Stepping out, and finding

I recently bought a copy of a series of songs - some of them solos, and some duets - by Harry Belafonte and the Greek singer Nana Mouskouri. Apparently, Belafonte had just finished a show in Athens, and decided to hit the town, late at night: as chance had it, he and his small entourage wandered into a club where Mouskori was singing. Struck (as were many, at the time) by her honeyed voice, he later pursued the possibility of a joint project, and the result was this ten-song compilation, which features a few lively traditional Greek standards, and a haunting, lilting song called The Baby Snake.

How many of life's more potent moments come from such chance meetings, and such impromptu decisions! And how much beauty lies, it seems, at hand, just down an alleyway. Such ideas have been on my mind of late, as Cleo and I have been enjoying the lovely fall afternoons after school by simply wandering the streets of Bolton Hill, and seeing what we can discover. Occasionally, we fall into brief conversations with students of mine, or with other local residents. Once, we spent a half hour using sticks as improvised rakes, to brush fallen leaves into a pile that reached Cleo's little knees. And then, too, there are the acorns: fallen jewels scattered along our path, which beg to be rolled into storm drains, or scraped on a sidewalk, or thrown up in the air and cracked.

We have yet, I'll admit, to produce anything in our meanderings that rivals The Baby Snake in its pure grace. But the irregular courses of broken acorn shells on Mosher and Brevard Streets are, rather like the recordings of Belafonte and Mouskori, residues of happy moments, of chance encounters, of a city explored.