Pat Taub
Key West Arrival
After a flying mishap where I was forced to leave a day late due to a late Portland departure and missed connections, I’m finally ensconced in Key West. I’m sharing a rental with an old friend for the month of January. It’s lovely to shed winter apparel for T-shirts and my faithful khakis. Yesterday I volunteered with registration for the annual Key West Literary Seminar. The theme this year is “Sports and Literature,” which doesn’t excite me wildly, although I will beat it to a post seminar talk by Francine Prose and Clare Messud, two of my favorite writers.
My old friend, Ruth and Yours Truly working the registration table for the KW Lit. Seminar
Our Turbulent World
It’s been chilling to endure a week where Trump impulsively took out Iran’s General Soleimani, threatening WW lll. Thankfully Iran responded much more responsibly, using a measured response in their retaliation. But we’re not out of the woods yet. Iranian terrorists could retaliate in this country and the Orange Monster remains unpredictable.
A Good Read
I’m almost finished reading Alice Hoffman’s latest book, The World That We Knew, about young Jews escaping Paris when the Nazis invaded. Much of the action takes place in the French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where villagers banded together to offer refuge for Jewish children and to help them escape to nearby Switzerland. When I was just 19 I joined an international student group that helped with building improvements at Chambon’s secondary school. I was enthralled listening to stories of the town’s heroic war efforts. It was wonderful to revisit Chambon via Hoffman’s novel.
Kindness
Kindness seems to be the new hot topic—no doubt a reaction to Trump’s mean-spirited politics. Articles addressing kindness are flourishing. I was particularly moved by a short clip by Chris Hedges where he describes learning Arabic while a New York Times correspondent in Palestine. Hedges relates story after story of the kindness of the Palestinian people and even the guards who arrested him in his short video entitled, “How Kindness Saved My Life.”
