Today the ground is warming up. As it dries, the mud releases subtle particular scents. Having lived many places over the decades, I recognize different smells after rainfall. This is not the sharp chamisa and juniper of the high desert in Santa Fe, or the washed urban grit of Manhattan. This smells like home — or at least it smells familiar, close to the red clay of my childhood home down the Ohio, related to the rich loam of my beloved alma mater in the Finger Lakes.

It is 78 Fahrenheit at the moment, a good 20 degrees warmer than Las Vegas. What an unusual inversion. This is the first time I’ve seen it.

Throw open the doors, put up the storm windows. This afternoon, summer is here.

I enjoy flying. In 2019 I flew twice to Hong Kong, as well as Princeton (via Newark), New York, and Madrid. However, I grounded myself in early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For over a year, I barely even drove anywhere. Except for a quick trip to Washington County for a propane heater, I did not venture beyond the city limits of Pittsburgh until June 2021, when we enjoyed a weekend with extended family in West Virginia.

After everyone in the family was fully vaccinated, I started to spread my wings. Last July we drove cross-country. In August I flew back from Las Vegas, and traveled there again in October and December. We did cancel our winter flights to Barcelona and from Lisbon because we thought it might be difficult returning to the US if we tested for the infectious omicron variant. Still, I have now flown every month in 2022: from Vegas in January; Chicago in February; Ole Miss (via Memphis) and Vegas again in March; Atlanta in April. I anticipate being in the air at least once more this summer.

While I do enjoy flying, I enjoy having flown even more. Despite TSA PreCheck, security theater can be annoying. Despite lounge access, connections in large airports can be stressful. Despite online maps, navigating unfamiliar public transportation systems can be taxing.

So it’s good to come to Pittsburgh International. Yes, it’s a familiar airport but this is not me being a homer — PIT is modest-sized, rarely crowded apart from TSA, the moving sidewalks and other facilities always operate smoothly, the corridors are spacious, and the lounge couldn’t be more convenient. Although I might wish it were closer to the East End (the 28X takes an hour) and that it had a greater number of cheaper flights, overall this facility is tied with Albuquerque as my favorite airport in the country.

So why does Pittsburgh need a new terminal? 

Yes, this construction supports jobs. But what are the actual benefits as a passenger? The “terminal modernization program” website lists:

• Increasing the main security checkpoint area
• Reducing the time it takes to get from curbside to airside by 50 percent
• Increasing area for concessions and retail
• Increasing covered parking by 3x the amount of current spots
• Reducing the time it takes to get from International Arrivals to curbside by 67 percent
• A dedicated Ground Transportation Center
• One Meeter/Greeter location for less confusion
• Only one level change from curb to gates

A billion dollars for this? The security checkpoint doesn’t need to become larger — it just needs to clear people faster. The time from curbside to airside is already rapid — from the moment I deplane, even from the farthest gate it’s less than ten minutes to the bus stop. We don’t need more concessions and retail; the stores there get little foot traffic. We should be creating better access to the airport by public transit, not building more covered parking. The level change from curb to gates is already virtually unnoticeable. And so forth.

I’m unconvinced that “smart” baggage handling designed by Carnegie Mellon researchers will improve anything. Instead, I fully expect the technoglitter will prove as useful as pixie dust, and will in fact lead to less robust systems. While I try to avoid checking in luggage, I can report the baggage claim process is pretty fast. After all, we are talking about a small airport with few flights. I’d rather wait five more minutes for my bag, if I know that the system is reliable.

The airport as it stands was built to be a hub for US Airways, which soon afterwards abandoned the city. In some ways, the airport mirrors the city itself. Both have the infrastructure and amenities to serve a much larger population, which is an advantage for those of us who remain.

The new facility will have fewer gates, in a frank admission this airport did not become a hub and will not become one within my lifetime. The groundside terminal will be moved to nest within the crux formed by four wings. I suppose this will eliminate about a quarter of the gates.

Those gates weren’t being used anyway; again, the airport was built to be a hub, so it has way too much capacity.

But really now, what are we gaining for a billion dollars? Quicker transit time from curbside to airside (but this was already quite short), the elimination of the people mover (which, granted, might be difficult to maintain), and a greener facility with its own microgrid. 

I get it: there is economic incentive to create something new, even when the old system works perfectly fine for passengers. A flashy Big Project feeds egos, establishes reputations, and creates “lasting legacies.” Look at this Big Thing I Made (never mind the actual builders on site).

Higher education is riddled with similar incentives, producing similar results. If it’s not a new building with someone’s name, it’s a glossy new general education curriculum that can shine only after eliminating a program the students actually prefer.

At least the rendering of the interior depicts a bigger space, with better sightlines for Calder’s Pittsburgh. One billion dollars and, at long last, the city provides a suitable setting for that work of art.

Last week after listening to “La Reina del Baile” (ABBA’s Spanish version of “Dancing Queen”), I sought out other versions of the song. The Real Group and Frida performed a fantastic a cappella version for the Queen of Sweden’s 50th birthday.

Being unfamiliar with The Real Group, I looked for more of their music and saw they had covered “Nature Boy”. How wonderful, I thought, that they covered a song by Big Star, although I found myself preferring the more raw vocals of Alex Chilton.

Until that day, I didn’t know Chilton was not the writer of “Nature Boy”. I was also completely unfamiliar with any other versions of the song, most notably Nat King Cole’s original. I didn’t know it was written by someone named eden ahbez, who around that time lived under the Hollywood Sign.

In that moment of revelation I felt like the boy who heard Andy Williams’s Greatest Hits on 8-track, thinking he must have written most of the songs on that album. As a boy, I assumed every musician of the time was writing most of their own songs.

This remains the gold standard for me: singers and bands should write the music they perform, just as poets should read their own words, and stand-up comedians should write their own lines, and scientists should present their own research. But I can’t fully justify this. After all, I certainly don’t expect orchestras or conductors to compose their own music, or writers to be the readers of their audiobooks, or actors to pen their own lines, or undergraduate students to develop their own theories.

Why this distinction? That’s just the way it is, sometimes performers create the work they perform, and sometimes they don’t is hardly a reason.

Kelly, Kyle, Dad, and I are staying outside Newton, New Jersey, where today we celebrated Auntie Connie’s 100th. While her actual birthday was last Tuesday, the four of us couldn’t travel out here until the weekend, gathering together with Gaby, Chrissy, Maria, Anna; Gus, Chil, Justine (with her dog Lola), Matt; Bong, Malu, and Rafael.

My experience is limited so I am only supposing: for those among us who have the fortune to reach the century mark, our personalities become tumbled by life’s currents, our rough edges worn away until what remains is a polished essence of our souls.

…

So you could be looking out the window upon a gathering in your backyard, making out one of your brothers with your keen eyesight, holding in your warm soft hand the hand of that brother’s son, smiling as you recognize and remember both of them, your expression changing abruptly as you remember that brother’s twin has died. But a few minutes later you could be struggling to recall the name of your beloved husband, who served in the Navy and had the foresight to provide for you for decades after he passed. Or you could be seeing the balloons that spelled out “100” and not know those balloons are there for you.

You are living the second childhood Jacques describes in “As You Like It.”

…

The years can play out in different ways. At a diner afterwards, we met someone who is 99, wearing a cap indicating that he himself served in the Navy during the Second World War. Dad at 91 clearly recalls the names of everyone in the three families who lived with him in the jungles of the Philippines during the war, hiding from and fighting against the Japanese occupation. It helps to have a photo, a rare photo from that time and place, somehow developed by my father’s father.

In that photo, Auntie Connie is standing straight, tan, confident, smiling. 

A list of the ways West Side Story (2021) is better than West Side Story (1961):

• Choreography is tight in the street scenes: spectacular with the larger number of dancers.
• Rita Moreno; Rita Moreno again.
• Casting actors with Latino heritage is far better than putting them in brownface.
• Rachel Zegler speaking and singing is better than Natalie Wood speaking and not-singing.
• Spanish! Spanish spoken between the Puerto Rican characters.
• Bright clear voices in the “America” number.
• A wider depiction of New York City, near the time of my birth there and where I have lived as an adult.
• “Somewhere (There’s A Place for Us)”: having Valentina voice those lyrics.
• “A Boy Like That / I Have A Love”: more natural blocking and vocal inflection.

A list of the ways where I can’t decide which version I prefer:

• Staging. The original is claustrophobic, appropriately. (In the new version, going to the Cloisters implies Maria and Tony’s problems will dissolve if only they would leave the neighborhood, but the reality is racism exists everywhere.) On the other hand, the more realistic establishing shots in the new version take us beyond the occasionally distracting artifice of a movie set that looks like a Broadway stage.

This afternoon I’ve been occupied with picking up a heavy dresser that I saw listed on Nextdoor, chopping up vegetables to make roasted mirepoix, and practicing Spanish on Duolingo.

When I pulled into the alley just a few blocks south to pick up the dresser, the woman who listed its availability happened to be there. She said they had it for many years and pointed out that the entire right side was covered with découpage: old photos and messages from which I did and continue to avert my eyes, because I am stunned by its sentimental value. She said that she had taken a picture for her daughter. It was a task to put the dresser in the car, involving removing a seat belt, folding down the seats, removing the cover and netting, and then lifting the hefty object. This afternoon I will bring the dresser into the house, clean it up, haul it to the second floor, organize some clothes. For now I’ll leave the collage.

I enjoy roasted mirepoix and it is so simple to make. I was inspired years ago when Marissa was making a delicious roast in a cast-iron pot, and the aroma was marvelous. Having been a pescetarian for exactly sixteen years today, I had to find a solution — so I made a vegetable roast, with ingredients similar to what I would use when I made pot roast, minus the beef. Besides chopped carrots, onions, and celery, I pour generous amounts of good-quality extra virgin olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, black pepper, and salt. Today I omitted the potatoes (usually I incorporate root vegetables, such as a variety of baking potatoes and sometimes sweet potatoes). It’s not exactly how I would make beef pot roast — in my version, there would be powdered onion soup and condensed mushroom soup — but it’s healthier and simple. Over the years this simple recipe has received good reviews from people whose tastes I respect very much: Jason at a office holiday potluck; Kelly and Kyle during Thanksgiving. The only difficult part, once the shopping is done, is chopping everything up. To cook down six kilos of vegetables requires a lot of chopping. Because it cooks for well over an hour, it’s also suitable during the colder months. I hope the oven, with its unreliable digital controls are unreliable, holds through. I just stirred the vegetables in their roasting pans to baste them, and the LEDs flashed in a worrisome way when I opened the oven door.

There is a relatively new feature on the Duolingo app, to listen and respond to audio. This is exactly the sort of feature that Duolingo had been missing and for which I turned to Pimsleur in the past. Pimsleur is more comprehensive and demanding — I can feel my brain working at the end of a half-hour session — but it is also requires a greater length of uninterrupted time. With Duolingo, I can be chopping vegetables or cleaning house while listening and responding. I do remain highly motivated to learn Spanish as well as other languages: in the short term, for our trip next month; for the long term, to be able to become more of a global citizen.

The sky is getting dark and the sun will set soon. I should take a walk over to the Homewood Library to return and pick up items before they close, and I do want to empty the car before tomorrow morning, when I will head over to campus for office hours and to continue cleaning the office. But I also need to mind the vegetables. Probably I should rake the leaves this weekend too — the yellow leaves from the neighboring gingko tree rained down on the sidewalk and front lawn overnight. At least that can wait until tomorrow afternoon; it’s a Sunday night game this week, and there is no precipitation in the forecast.

It happened around this time, exactly sixteen years ago — actually, it probably happened around the time I began to sit down and write. The sun was bright that day, the weather was warm. He breathed hard, he labored to hang onto life, he wouldn’t give up. We were together for sixteen years, one month, and four days. Sixteen years ago today I said goodbye.

It is difficult to lose a friend.