an over­whelm­ing month

The world has been a very chal­leng­ing place of late!  I some­times feel like our beloved Tate Fox, with three of my four feet off the ground.  I’ve been on peaks and in val­leys, and it will be ther­a­peu­tic for me to put a frame around the last month and try to inter­pret what’s happened.

First and fore­most, on New Year’s Day my dear moth­er suf­fered an extreme­ly dra­mat­ic health cri­sis, total­ly unex­pect­ed and star­tling for all of us.  Just as I was ready to get on a plane to come home to Lon­don from Red Gate Farm after the hol­i­days, we received a call that Mom was grave­ly ill, and before I knew it I was on a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent plane (two of them) to get to Indianapolis.

To cut to the chase, Mom recov­ered.  My sis­ter and I arrived in the frigid air of the Mid­west of Amer­i­ca to spend days in the hos­pi­tal, first gowned and gloved in the ICU, then more casu­al­ly in an ordi­nary hos­pi­tal room, with Mom and her best friend Janet, ask­ing ques­tions, lis­ten­ing to doc­tors and nurs­es and techs dis­cuss symp­toms, care, out­comes.  It was my first asso­ci­a­tion with the hos­pi­tal world since Avery was born, and we were all over­whelmed by the com­pe­tence, kind­ness and human­i­ty of every­one involved.

Mean­while, after-hours at home, in our child­hood home where we had just spent Thanks­giv­ing, we spoke with our broth­er who had had the where­with­al to look in on Mom in the mid­dle of the night and call 911.  He saved her life, and we thanked him over and over.  We raced around putting the house to rights, get­ting Mom’s room ready for her return, pret­ty much bleach­ing every flat sur­face and every object that did­n’t active­ly run away from us.  It was very sat­is­fy­ing to see the end result.

Final­ly there was noth­ing more we could do.  Mom was recov­er­ing, she was in safe hands.  We went home, our sep­a­rate ways.  Jill and I sat in the Indi­anapo­lis air­port, gaz­ing at each oth­er in the man­ner of sol­diers who have sur­vived a bat­tle­field and now don’t want to be sep­a­rat­ed.  I depart­ed with a mind-numb­ing sev­en-hour lay­over in Boston, then final­ly on a plane to London.

Where­upon the bug that had swept through our fam­i­ly, putting Mom in the hos­pi­tal, Andy in bed, Jill flat on her back for a night and a day, hit me on the flight from Boston to Lon­don.  I texted John from Gatwick upon land­ing and he came to get me, as mis­er­able as I can ever remem­ber being.

How grate­ful I was to get home, to my safe apart­ment, to my kit­ties and fam­i­ly.  And final­ly, upon recov­er­ing, how won­der­ful it was to be back in London.

All the famil­iar sights were new­ly beloved to me.  St Paul’s in the sun­set had nev­er looked so beautiful.

Grad­u­al­ly I’ve been able to sit qui­et­ly, take a deep breath, and try to get myself back to the ear­ly weeks of our time in Amer­i­ca, to the hol­i­day sea­son which John describes to any­one who asks as “real­ly fan­tas­tic until it wasn’t.”

We arrived at Red Gate Farm a few days ahead of Avery and Rose­mary, in time to shop for our Christ­mas trees and wreaths…

… to appre­ci­ate our new neigh­bors, Guin­ness and Brisket…

… to explore the restored woodshed…

… to thank its sav­ior, our love­ly Mike…

… and to enjoy his daugh­ter Abi­gail’s joy­ful snow angels.

Because yes, there was snow!  About half a foot, which trans­formed Red Gate Farm into a per­fect win­ter wonderland.

It says some­thing about my per­son­al­i­ty, how­ev­er (some­thing bad that I would love to change) that I could not enjoy the snow­storm, which is usu­al­ly my favorite thing on earth, because Avery was trav­el­ling that day and I wor­ried con­stant­ly that the storm would either delay her arrival, or make her return jour­ney from JFK a dan­ger­ous one.  In the end, we decid­ed to dri­ve to the air­port our­selves to get her, which made every kind of sense — two extra hours of her com­pa­ny, in which to hear all about what had been hap­pen­ing in Lon­don since we left.  To get her home to Red Gate Farm was just heavenly.

And then Rose­mary arrived, and we could put the sil­ver bells on the Sil­ver Bell Tree.  One per mar­ried year means a crowd­ed, spark­ly tree.

Fam­i­ly arrived, and the house imme­di­ate­ly felt about a quar­ter of the size it had only min­utes before.  In a good way.

Mol­ly real­ly has just the one expres­sion these days.

Every­where was beau­ty, if we could only stop run­ning around like mad peo­ple to enjoy it all.  This is my only orna­ment from Mom’s childhood.

I vowed to sit qui­et­ly more often, just to look into the fra­grant branch­es of our bushy, fes­tive tree, maybe to emu­late this lady in her seren­i­ty a bit more.

But the time for seren­i­ty had not come yet — if it ever does!  Because Avery and I had booked a mad­cap two-day adven­ture in New York, a puz­zle-piece map of activ­i­ty, rush­ing from one artist’s stu­dio to anoth­er from down­town Man­hat­tan, Red Hook, Flat­bush, Gowanus.  All in aid of the exhi­bi­tion we are organ­is­ing, to open in Low­er Man­hat­tan in May!

There fol­lowed 48 of the cra­zi­est hours we’ve ever spent, dri­ven into the city by John and Rose­mary who accom­pa­nied us to a reunion with two of my very favorite peo­ple in the world, the bril­liant artist cou­ple Kate and Dave, who wel­comed us to Long Island City to show us their work.  I adore Kate.

I don’t think I’ve ever met any­one with as nat­ur­al a facil­i­ty speak­ing to artists, or as nat­ur­al an abil­i­ty with words to describe art, as Avery.  It was a total joy to see her with Kate, who first met her as a new­born strapped to my chest as I planned my first exhi­bi­tion in 1996!

Where does Avery get her tal­ent — we talked about this ques­tion a lot in those two crowd­ed days.  Is it her basic upbring­ing in an art gallery, com­ing back to the sur­face?  Or her being dragged all over the world, all her life, to muse­ums and gal­leries?  We laugh when we read each oth­er’s writ­ing, because our styles are kind of indis­tin­guish­able.  “Long, long sen­tences!” we laugh.

From there to Red Hook and the genius of Bren­na, whose work will be such a cor­ner­stone of the upcom­ing show.  Here’s a peek!

Then we all piled in the car and made our way to the gallery space itself.

John and Rose­mary drove back up to Red Gate Farm, but was Avery’s and my work day over?  Oh no!  Off to Gowanus and anoth­er stu­dio vis­it via yel­low cab, talk­ing nine­teen to the dozen about all our plans, and then back to Man­hat­tan.  So glamorous!

We savored an ele­gant cock­tail at our fes­tive hotel in Tribeca, I feel­ing ter­ri­bly nos­tal­gic for the lit­tle girl Avery had been there, but incred­i­bly appre­ci­ate of the woman she has become, such fan­tas­tic company.

We walked to the Odeon for din­ner, filled with mem­o­ries of our old lives.  “This area looks so famil­iar…” Avery mused.  Then she stopped stock still.  “That’s my old school!”  It was.  Baby Avery, leav­ing home each morn­ing to start her real life, aged 20 months.

We enjoyed a bril­liant din­ner — steak tartare, steamed mus­sels, tagli­atelle with mush­rooms — with Avery’s his­to­ri­an friend Anne — my good­ness, the con­ver­sa­tion fly­ing around that table was aston­ish­ing.  I just sat back and admired them.

We strolled back to the hotel in the frigid air, enjoy­ing the sights, mar­vel­ling at where we were 15 years ago, feel­ing our lives had near­ly end­ed.  There is no under­es­ti­mat­ing time’s heal­ing balm, and a resilient spir­it.  We love New York so much.

Up all too ear­ly the next day to make our way to Flat­bush, this time in the sub­way, which is such a mis­er­able, fab­u­lous, mirac­u­lous, filthy joy.

Anoth­er stu­dio vis­it, then back to Man­hat­tan to meet up with our cura­tor friend Kath­leen and her daugh­ter Cici, Avery’s best child­hood friend, with whom we have shared so many joys and sor­rows — their baby­hood togeth­er, Sep­tem­ber 11, end­less play­dates and gallery openings.

Onto the gallery space where we wan­dered around in the bril­liant sun­shine, plan­ning, dreaming.

From there we raced up to the Low­er East Side and a prop­er lunch at Katz’s Del­i­catessen!  Well, I say “at,” but actu­al­ly we ate on a park bench in the freez­ing cold — gloat­ing over our pas­tra­mi and pickles.

“Oh my God, I dropped a piece of pas­tra­mi on the side­walk!” I gasped.

“Pick it up!” Avery admon­ished.  “Five-sec­ond rule!”

Read­ers, we ate it right off the side­walk.  “That cig­a­rette butt was at least an inch away,” we assured each other.

Then a dash up to 14th Street, smelling like gar­lic and dill, to browse at the new loca­tion of “Scream­ing Mim­i’s,” a vin­tage fash­ion shop that had once been locat­ed in the ground floor of the build­ing where Avery was born!  The own­er remem­bered her, or at least the exis­tence of her, which was heartwarming.

But the day was­n’t over yet!  Oh no, we raced up to Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion and picked up the divine David Rosen­garten and brought him back to Red Gate Farm.  To COOK!

What a dream come true for me, and for every­one who was lucky enough to be in our kitchen that day, and at our din­ing table.  He is so much fun to cook with!  Very author­i­ta­tive, nat­u­ral­ly, but also hap­py to give peo­ple jobs, and to praise our efforts.  Oh, the gar­lic bread!

We pro­vid­ed antipasti in the shape of mor­tadel­la and pro­sciut­to, figs and bur­ra­ta, and John’s spe­cial Brus­sels sprouts, roast­ed with chill­is and parmesan.

But the star of the show was David’s Shrimp Mari­nara, sim­ply awe­some to behold.

I cooked it last night here in Lon­don, and I can tell you it is a per­fect recipe and a per­fect dish.  I’ll give you his exact words, so you can pre­tend you were there with us.

David Rosen­garten’s Shrimp Marinara

(serves 2 as a main course or 6 as an appetiser)

1 lb/450g large shrimp/king prawns, with shells on (and heads if you can find them!)

sea salt

6 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly chopped

5 tbsps olive oil

2 soup-size cans whole peeled toma­toes in juice

1/4 cup torn basil leaves

Peel (sav­ing shells and heads but dis­card­ing legs) and devein shrimp.  I like to devein them “deeply”: not a but­ter­fly, but half-way there.  Picks up sauce better.

Salt them lib­er­al­ly, and toss even­ly with a table­spoon of gar­lic.  Let sit for 1–2 hours.

Mean­while, saute anoth­er table­spoon of gar­lic in 2 tbsps olive oil over medi­um heat.  After 2 min­utes, raise heat to medi­um-high and add the shrimp shells and heads, toss­ing well.  Saute until the shells brown a lit­tle, 2–3 minutes.

Bring heat down to low.  Grab 6 large toma­toes.  One by one, squeeze each toma­to in your hand direct­ly over the pan of shells, squeez­ing firm­ly, let­ting all juice and toma­to frag­ments fall into the saute pan.  Each toma­to should break into 5–6 “clumps” in your hand.  Don’t wear a white shirt [he did!].

Add basil leaves to the mix­ture. Stir.

Let the toma­to-shell mix­ture sim­mer for 2–3 min­utes.  Turn off heat and leave the pan on the stove, with­out heat, for an hour or two [I for­got to do this and it turned out won­der­ful, but prob­a­bly you should do as he says].

When ready to cook, pick the shells and heads out of the shell-toma­to mix­ture.  Dis­card shells and heads.

Place 3 remain­ing tbsps olive oil in a new, medi­um-wide saute pan over medi­um-high heat.  When the oil is hot, add the shrimp.  Stir-fry until the shrimp are almost cooked: pink, slight­ly translu­cent at cen­ter, about 2 minutes.

Add the toma­to-basil sauce.  Stir to blend well with the shrimp.  Cook, stir­ring, for a minute more.  Taste for sea­son­ing and serve.

**************

Heav­en­ly!  My moth­er-in-law chopped SO MUCH GAR­LIC that day!  David was full of deserved praise for her skills.

The day was a com­plete delight.  We had so much fun food-shop­ping togeth­er that I often think, now doing my lone­ly shop alone, he should rent him­self out just as a shop­ping com­pan­ion.  Togeth­er we perused every­thing in the store, even things we did­n’t want to buy.  “Check out this ham hock… look at this chick­en sea­son­ing blend, I think they make it in-house!”

He is a won­der­ful friend.  Of course pep­pered through his con­ver­sa­tion are casu­al tid­bits about his many, many famous friends and the mad­cap things he’s done with them, all over the world.  You get the feel­ing, lis­ten­ing to David, that life should real­ly be not only a mat­ter of “Taste,” but a mat­ter always get­ting away with some­thing, if you can!  We are already plan­ning our next adven­ture — on his home turf in New York!

All too soon he was gone, back to the city, and Christ­mas Eve was upon us, oys­ter stew and all.  We crowd­ed around the fes­tive table, enjoy­ing the beau­ty of the hol­i­day season.

The presents beckoned.

Fam­i­ly and friends.  The best of times.

Christ­mas at Jil­l’s was its usu­al glo­ri­ous­ly deli­cious, messy, chaot­ic fun.  Of course, I got a cold.  But did I sit qui­et­ly and get over it sen­si­bly?  Of course not.  We piled into the car on a day of freez­ing rain and drove to Katon­ah for one more stu­dio vis­it, choos­ing one more painting.

And before we knew it, New Year’s Eve and its much-antic­i­pat­ed “Par­ty in the Wood­shed” had arrived.  There was much dec­o­rat­ing to be done.

Even John, not usu­al­ly one to go crazy over par­ty prep, got deeply into the spir­it of things, most­ly because of the love we all share for this crazy, beau­ti­ful build­ing, over 200 years old and just bare­ly saved from ruin.

John set up a propane heater and lit all the dozens and dozens of tealights.  I coughed my head off, real­is­ing dim­ly the fol­ly of spend­ing sev­er­al hours in an unheat­ed, windy out­build­ing in the mid­dle of the night.  But no mat­ter, the show must go on.  And pre­pared with plat­ters of pro­sciut­to e mel­one, chilled shrimp and spicy sauce, smoked salmon and creme fraiche on flat­breads, hot cheese puffs and lots of cham­pagne, the par­ty did just that.

The place was just trans­formed.  To think that until that very night, after 12 years of own­er­ship of our prop­er­ty, no one had ever been up into the sec­ond sto­ry of that build­ing.  It will be par­ty cen­tral now!

We are already plan­ning sum­mer sleep­overs.  All the neigh­bors came and oohed and aahed appro­pri­ate­ly.  Sud­den­ly it did­n’t mat­ter that there was­n’t real­ly ade­quate heat, or that every­one at the par­ty kept their coats on.  Cough­ing or no, I had a mar­vel­lous time, and so did every­one else.

Of course there were sparklers.

The girls stopped their run­ning around with Amer­i­can Girl dolls in the dark and grad­u­al­ly over­came their hes­i­ta­tion to enjoy the fun.

Sparklers aren’t just for the children.

Yes, by then we were so hardy that we weren’t even wear­ing coats.  We were pure­ly mad.

2016 came to an end at Red Gate Farm, and for many rea­sons we are glad to see its end.  But equal­ly there have been beau­ti­ful and deli­cious moments.  Hav­ing gone through my moth­er’s fright­en­ing ill­ness has giv­en me a new per­spec­tive on the things we should appre­ci­ate in this life: good health, inde­pen­dence, the love and sup­port of fam­i­ly and friends.  As the chap­lain at her hos­pi­tal said to her, “We are crea­tures of com­mu­ni­ty.  It is not nat­ur­al for us to try to get through this jour­ney alone.”  As Mom goes mirac­u­lous­ly home today to her beau­ti­ful, safe house, I am incred­i­bly grate­ful still to have her, to have the mem­o­ries of our time togeth­er, and to begin 2017 with optimism.