Michael Field's Blog

  New York City – As Seen Through Three Sets of Eyes   New York City has always had a mythical presence in my life. Growing up, it was El Dorado, a place of endless excitement with the trappings of unimaginable wealth. My otherwise dour grandmother was imbued with its aura simply by living there. Later, it was the center of commerce I commuted into. I saw the rats in its subway stations and stepped over the homeless on its sidewalks. Now that I am retired, NYC is both a beckoning tourist attraction and home to our son and his fiancé; luster thus restored, it again gleams. Across the decades, I have experienced the city, seen it through three different sets of eyes, observed its mystery, misery, and majesty. As I looked south from my childhood home in Maine, the towering skyscrapers of New York City loomed in my psyche. One of my earliest toys was a set of Lego-like building blocks which, when assembled, made a two-foot-tall model of the Empire State Building. The bounty ...

  I Hear the Symphony   There are no hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico this time of year, but a passing cold front has spawned a squall that is buffeting the shallow water into frothing waves. I have come to this beach for no other reason than to be here. Two hours earlier, I arrived at the beachfront restaurant behind me to dine on the harvest of the sea. Now, physically sated, I have wandered down to the shore with no great purpose in mind. The wind whistles in my ears and tousles my hair as, instead of illuminating a sparkling glow on the blue-green water, the sun sinks into the bank of rain-filled, mottled gray clouds scuttling along the leading edge of the front. The dark, angry waves crash into the unyielding concrete pilings as the pier atop them stretches out in front of me like a single arm raised to the sky in supplication. Its silent prayers are answered only by the wind’s howl and the water’s repeated pounding. I stand there listening in the fading light. A ...

  The Lake Abides Flash Creative Nonfiction Essay submitted to the Chautauqua Literary Journal 9/23 There is a lake in upstate New York that calls to me no matter where I am. For the past decade, I have trekked each summer from North Carolina to a certain cherished, cloistered, Victorian village nestled on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. I have published essays and buttonholed scores of people to describe at length the intellectual and cultural stimulation to be found there. An engineer at heart, I get into details about the number of pipes in the magnificent Massey organ and the tone of the carillon as its notes float over the campus. Yet, each time I am there, I find myself inexorably drawn to the lake and I drink deeply of it to replenish my spirituality. By ‘drink deeply’, I mean quaffing it metaphorically although I have often swum in the lake and have inadvertently drunk directly from it. I have traversed its length borne over miles of gentle, lapping waves on the vint...

  As published in CP Connections December 2023 Chautauqua – My Happy Place -  Part 3 - The Lake Abides There is a lake in upstate New York that calls to me no matter where I am. For the past decade, I have trekked each summer from North Carolina to a certain cherished, cloistered, Victorian village nestled on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. I have published essays and buttonholed scores of people to describe at length the intellectual and cultural stimulation to be found there. An engineer at heart, I get into details about the number of pipes in the magnificent Massey organ and the tone of the carillon as its notes float over the campus. Yet, each time I am there, I find myself inexorably drawn to the lake and I drink deeply of it to replenish my spirituality. By ‘drink deeply’, I mean quaffing it metaphorically although I have often swum in the lake and have inadvertently drunk directly from it. I have traversed its length borne over miles of gentle, lapping waves on the ...

  American Chop Suey From the “Insights into American Life” collection of essays by Michael Field   The other day, my wife, Lenora, reminded me that I needed to up my game in terms of doing my share of the cooking. She was right, of course. She was doing practically all the actual meal planning and preparation; I was, at most, the sous chef helping on the periphery with side dishes, table setting, and cleanup. Meal planning is not one of my strong suits, so I had to stop and think. What meal was I hankering for? When home, we are not exotic eaters; however, we do have a large collection of standards spanning multiple cuisines that we rotate through. So, what hadn’t we cooked up recently? Then it came to me. There was a dish that I hadn’t had for decades. It was a staple in my house growing up, but I hadn’t eaten it since leaving home over fifty years ago. I need to explain that I was raised in very modest circumstances. To support the family, my mother worked outsi...

  Chautauqua – My Happy Place, Part 2   In Part 1 of “Chautauqua – My Happy Place”, I talked about all the reasons to spend a week or more at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. Here, in Part 2, I will discuss some of the logistics associated with planning and executing a trip to Chautauqua. Lenora and I have been five times, each time different as there is no ‘right’ way to proceed. I will describe some of the factors to enable you to make choices that suit you. Big picture, Chautauqua is summer camp for adults seeking a combination of mental stimulation and release from the everyday hustle and bustle. The physical setting is a Victorian village on the shores of a picturesque lake in a tranquil corner of rural America. In practical terms, it is not near anything but that is a large part of its charm. It is not a day trip; it is an ‘unpack and stay in the same place for a few days’ trip. The first step in planning a Chautauqua visit is picking a week(s). Th...

  Warmest greetings to our family and friends from Michael and Lenora,   We extend our most sincere holiday greetings knowing this will get to you very late in the holiday season (or early in the New Year. Honestly, we did think of you somewhere in there between the turkey leftovers and the ball dropping!) As we strive to extend the joy and blessings of the holidays throughout the year, hopefully the timing of this missive will not be an issue. Those who complain will be remembered in the airing of the grievances during Festivus 2023! 2022 was a _______ year! Fill in your own choice of adjective, invective, or expletive and it will probably apply to our year also as this was a roller coaster year, one with a lot of ups and some precipitous downs. Michael wrote a piece titled “The River Runs”* (more on that later) which starts off as a peaceful trip floating on an inner tube down a tranquil river. Soon the river hits rocks and the raft is buffeted by a stretch of rapids. ...