Unalloyed

Sifting through old books in the cathedral thrift store early this afternoon, I came across a volume entitled A Mozart Pilgrimage. Not having heard of it, I flipped to the back, and learned that it's an edited version of the diaries kept by Vincent and Mary Novello. And who were they, you ask? Apparently, they were a music-loving couple who heard, in 1829, that Mozart had run into financial troubles, and who thus set out across Europe in the hopes of giving him some financial aid. And the book is the record of their journey.

Interesting, right? And the opening sentence of the journals certainly sets an inviting tone. "Dear children," we read, "I have now been out a week with the exception of last night have known no alloy to the pleasure of this journey." No Paul Theroux here, folks!


Thrift stores can have many pleasures (not least, in this case, the memory of my grandma working in a rather similarly cluttered and endlessly fascinating church bazaar); among those must be numbered the occasional power of the fortuitous find. For those opening words mirrored my current attitude almost exactly. Sure, we had some tough times last week, and Cleo was certainly out of sorts as her body recovered from the onset of Lyme disease. But she's been nothing but delightful for the past three days: fueled by her a new passion for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (her record, I believe, is five in a day), she's regained the two pounds that she lost last week. She's also grown out of (at least temporarily: but, still, we exhale in thanks) her need for a daily dose of Milkshake videos, and has realized with delight that she can revisit old favorites such as Max & Ruby and the Wonder Pets, alongside her morning cup of warm milk. And, finally, she's regained the general spirit of willingness and enthusiasm that has generally characterized her life so far. As a result, she and I rode the cable car to the top of Table Mountain on a brilliant African winter day yesterday, and split an ice cream cone while looking down over one of the ten cities recently named, by CNN, the Most Loved in the World.


Unalloyed pleasure is rare, especially on the road, and certainly last week was marred by irregularities of various sorts. For the past three days, though, this trip has been nothing other than wonderful.