Some people around here have snowdrops merrily blooming on their property. Mine, if they are still alive, are buried out there in the tundra. Some other people are optimistically clipping boughs of forsythia, hoping it isn’t too early for the yellow sprays to develop and bloom.
What I can see, however, are a great many sticks poking up through the snow under a few dozen maples and other hardwood trees across the lawn. So many sticks it looks as if the yard needs a shave.
Meanwhile, many families escaped the excitement of the blizzard because of school vacation week. Bruce and Jenn Haynes and their daughter Hannah spent the week in Florida, repeating their frequent visits to favorite haunts such as Disney World and the chilly beach..
Amelia Smith traveled with her teenage children Nova and Christopher, and her mother Leah Smith, to Dublin and Vienna for vacation week. Nova, a senior at the high school here, has been accepted at University College Dublin, and wanted to see the campus before making a decision. It rained, of course, but daffodils were blooming everywhere, which brightened the old city. The group also visited Trinity and had a peek at the Book of Kells inside Trinity’s magnificent library.
On the Vienna portion of their trip, the family enjoyed seeing the splendors of the imperial city. All that elegant grandeur, the palaces and boulevards, meant miles and days of walking. Then there were the riding school and stables of the Lipinzzaner stallions. And the joys of the world’s oldest zoo.
I am looking forward to the pre-opening opening reception of the Tom Maley art exhibit Friday, March 6, at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. The exhibit is called Dancing in the Field, the name a reminder, no doubt, of Tom’s well-known sculpture at the Field Gallery.
You probably know that Tom was my father-in-law, and his art has been a big part of my own life for more than 50 years.
But for Tim and me and many others, the freshness of the exhibit will be the many paintings the museum has collected from Tom’s daughter, Sandra Caruso, who has lived in Los Angeles for most of her adult life. I know we have seen many of these paintings when we visited Sandra, but they will be fresh and novel in their Vineyard setting, where — probably — most of them were created.
It is always a noteworthy occasion when an artist’s work becomes part of a museum collection. The only sad note about this event is that Tom didn’t live to enjoy that honor during his lifetime.
The other part of the evening I am anticipating is seeing Vineyard friends that we never see any more because we are all too old to hold dinner parties, too middle class to afford caterers and too crotchety to go out at night.
Happy birthday on Wednesday, March 11, to Isla Solon.
This article appears in March 6, 2026.