Journal – Mary Simses

Christmas in Palm Beach

When we first moved from Connecticut to Palm Beach almost thirty years ago it was in October. Two months later the Christmas season was upon us. I remember thinking how strange it seemed to have warm weather at Christmastime. I’d spent my entire life up north and I was used to the weather being chilly in December. Sometimes we even had snow. I remember going to a local mall to do some shopping and noticing that several of the store windows were decorated with fake snow – that spray-on stuff that comes in a can. (Does anybody still sell that?) I remember thinking how the stores were trying to copy what we had for real up north and it made me miss having a northern Christmas. But I gradually got used to having Christmas in the tropics. The bottom line, of course, is that Christmas is where you make it. Now I can’t imagine being anywhere else.

December 22, 2025

For Love of Pumpkins

How can you not love a pumpkin? I mean, look at them. The colors, the shapes, the stripes. Technically these are gourds, but gourds, pumpkins, and squash are all part of the same family so that’s close enough for me. In Connecticut where I grew up and spent most of my life, a lot of people carve pumpkins and set them outside on their front porches or steps, often with a battery-operated candle inside so they glow at night. In Florida where I’ve lived for the past 28 years, however, it’s too hot in October to keep a pumpkin outside. It’s too hot in November to keep a pumpkin outside. They just don’t last. So, I satisfy my autumnal urge by putting fall wreaths on our front doors and keeping some little pumpkins (gourds?) inside.

When our daughter was a child, we’d buy a pumpkin and she’d draw the eyes, nose, and mouth/teeth. My husband or I would carve the pumpkin to make the face. The process was the

October 20, 2025

Owl Talk

Photo: Phillip R. Brown
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

We have Barred owls on our property in Connecticut where we spend the summer. I’ve only seen them once, although I’ve heard them many times. A couple of years ago while sitting on our back patio, I happened to be looking at a huge oak tree in our yard when I noticed a Barred owl on one of the branches. It was just perched there, among the leaves, looking very majestic. I was even more excited when I glanced a little to the left and saw another Barred owl, which I assume was the mate. I took a couple of photos with my iPhone, but the owls look way too small for me to post one of those pictures. I think the photo below does the Barred owl justice.

Owls like to talk at night, and I hear ours quite often. It’s always late – midnight, one in the morning, or around then. They have eerie but beautiful eight-syllable hoots, and they often talk back and forth, sometimes interrupting one another. Owls hoot to mark

September 22, 2025

Rereading Books I Love

Euphoria is one of them. I’ve read it three times, and I think it haunts me more every time. Maybe I wish the words would magically rearrange themselves so the ending would be different. But then I probably wouldn’t be thinking about it long after reading it. Euphoria is loosely based on the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead. The author, Lily King, created a fictional account of what happens with three young anthropologists in Papau, New Guinea in the 1930s, when anthropology was a new discipline. The story involves Nell Stone, already the author of a best-selling book about natives of the Solomon Islands, her husband, Fen, who is jealous of Nell’s success and is desperate for his own, and Andrew Bankson, who has just failed a suicide attempt. Bankson, eager for companionship, convinces the Stones, who are about to leave New Guinea to return to Australia, that they should stay and that he will find them a new tribe to study. The novel is about their relationships, their work, their beliefs about the study of other cultures, and how all

September 7, 2025

Revisiting River City

It’s been a long time since I watched The Music Man, the 1962 musical starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones (as well as a very young Ron Howard). Preston plays a con man who arrives in a small town in 1910s Iowa and poses as a boy’s band leader, with the aim of fleecing the citizens out of their money and skipping town.

Within minutes, I was enthralled once again by Preston’s energy, voice, and comedic talent. And when Shirley Jones sang, I was blown away by what a magnificent voice she had. I’m not sure she got the recognition she deserved. At any rate, I easily slipped back into this simpler-time story and was happy to spend a couple of hours with some amazing singers, dancers, and actors.

I first saw The Music Man in the sixties, when I was a kid. My best friend Rebecca and I loved the movie. Her parents had the album, and we used to listen to it all the time. This was back when a record

June 14, 2025

Spicing up the Dinner Conversation

The other night my husband and I were at a dinner party. It was a small gathering – just the host, whose wife was out of town, a couple who we know, and another couple we’d never met before. We all chatted over drinks and then sat down to eat. At some point during dinner, the woman to my right, who I know well, suggested we go around the table and talk about what we’re doing this summer. A couple of people talked about their travel plans, which sounded lovely, and then it was my turn. Something came over me at the last second and this is what I came out with: “I’m going to be spending the summer in jail because I robbed an A&P supermarket

May 22, 2025

Saying Good-Bye to Summer

To me, this is the definition of summer in Connecticut. Adirondack chairs by a Long Island Sound inlet. I wonder if anyone ever sits here. I hope they do. I would, if I lived on this quiet lane. It looks like the perfect place to read a book. Or write one. I can almost smell the salt water and hear the chatter of birds and the hum of crickets. I took this photo in July. I’m sad to think summer is gone now. Ever since I was a kid, it was always my favorite time of year here in New England. One reason was the freedom that came from being out of school. But that wasn’t the only thing. I loved the long days, the fresh-cut-grass smell in the air, the sight of lightning bugs in the evening. I’m sad to think summer is gone.

September 18, 2024

Morning View

All summer we’ve been in Connecticut and have enjoyed the view from our kitchen windows. The lawn in our back yard rolls down to the Saugatuck River and we often get a lovely, long-legged heron strutting about down there, likely hunting for food. We’re also home to two barred owls who sometimes have late-night conversations, filling the air with their eerily beautiful sounds. This morning I heard a red-shouldered hawk in one of our trees – identified by the Merlin bird ID app. I wish I could take credit for knowing what it was. Maybe next time.

September 13, 2024

Autumn Settles In

It’s gotten chilly here in Connecticut. The mornings are crisp and the nights are downright cold, at least from the standpoint of someone who moved to Florida a couple of decades ago. It’s time for pumpkin everything now – coffee, bread, muffins, pie, the whole works. And that’s great. But I always get a little sad when summer ends, even when it was a rainy one like this last one. I guess it’s time to move on, though. I’ll have to get out the muffin tins. Maybe light a fire in the fireplace. And hope for an Indian Summer.

September 24, 2023

A Walk among the Headstones

When I was growing up, my best friend and I used to walk to a cemetery down the street from where we lived in Connecticut and search for gravestones that had “lockets” on them. “Locket” was our name for a photo of the deceased, set into a headstone and protected with glass and a brass cover you would lift up. The ones I remember were oval, the clothing and hairstyles Victorian looking, and the expressions serious.

I still like walking through cemeteries with old headstones. Some of the carvings are lovely, as are the inscriptions. It makes me wonder who the people were, what they were like, what kind of family they had, what kind of life they led.

These photos are from a cemetery in Easton, Connecticut. The graves there are very old and the headstones are beautiful. Some of the people buried there lived three hundred years ago. Many are buried next to their spouse or with several other family members. The gravestone on the right, for Gershom Bradley, tells us he died on January 15, 1795

September 3, 2023