Good Morning All,

There’s a place I think about, one particular point in the middle of the Indian Ocean about half way between South Africa and Australia.

My brother-in-law Robert was visiting for a few days. His first morning here he stumbled out of the bathroom with a quizzical expression and asked, “um… Gordon, why do you have a plumb bob hanging in the window?” He was the first person to ask.

“Well Robert,” I said, “that’s in honor of a friend from years ago.” I went on to tell Robert about a colleague when I worked for a small art museum back east. Maria was the librarian and I was the registrar. Like most librarians, Maria’s knowledge of the world was and is encyclopedic. An immigrant from Russia, she is of a small elfin structure with striking features… with eyes the color of a sparkling lake on a clear day. If Maria wasn’t of an age appropriate to be my mother some sparkles of another type may have happened. Instead we developed a great friendship over the years I worked for the museum. Maria called me, “The Nordic Prince.”

On a few occasions, Maria had me over for dinner. The conversation was always animated, fascinating, and intense. And there was vodka… with no holding back. We drank a lot of vodka. The meals Maria prepared, I am amused to say, I don’t quite remember. And this not for their lacking. One such evening I used the bathroom, and there in the window hung a plumb bob. Returning to the sitting room and unable to contain my laughter, I threw myself in a chair. Maria sat there with a grin and asked as only she could, “Yes?” She always knew I was full of questions. I looked at her, and between guffaws croaked out, “why… do you have a plumb bob… hanging in the bathroom window?”

She raised her glass of vodka a bit. “You see… when I get up in the morning, the plumb bob establishes vertical. So long as I can line myself up with it and get my bearings, everything else falls into place.”

And so there is a plumb bob in my bathroom window. I look at it and am fascinated by it’s stillness, simply hanging there by the force of gravity. It points precisely to the center of the Earth, and if one were to keep going, to a tiny little point in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It inspires me to think about my bearings in this world, and wonder how things are on the other side, at that place, great waves of seawater rolling by. I recall fond memories of so many wonderful conversations and times with Maria.

Gordon Bunker