Isabella – Boston, Day One

Easy breezy ride to the airport. Booked an aisle seat on a three seat row, ended up the only one on my row. Urbered into the city and given a complimentary upgrade to a suite upon check in.

It’s got bags of charm, a feeling of intimacy and those quirks I prize about boutique hotels, worth putting up with minimal outlets, no place to put your toiletries in the bathroom, and folding crane bedside lamps with enough lumens to perform surgery.

Ubered straight to the ISG. On impulse turned left into the artist in residence gig. Visitors were encouraged to draw on a large board, reminding me of Emily’s Collabadoodle days. The artist, Maurizio Cannavacciulo, handed me a print ‘for inspiration’ that resembled a cross between Gauguin islander children and a Japanese woodblock. Adored the pencil he gave me, which made a gorgeous black; not having an eraser, not so much. The artist was a skinny, bald gnome of an elderly Italian. “Do what you like, decapitate them,” he chortled. Oh, artists. Urk. No. Still, had an unexpected deeply pleasurable quarter of an hour, focused on hand/eye.

Walked into the heart of Fenway Court, just as the dusk deepened to violet.

Such a gorgeous, haunting time of day.
The lingering impressions were still in the details. Found my gilt-over-iron pair of bears, just as marvelous as I remembered.

A unicorn battling a dragon carved into a stone mantle.

This pair of Isabella’s purple silk shoes, narrow as blade, small enough for a grammar school child.

Given my pleasure in romance novels, this book cover.

This little sketch below the glorious Europa.

Like music that makes you want to dance, this makes me want to draw and etch.

Loved watching the light shift, examining the architectural fragments and speculating on the why of their juxtaposition. Fell in love all over again with the panels of drawings and the surprises of scale. And all those virgins holding their doomed children. I wonder if she found consolation in their sacrifice that echoed her own loss.

Fenway court itself breathes, still alive. Some of the groupings, especially the cases of yellowed, faded letters under glass, feel moldering and static. Without a readable text to consult, like the pressed rose from Browning’s funeral bier they are brittle memento mori.

Went room by room and up floor by floor until 5pm, then my eyes and energy gave out.

Collapsed into a chair in Café G and ripped through the tasting menu – tiny albeit delicious morsels. By then my feet ached even sitting down and my eyes felt boiled. Long day. Urbered back crawled into bed, typed this up and conked out.

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