reflec­tions of an extra­or­di­nary summer

It’s been a peace­ful, relax­ing two weeks in Lon­don since our return from Red Gate Farm.  I am always aston­ished at how dif­fer­ent our two lives are — one lived in the out-of-doors in sti­fling humid­i­ty, sur­round­ed by the bright col­ors of our Amer­i­can life.  As my fam­i­ly always mock me for rav­ing, there is “the green of the grass, the red of the barn, the white of the fence.”

The house itself is per­fect­ly nor­mal in size, but I always expe­ri­ence the inte­ri­or as a bit of a doll­house, a pre­cious, small space filled with objects that I love intensely.

There is a qual­i­ty to the light at Red Gate Farm that is almost like anoth­er col­or, or anoth­er object.  Each room is filled with long mem­o­ries, now near­ly 15 years of mem­o­ries, of peo­ple we no longer have with us, of lav­ish and deli­cious meals, of fam­i­ly and friends, hol­i­days and parties.

Every sum­mer we walk through the house when we arrive and move things on the walls from place to place, so we con­tin­ue to see the beau­ti­ful art­work, so that our envi­ron­ment escapes that trap of being so famil­iar that it’s unseen.  This sum­mer, the “some­body’s ances­tors” por­traits that we’ve always had above our bed migrat­ed down to the stair­well, to join a por­trait of my moth­er that hung for many years in my dad’s office.

We always joke when we lock up the house that it’s a bit sil­ly to do so — the house is filled with things that are valu­able only to us. But they are so very valu­able.  This sum­mer, a tru­ly pre­cious object came to live at the farm.

This piece of wood began life as a tree on our prop­er­ty, sev­er­al hun­dred years ago, and then became the lin­tel of our beau­ti­ful wood­shed, then to be infest­ed with grubs and bugs, to be replaced by our bril­liant mas­ter car­pen­ter friend Mike.  But did he throw it away?  Of course not.  He pol­ished it and invest­ed it with depres­sions filled with votive can­dles, to light our din­ing table.  We love it so much.

This sum­mer we decid­ed to tack­le the hor­ri­fy­ing­ly spi­dery con­tents of The Big Red Barn, left there by the movers when we trans­plant­ed to Lon­don in 2005.  One rainy day, we opened the door and ven­tured inside.

In box after box we dis­cov­ered a whole his­to­ry of art his­to­ry, sus­pend­ed in amber from about 2000, when I last taught a course.  It was painful, but prob­a­bly nec­es­sary, to pack them up in the car and take them to Good­will.  Every­thing has changed since then, but still it was a bit of an emo­tion­al wrench.  Much more fun was the stuff to save.

It turned out that one of the sad loss­es of our move to Lon­don was not a loss at all!  We found Avery’s muse­um-qual­i­ty col­lec­tion of felt (if there is a Muse­um of Felt)!

Every­thing is tech­ni­col­or at Red Gate Farm, as if you’d hit the “enhance” key in your lap­top’s pho­to appli­ca­tion, over life itself.

Of course what real­ly makes life in Con­necti­cut so mag­i­cal, so heart­warm­ing and exhaust­ing­ly rich, are the peo­ple.  Fam­i­ly!  Jane is taller than me now.

Mol­ly broke her wrist!  But it does­n’t hold her back.

Jane is the star of her soft­ball team, nat­u­ral­ly.  We turned up one warm, bug­gy evening to cheer her on.

John’s shirt has a sto­ry.  One Christ­mas he turned up at a din­ner at Jill and Joel’s decked out in it, and Joel raised an eye­brow.  “Flow­ers?”  I defend­ed him.  “This brand of shirt is very pop­u­lar in Lon­don!”  A pause.  Then Jill said, “Yeah, well, in LON­DON.”  John man­aged, through assid­u­ous laun­dry plan­ning, to wear it every time we got togeth­er, this summer.

We got our kit­ty fix, with Snow­ball, although he’s real­ly Joel’s cat, full stop.

Neigh­bors, as always, make Red Gate Farm what it is.  Lau­ren and Mike share their gor­geous kids with us very gen­er­ous­ly.  There was brown­ie bat­ter for Gabriel!

Brown­ie bat­ter and a doll­house for Abigail.

And of course the tram­po­line always pleases.

A lawn full of new grass for Elizabeth.

Kate-From-Across-The-Road made time for a cook­ing les­son as well!

What fun to hear all about her adven­tures in bal­let, with proud Anne and Dave look­ing on.  She has grown up so much since Christmas.

When­ev­er there was a qui­et moment, I turned to my domes­tic projects.  It turns out, I am a ter­ri­ble knitter.

I both­ered Avery with end­less texts show­ing my lat­est emer­gency, and she tried valiant­ly to help from her van­tage point in NYC.  But some­times there was noth­ing for it but to dri­ve up the road to Judy.

She pro­vid­ed me with my very own bas­ket to hold my var­i­ous projects, and threw in some nee­dles, thim­bles, knit­ting books and advice.

Most excit­ing­ly, she gave me a ball of yarn made from sheep she raised her­self, and taught me to purl with it.

Well, I say she “taught me to purl.”  She tried valiant­ly.  Avery tried.  Lau­ren tried.

I haven’t giv­en up entire­ly, but in the face of these kind peo­ple, each of whom patient­ly unrav­els my rows and straight­ens my stitch­es whilst churn­ing out fin­ger­less gloves, hats and sweaters seem­ing­ly effort­less­ly, I decid­ed I might be bet­ter at some­thing else.

I went to work on John’s frayed shirt.

It was a very sat­is­fy­ing project, so I moved on to anoth­er one.

Fac­ing a chal­lenge is impor­tant, so I turned to the sad­ly dam­aged sofa and did my best.

Joel says I’m obsessed.  Not at all!  Well, maybe a lit­tle.  In a rare rever­sal of our roles, Lau­ren turned to me for help, which was very exciting.

With per­haps two dozen holes, includ­ing a com­plete­ly worn-out elbow, it was a real project.

How I worked!  Avery pitched in, man­ag­ing to re-knit a few stitch­es togeth­er, but most­ly it was a mat­ter of weav­ing, with a col­lec­tion of 100-year-old silks from Corn­wall.  Final­ly it was finished.

She was thrilled.  I love Vis­i­ble Mending.

When I was­n’t Vis­i­ble Mend­ing, I was watch­ing the dis­so­lu­tion of my mar­riage as we tried to build our new grill togeth­er.  A present from Jill and Joel, its beau­ty was­n’t imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent.  Exact­ly 26 parts, one for every let­ter of the alpha­bet, con­ve­nient­ly.  Would they have had to add one more wrench if there were a 27th letter??

What a project!  Worth it in the end, although we did have one hor­ren­dous moment, hav­ing come home from dump­ing the 85 pounds of card­board and sty­ro­foam that had pro­tect­ed it in its box, to fear we were miss­ing one cru­cial screw.  But all was well, finally.

This sum­mer, when­ev­er life threat­ened to become peace­ful or relax­ing, I jumped into the car, drove to Katon­ah, got on the train and found my way down­town to our exhib­it, to show every­one around.  One vis­it hap­pened, how­ev­er, on a Mon­day when the gallery was mer­ci­ful­ly closed, and I coaxed Avery, her fab­u­lous his­to­ri­an boss Anne, and Anne’s daugh­ter Julia down­town for lunch at the Odeon.

If only Avery and Julia could run the world, we might actu­al­ly sur­vive.  Bril­liant con­ver­sa­tion, and salmon tartare.

From there, Avery and I raced uptown for a pre­cious hour with my Aunt Mary Wayne and fam­i­ly, all the way from Ken­tucky for a Yan­kees game!  We have a lot to learn about the art of the self­ie, but you get the image.

Anoth­er out­ing to the city occurred on the most fiendish­ly hot day of the sum­mer.  Sim­ply drown­ing in sweat, I was forced to buy a pack­age of frozen Chi­nese pan­cakes just to car­ry them around with me, paus­ing now and then to hold them against my neck.  Kath­leen, Cici and Avery made their way to a delight­ful Argent­ian restau­rant owned by one of Avery’s school friend’s moth­er.  We had a sen­sa­tion­al time, end­ing with a bril­liant stu­dio vis­it to see Kath­leen’s new work.

Before that long, hot, hot day was over, Avery and saun­tered over to the Wool­sy, site of the exhi­bi­tion after-par­ty, to meet Cather­ine for a fan­cy, expen­sive cock­tail and just the best con­ver­sa­tion.  It pays to be friends with a novelist.

I brought out my Vis­i­bly Mend­ed jumper to show Cather­ine, and as she unfold­ed it on the bar, she fin­gered the label inside.  “I went to high school with this guy.”  Con­necti­cut upbring­ings nev­er cease to enchant me.

Even­tu­al­ly, too soon for her, Avery’s sum­mer job end­ed and her stint in her beloved New York City was fin­ished.  We raced down to the city to get her, and on the way home chanced upon her grand­moth­er at the cosy lit­tle Westch­ester air­port and brought them both to Red Gate Farm.  Anoth­er mile­stone in “what makes a sum­mer” had been achieved.

What our sum­mer real­ly need­ed was fre­quent vis­its to the kit­ten shel­ter, so we did.  Every day we went, kit­tens had come and gone.  Their turnover is incredible.

We were des­per­ate to bring Priscil­la home with us, but were lucky enough to be there when she was adopt­ed by a father whole told the staff straight up that she was a post-divorce bribe to get his son to come vis­it more often.

Olimpia and Tony made their tra­di­tion­al trip to see us, for a splen­did, relaxed lun­cheon full of friend­ship and cur­ried chickpeas.

It was the most beau­ti­ful day of the sum­mer, as we delved into the past of our long friend­ship and the fun of these vis­its, hear­ing about Olimpia’s Ital­ian roots, her emi­gra­tion sto­ries, her fabled rel­a­tives.  Delightful.

Avery and I cooked togeth­er!  In fact, it was the first occa­sion of three-gen­er­a­tions cook­ing togeth­er (one with a camera!).

Non­na with her tra­di­tion­al gar­lic-chop­ping job, me find­ing ingre­di­ents for Avery, Avery reduc­ing cour­gettes from Lau­ren’s gar­den to beau­ti­ful lit­tle cubes, to saute and serve with pas­ta and plen­ty of grat­ed cheese and hot pep­pers.  A delight.

Mom’s long-await­ed birth­day cel­e­bra­tion came along, to be marked by a trip to Boston for Jill and me to get her, prob­a­bly the most time I have spent alone with my beloved sis­ter since we were about 12 and 18 respec­tive­ly!  Then home for din­ner at hers, all of us togeth­er for the first time in a year.

The next day it was our turn for a par­ty.  The yel­low bal­loons nev­er disappoint.

Ready for din­ner on the terrace.

Every­one arrived in a flur­ry for an after­noon and evening of con­ver­sa­tion, cock­tails, corn on the cob, fam­i­ly, friends.

Don’t you love my new nap­kins?  Cour­tesy of Non­na.  I love, love the col­or, espe­cial­ly with my prized ceram­ic arti­choke cen­ter­piece from the V&A!

There were lemon bars for dessert.

As some wise philoso­pher said, “Hap­pi­ness is not some­thing you expe­ri­ence; it’s some­thing you remem­ber.”  I try so hard to expe­ri­ence it, with my fam­i­ly all around me.

Three gen­er­a­tions.

We had planned to take Mom into the city the fol­low­ing day to see the exhib­it, but she was not ter­ri­bly well, so we reluc­tant­ly left her behind with Jil­l’s fam­i­ly and plunged into NYC yet anoth­er time, to see the show for the last time.  This time, were joined by Beck­y’s fam­i­ly, all the way from Char­lotte, NC., to tour the show and then repair to an old favorite neigh­bor­hood restau­rant for an Ital­ian feast and an absolute fes­ti­val of con­ver­sa­tion.  It’s not easy to catch up with four of my most beloved peo­ple — best friends from our orig­i­nal Lon­don days with lit­tle Avery.  Every­one is a prop­er grownup now.

We man­aged to over­lap with Beck­y’s youngest — in my mind she is per­ma­nent­ly about 8, so this was a shock.

We all wan­dered con­tent­ed­ly around the neigh­bor­hood, telling tales of Avery’s New York upbring­ing, the events of Sep­tem­ber 11, my gallery.  I am in com­plete­ly denial that it is a greet­ing-card shop.  Check out the fake wood floor, the pur­ple walls.  It was such a beau­ti­ful space, back in the day.

Our New York adven­tures end­ed for the sum­mer, we drove one last time up the high­way to arrive at Jill and Joel’s new coun­try club!  One more birth­day din­ner, one more celebration.

It was time to say good­bye — to our moth­ers, to our friends, to Red Gate Farm.  An over­whelm­ing sum­mer had to end.  Avery and I may curate anoth­er show some­day, but this first one of shared glo­ry, added to all the usu­al joys of a Red Gate Farm sum­mer, was unique.  Good­bye, August.