Yellow Butterfly Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/newspaper 17 x 24" 41 x 63cm
Cabbage Butterfly Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/newspaper 17 x 24" 41 x 63cm
Lizards, too Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/newspaper 17 x 24" 41 x 63cm
Roses Galore Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 12 x 16" 30 x 40cm
Gee but it’s great to be back home. Rocca Malatina: friends, the big house, the yard, roses and hundreds of butterflies. One of the first things I noticed upon our return were the butterflies. Not fancy Vladimir Nabakov varieties but, the run-o-mill cabbage butterflies (white with black dots), or the red admirable, tiny blues (that’s a Nabakov favorite) or the many yellows… There are tons of them.
The butterflies love this hot weather. For the first time, this summer, it is very humid in the mountains: temperatures in the 80s, but “real feel” highs into the 90s. We shun the outdoors, and Harika only lies in the deepest shade. I hesitate to eat lunch outdoors on account of it, and the mosquitoes are ferocious. I am thinking of a pool, the wading variety. There is almost no “wild swimming” here; in fact is is dubbed “very dangerous” by Italians. Only if you can’t swim.
As if to welcome us, one of the chickens made a nest and hatched a half dozen chicks on our side of the yard. Harika sniffed it out. “I think it’s dead,” Blair commented on the nonmoving bird. I pointed out is open, sparkly eye and that it was likely on a nest. Sure enough. Normally, the chickens repulse me, but this one, with the now little chicks, is quite nice.
I laid on my living room floor and did yoga for the first time in more than a month. Hemlock Lodge doesn’t lend itself to lying out on the floor, knowing there are wild animals lurking just inches below the living room carpet. We left the lodge in a deluge of rain, falling from the roofs over the porch, dining room, and bathroom. The driving rain found its way into every south-facing window. It felt like a hurricane, but now we are saving that designation for more fierce storms, but then again it wasn’t even August.
Harika’s boarding was delayed at JFK because they didn’t want her out in the rain. We stayed with her until the last minute, rushing ourselves through security in order to board. Blair was carrying a large silver-plated pitcher that had to be minutely examined. We breathed a sigh of relief as we all (I made sure Harika got on) took off for Milan.
Off the plane, we drove our one-way rental car HOME.
Laurie and Blair PESSEMIER
now found on Instagram: lauriepessemier
