and ever again this soiled world.

There’s always the garden of course, now expanded to include six new fruit trees in various varieties of peach, plum, and nectarine. They are all quite tiny, just planted in the spring, so we will not know for sure whether there will be crops until a few growing seasons have passed. The signs are good, though: assurances from the arborist that peaches thrive in New England, and six sites carefully selected for maximum breeze and sunshine. We’re looking forward to the first batch of Pflaumemus, a kind of plum jam akin to applesauce, and we may attempt to follow Frau Erica’s heirloom cookbook instructions for Getrocknete Pflaumen- oder Zwetchen-Kompott (that would be prunes). But we’ll need to raise a crop first.

We’ve completed the transition to post-career living and are pleased with our new setup for the most part. Our incremental approach to moving 32 years’ worth of accumulated stuff out of our attic and basement is slowly starting to pay off. We’re gaining on deferred maintenance with new cedar shingles and a bit of rebuilding here and there. We are growing accustomed to life with one car and are reconceiving the manse as a world headquarters for what might come next. The Galapagos trip was a start. Late next month we’ll be exploring Yellowstone Park in winter. Spain always beckons, with all of Europe beyond. Tracking the continued growth of Dan’s Tierra burrito empire in Madrid is an always fascinating enterprise.

Whether it’s due to the time of year or our phase of life, we find ourselves thinking often about friends and relations near and far — as well as the steady march of the generations. We’re guessing we’re not alone in that. We’d love to hear how things are going where you are.

With our fondest wishes for your health and happiness in the new year,

Mark and Alli
mark-nickel@cox.net    401-835-1913
allison-mcmillan@cox.net    401-225-3659

      *  Alli suggests that we include a definition for people who may not have grown up in baseball-centric households. Hitting for the cycle involves getting one of everything (single, double, triple, homerun). Here, hitting for the cycle involves going three-for-three on same-day visits with Thomas, Archie, James.