Heaven preserve me from littleness and pleasantness and smoothness. Give me great glaring vices, and great glaring virtues, but preserve me from the neat little neutral ambiguities. Be wicked, be brave, be drunk, be reckless, be dissolute, be despotic, be an anarchist, be a suffragette, be anything you like, but for pity’s sake be it to the top of your bent. Live fully, live passionately, live disastrously. Let’s live, you and I, as none have ever lived before.’
Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, October 1918
MARTHA McPHEE 
My safe second round of Sunday morning Earl Grey just became a lust to ride my motorbike in the rain and fog to Hillbilly Hall and through the hills and valleys of the sourlands. What a great passage you have shared this day Martha. Full bore and with conviction.
Martha, I’m with Grant. My lazy day of gardening (or rather planning, not planting the garden): you made me stop, think and start again: this time with zeal! Yes – be it to the top of your bent!
“. . . as none have ever lived before.” Amen to that.
I’ve been wandering around your site, taking in the pictures of you all, absorbing your words, memories of a long ago time, swirling around my mind, memories of you and your sisters, Pryde, Dan, Sally, our old weathered farm house down from Dan’s workshop, my daughter Susan, playing with Carrie and Hy, Dan giving me money to go to Esalen and study massage so I could work on his clients, everyone’s desperate need to understand why the walls were falling down, or trying to tear the walls down ourselves, wanting to find some kind of meaning in our lives and move beyond nihilism. I imagine that farm on Cherry Valley Road and see piles of old personalities shed like snake skins as we sought Utopia. Princeton needed us. We were their pet bohemians, tolerated for local color.
Your mom was just starting to get serious about her photography and she asked me if she could take pictures of Susan who was three. She said Susan was bursting with life, so direct and confident. Her photos were amazing Then, when we lived in Brooklline, MA, Laura stayed with us for a while and photographed Susan and her sister Heather. Bless Laura’s heart, she captured a glimpse of their true nature. I treasure these pictures and they hang in my home in the hall of spirits.
I have read four of your books and enjoyed them all. Your first two were sometimes painful to read because I knew the cast of characters but your art of storytelling, delicious prose and depth of discernment kept me going. Last night, I finished Dear Money and want Susan to read it as it will give her insight into the world of $$$$ in NYC. You are one of the best writers of your generation. You are blessed with a great gift.
I’m happy to know that you and your sisters are doing well. I hope your mom is doing well. I wish I could have known her better. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Please give Laura a hug for me.