away we go

We are ensconced in the most imper­son­al, red/black/grey/silver hotel room on earth, a breath away from JFK in prepa­ra­tion for our ear­ly-morn­ing flight tomor­row, await­ing a Domi­no’s piz­za delivery.

In short, noth­ing could be in stark­er con­trast to our last two weeks’ hol­i­day at Red Gate Farm.  And yet it’s strange­ly relax­ing to be in an envi­ron­ment where I can’t do any­thing to make the expe­ri­ence more…memorable.  I just get to sit qui­et­ly and review the love­ly, love­ly time we had over our Christ­mas holiday.

We were so hap­py to pop round, the day after Christ­mas, to see Avery’s dar­ling pro­tegee Jes­si­ca, kit­ten of so many sum­mers ago now, beloved cat daugh­ter of our friends Mike and Lau­ren.  Jes­si­ca always remem­bers Avery.

Mike remem­bered “just com­ing by to say hel­lo, and meet a kit­ten, because Anne said you had one,” and he fell instant­ly in love.  The rest is his­to­ry, and now there are Mike, Lau­ren, their dar­ling girl Abi­gail, and baby Gabriel, irre­sistible to me, of course.

We left them feel­ing, as always, that there is some mag­i­cal star hov­er­ing over their lives, giv­ing their fam­i­ly some incal­cu­la­ble lucky dip.  What love­ly, gen­er­ous, hap­py peo­ple.  I wish we had much more time to spend with them, and learn their secrets to happiness.

The next morn­ing, with­out room to breathe, we hopped in our car, packed to the gills with every­thing I could bring from home for The Most Impor­tant Din­ner Par­ty Ever.

We were away to pro­duce my first-ever paid din­ner par­ty, for our Kick­starter super­star-sup­port­ers Kath­leen and her fam­i­ly.  She’s only the moth­er of Avery’s first life­time friend.  No pres­sure there.

And there was­n’t.  Any pres­sure, I mean, once I arrived and my nerves set­tled down.  It was just our long, long friend­ship, and the fun of being togeth­er, and of look­ing at the cook­book that Kath­leen and her fam­i­ly had helped be born.

I made Kath­leen close her eyes one more time and we donned our aprons, for the first time.  What a thrill!  Very teary-mak­ing, I have to admit.

I cooked through the long, dusky after­noon and evening, and her fam­i­ly arrived and we sat down to eat.  Creamy red pep­per soup, roast­ed chick­en with goat cheese under the skin, roast­ed salmon with Fox Point, roast­ed car­rots, but­ter­nut squash and beets with plen­ty of olive oil, can­nelli­ni beans cooked with gar­lic, Parme­san and arugu­la, and final­ly choco­late mousse.  An evening to remember.

I made a tiny speech, try­ing not to cry.  For me, the evening encap­su­lat­ed my teach­ing days when as a young pro­fes­sor, I met Kath­leen, a beau­ti­ful and tal­ent­ed artist so close to my own age, so inspir­ing, and Avery’s child­hood friend­ship with dar­ling Cici, our expe­ri­ences in the very space where we were hav­ing din­ner, on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.  Prompt­ed by Kath­leen’s speech, I thought back to our lives togeth­er on Jay Street in Tribeca, the Book Club I gave to the lit­tle kids in Avery’s child­hood group, my gallery days, her shows with me.  What a rich, beau­ti­ful his­to­ry we have.

We ate, we chat­ted, we hugged and kissed.  We drove away.  How is it pos­si­ble to have such rela­tion­ships across an ocean that must be left behind?  It’s this real­i­ty that makes our Christ­mas hol­i­days “home” so very rich, and yet so hard to leave behind.  How we can have the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of lives — Lon­don, New York City, Red Gate Farm — so full of peo­ple we love, each of which must be left behind in order to have the other.

Sigh.  This is what I con­tem­plate, sit­ting tucked up in my anony­mous bed on the out­skirts of JFK Airport.

Jil­l’s fam­i­ly arrived for one last brunch togeth­er: eggs brought by Joel from the hens he’s been look­ing after over the Christ­mas hol­i­day!  My hens clucked over them before they were scrambled.

We sat around the din­ing room table, dis­cussing the girls’ var­i­ous schools, our jobs, we signed the cook­book — yay! — we tucked into Jil­l’s “awe­some blue­ber­ry muffins.”  How incred­i­ble that after all the years of plan­ning, the book is fin­ished, and on page what­ev­er, Jil­l’s muffins appear.  It feels a bit exhaust­ing even to write this down.  In every inter­ac­tion of our Christ­mas hol­i­day, the cook­book loomed, hap­py, laden with mem­o­ries, with pride, with disbelief.

We played “I’ll be your hands” games with dar­ling Jane and Mol­ly, giv­ing fake high fives to each oth­er, not want­i­ng to admit it was time to say good­bye.  There was a final mea­sure.  I find it ter­ri­bly touch­ing and a bit sad that there isn’t a sin­gle stretch of the mea­sur­ing door­way that shows all three: Avery, Jane and Mol­ly.  Mol­ly is too small.

We drove to the mall for a soul-destroy­ing trip of “I don’t want to buy any­thing, all these peo­ple are awful” sort of emo­tion, and came home to our light­ed, cosy house with two trees full of pre­cious orna­ments, and a pot of oys­ter stew, a plate of roast­ed ham.  I ran across the road to deliv­er two of Avery’s out­grown sweaters to dear Kate.  Oh, the fun of a few stolen moments at Anne and David’s house, unbur­den­ing myself about mater­nal anx­i­ety.  Their response is always, “We know this is com­ing for us… how quick­ly it all goes.”  There is some­thing about that fam­i­ly in the “house across the road” that is mag­i­cal­ly com­fort­ing, lov­ing, encour­ag­ing and pre­cious to me.  I walked home across the vague­ly fog­gy, Christ­massy road, feel­ing unspeak­ably grateful.

That night, late, after Non­na had thought she was packed and had said good­night, we, plus Avery, found our­selves in the Christ­massy sit­ting room, can­dlelit and love­ly, with Avery cov­er­ing her face with a cush­ion, sim­ply dread­ing the weeks to come and the news they will offer, and yet feel­ing excit­ed about that news, too.  The Christ­mas atmos­phere helped, in a way.  There is a lot to come, in the weeks and months ahead, the mag­ni­tude of which bears not think­ing of.

We packed up the house.  Each morn­ing of this task,we awake in denial that this involves untold loads of laun­dry, unmak­ing, wash­ing, dry­ing and remak­ing three beds.  Last show­ers and THAT laun­dry.  Last meals, clean­ing out the fridge, and THAT dish­wash­er load.

I left behind a clean, emp­ty fridge, of course, with bril­liant Anne and David car­ry­ing away turkey stock, choco­late mousse, pota­toes, lemons and onions.  “Can we have that for dessert?” lit­tle Kate asks, point­ing in the twi­light to the choco­late mousse.  She and Tay­lor dis­played their Christ­mas Amer­i­can Girl dolls, which brought back a lot of mem­o­ries of Avery’s child­hood, so recent and yet so seem­ing­ly remote.

Oh, the Red Gate Farm twi­light.  The last sunset.

So we sit, in our ster­ile and com­fort­ing hotel room, ready to fly home to Lon­don and what­ev­er the New Year will bring.  We have in our suit­case the one last “advance copy” of “Tonight at 7.30,” ready to show our friends who will be so thrilled to see it in the weeks before their own  copies come.  Most impor­tant­ly, we have had a jol­ly, over­whelm­ing, emo­tion­al, threads-tight­en­ing, fam­i­ly- and friends-packed Christ­mas that will give us some­thing beau­ti­ful to think about in the grey, qui­et weeks of win­ter to come.  We are grateful.