The Quicksilver Summer

 Today is the 18th of July. That means more than half the summer is gone, and that thought is sitting uncomfortably with me, I want to grasp hold of  it and make it stay... but it flees, seemingly faster and faster each summer. But we do what we can to make some memories for winter:

We go to Castiglione della Pescaia where we take long walks on the beach, admiring the creativity of the sand castles and the sand Ferraris:

                                                                                

We go to BRUCO, the contrada with its great garden just inside the eastern city wall, with its marvellous parties right in the middle of summer, where le tout Sienne goes:

                                                                                   

BRUCO means caterpillar, but actually it is a silk worm, because in the fifteenth century these gardens were used for growing mulberries for the silk production for which  this part of town was known: 

                                              

 While this well-known summer merry-go-round is enjoyed, I get occasional news from a previous life, far away in Mali;  some courtesy of an internet service that sends me pictures every day of what happened on that day in previous years, such as this picture from 2018, which  must be the last time I worked at the bogolan tables in Djenne, since I had already left Mali by then, and only returned briefly for a few weeks in the year, normally in July or August or in March, to deal with Library business since the projects were still running both in Djenne and Timbuktu. I was still, at this point, able to stay in my own house, on my land in Djenne, which was sold soon afterwards. 

Much nostalgia looking at this, since it is unlikely that I will ever be able to return to Djenne....:

And just now a phonecall from Garba, the archivist at the Djenne manuscript library. They are still able to work, now directly with HMML, the Minnesota Benedictine Foundation. I am pround of their tenacity and pround that they are able to continue without me. They all want to talk to me, and I am moved by hearing their voices asking me the well-known questions about health and work and life: Ika kene? I ni baara ke? 

Meanwhile I also still work with Dembele, my bogolan assistant, with very occasional fabric orders, and also with a local jeweller through whom we organize orders of the beautiful Malian twist earrings, once worn  by the Fulani women. 

But life in Mali is hard and their summer rains have been wild and have destroyed some of the fragile mud buildings. And last year what remained of my house and my erstwhile hotel was simply swept away in the floods...