Sum­mer Road Trip 2015: The East Coast!

I’ve been home a whole week now, bat­tling jet­lag with every weapon at my dis­pos­al: after­noon naps, two new Home-Start fam­i­lies to look after, more naps, and over the week­end, a two-day writ­ing course on “Auto­bi­og­ra­phy Into Fic­tion: How To Turn Your Life Into a Nov­el.”  Being unable to nap for two whole days in a row actu­al­ly got me over the edge, and I’m cau­tious­ly opti­mistic, from the point of view of a grey, sprinkly Mon­day in Lon­don, that I’m back in the sad­dle of my Eng­lish life.

My Amer­i­can life, tele­scoped into two beau­ti­ful weeks, was so love­ly!  Of course Indi­ana and Iowa were sub­lime, but there was more fun, love, blue skies and good food to come.  I head­ed to New York.

Know­ing I would not want to jump in a rental car at 10 p.m. at JFK and dri­ve to Red Gate Farm, long ago on my sofa here in Lon­don John kind­ly made hotel reser­va­tions for me, so very late on a steamy July evening, I turned up hap­pi­ly at the Duane Street Hotel — I would high­ly rec­om­mend this ele­gant, peace­ful, friend­ly lit­tle retreat if you need a place to stay in Man­hat­tan — and col­lapsed for the night.  How civilised to wake up the next day and mosey on over to Mor­gan’s Mar­ket, the Tribeca del­i­catessen that fed me lunch more times than I could pos­si­bly count, dur­ing my years as a young moth­er and a local gallery own­er.  And guess who was still there behind the counter, quite as if no time had passed?

“Man­ny!”

“Kris­ten!  How have you been?”

“I’ll be bet­ter when I’ve had two eggs on a roll with bacon and cheese!”

We chat­ted over the unbe­liev­able­ness of time gone by, that we’ve been gone near­ly ten years, that Avery’s going to col­lege in the fall.

“My old­est too, she’s a sopho­more this year,” Man­ny assures me.

I grabbed my sand­wich and said it would­n’t be anoth­er ten years before I saw him again, and popped uptown to get my rental car, and up the West Side High­way I drove.

Months ago, I’d had the sense to realise that I’d be pass­ing right through the town of one of my favorite artists in the world, Dus­ton Spear.  It was easy-peasy to arrange a stu­dio vis­it, and although she end­ed being called away on a fam­i­ly emer­gency, her delight­ful hus­band Jon-Marc showed me what she had want­ed me to see.  Oh, heav­en­ly work.

These pieces have every­thing I grav­i­tate to: text, tex­ture, mut­ed greys, browns, greens, with the occa­sion­al red or gold to shock me out of my rever­ie.  Even as non-fig­u­ra­tive as my inter­ests usu­al­ly lie, she can seduce me with her peo­ple, her humanity.

What beau­ti­ful mem­o­ries were brought back to me of my gallery days, when I spent time — far too lit­tle to be sure, but more than I am able to now — in artists’ stu­dios, sur­feit­ed with imagery.

Jon-Marc and I looked and looked, talked and thought.  Then we paused at the rail­ing of Dus­ton’s stu­dio-in-a-barn, and drank in the coun­try­side, the peace.

I drove away with so much to think about that the jour­ney up to Red Gate Farm seemed very short.

What a joy to arrive.

I unpacked as quick­ly as I could, and Rol­lie and Judy turned up just to check that I’d arrived safe­ly!  We talked fast and furi­ous about the state of the house, the oppres­sive heat (delight­ful), and then I jumped in my car to head up to find my family.

Every­one was deeply involved in the cre­ation of a plum and caramel cake!  Jill, Joel, Jane and Mol­ly, just as I’d left them at Christmastime.

We vis­it­ed the neigh­bors’ chick­ens, just for fun (and I came away with half a dozen fresh eggs).

Joel kind­ly fed me crab cakes — pas­teurised lump, to be sure — just as I had request­ed.  And Jil­l’s plum cake.  And then we repaired to the swing-set for a vig­or­ous game of “Sharky, sharky.”  Don’t ask.

It was beau­ti­ful to be back togeth­er, and actu­al­ly self­ish­ly, very relax­ing to have them all to myself — my beau­ti­ful sis­ter with whom I nev­er get to spend enough time, espe­cial­ly — not to have to share them all with John and Avery (I tell myself, know­ing actu­al­ly it would have been heav­en­ly to be all togeth­er).  We dis­cussed the girls’ sum­mer camp, Jane’s upcom­ing musi­cal (I can’t believe I’m miss­ing it), their excit­ing plan to build a new porch on the side of their house.  “The win­dow will become a door, and the door will become…”  Some­thing to look for­ward to at Christmas!

The girls have got­ten just that lit­tle smidgen taller, skin­nier, and seem to embody all that is all-Amer­i­can sporty childhood.

We decid­ed that the best thing would be to have them straight over the next day to Red Gate Farm.  “How about a hon­ey-glazed ham?” Jane asked, leaf­ing through my cook­book.  “And slaw, please, and toma­to-moz­zarel­la sal­ad,” Joel added hun­gri­ly.  We had just had din­ner, for heav­en’s sake!  That’s what read­ing “Tonight at 7.30″ will do for you, apparently.

I drove home in a haze of hap­pi­ness at the prospect of five whole days of peace, noth­ing real­ly to do, just hang around, at Red Gate Farm.

The moment my car pulled up in the dri­ve, up ran lit­tle Kate-from-across-the-road, full of her sum­mer’s adven­tures.  “Kris­ten, my Kris­ten!  Have you met my fairies?  Have you seen them yet tonight?  We have glit­ter on a stick to attract them and I’ve built them a house and they’ve writ­ten me NOTES!”  So much for her Christ­mas shy­ness!  We arranged for her to come over first thing the next day, to help with prepa­ra­tions for our din­ner par­ty.  I fell into bed, and morn­ing came quickly.

Anne and Dave lugged chairs up from the Lit­tle Red Barn.

Kate donned an apron to lend some help in the kitchen.

Toma­to moz­zarel­la sal­ad — with a smi­ley face, to be sure.

The fam­i­ly turned up, with an addi­tion in the shape of one Kai, excel­lent next-door-neigh­bor and Jane’s shad­ow this sum­mer.  He com­man­deered my cam­era, and Jane her father’s, and some 300 pho­tographs ensued, among them some real jew­els, as they gath­ered up Kate and Mol­ly to cross the road to Stillmead­ow, sure­ly among the most pho­to­genic of all acres of Con­necti­cut countryside.

The fairy cor­re­spon­dence was duly record­ed, with solemn atten­tion from all the chil­dren, big and small.  Hav­ing been asked if she believed in fairies, Mol­ly replied, “You mean the kind that go across water?”  She is rather a prac­ti­cal child, it would appear.  Nev­er mind.

The webs where the fairies play were much in evidence.

The kids swung (or “swang” as I’m sure we said in our child­hood) on the swingset which requires adults to hold it into the ground.  This gave me a rare chance to teth­er my dear Anne to one spot, and real­ly chat, about fairies, Oxford, Pot­ters Fields, the cook­book, our parents.

We crossed the road for an explo­ration of the Big Red Barn.  Kai cap­tured Mol­ly’s lit­tle pro­file perfectly.

I grabbed the cam­era to get my beloved broth­er-in-law at his laugh­ing best.

Poor Quin­cy, rel­e­gat­ed to the Lit­tle Red Barn.  He did­n’t run last sum­mer, and I don’t think we even tried to turn over his motor at Christ­mas.  Land Rover as camp­ing tent, perhaps?

The horsey jumps, pos­si­bly the most appre­ci­at­ed of all toys ever, made their appearance.

We wan­dered around Red Gate Farm, assess­ing all the ways in which it is falling down, with spe­cial atten­tion this sum­mer to the mossy, moldy dam­age from the win­ter’s out­landish snow­fall.  “You can see the prob­lem,” Anne explains.  “The gut­ter has become twist­ed and has come away from point­ing down­ward to the down­spout, and all the water’s just pour­ing down the side of the house, leav­ing mossy streaks.”

Indeed it is, but such was my sun­ny, hap­py relax­ation at being there, with all my beloved peo­ple, that I could only smile and say, “I’m sure some­thing can be done.”

I hon­est­ly feel there must be some seda­tive ingre­di­ent of life at Red Gate Farm, even for just a few days, that should be bot­tled (it could fund our moss removal).  I felt as if I’d had a tran­quilis­er.  Even with din­ner for 9 to produce!

How we ate!  All the way through an entire roast­ed ham, with the atten­dant crisp slaw and creamy sal­ad, with its fra­grant fresh pesto.  Jane might well be on her way to pho­tograph­ing a cook­book herself!

Final­ly the end of the day had come, and the fam­i­ly piled in the car to go home, with many hugs and plans to see each oth­er one more time before it was time for me to fly away.

Anne, David and Kate lounged on the tram­po­line with me in the gath­er­ing dusk, talk­ing about school, favorite pic­ture books, Avery’s trav­el plans, the fairies’ wish­es for Kate.  The bats cir­cled over­head, eat­ing up the mos­qui­toes, one hopes.  Total peace.

The next day brought more sun­shine, and it was but the work of a moment to find the sprin­kler in the barn and set it up. Instant fun.

Tay­lor stopped by with her Amer­i­can Girl doll, so Kate dashed across the road for hers (“look both ways, then look again!” Anne and I shout as she dash­es), and was back in a moment.

Tay­lor’s mom Kon­nie found time to hang out on the ter­race with Anne and me, then share a bar­be­cued chick­en din­ner.  Not, how­ev­er, suc­cess­ful­ly grilled by me.  “The gril­l’s just not heat­ing up!” I dis­cov­ered, feel­ing that essen­tial­ly fem­i­nine frus­tra­tion when a task tra­di­tion­al­ly tak­en by a man turns out to be a prob­lem.  “Check your propane lev­el,” Kon­nie advised, argu­ing for a lev­el of capa­bil­i­ty beyond me.

The chick­en went into the oven.

Thank­ful­ly, Rol­lie and Judy showed up to see how we were doing, and Rol­lie crawled help­ful­ly under the grill to remove the tank.  “You’re run­ning on emp­ty,” he said, and for a brief moment I thought about lug­ging the replace­ment tank up from the barn.  Nah.  Much more fun just to wan­der down to the pond with the girls, to catch up with chat.

Tay­lor and Kate were fear­less about the pond, which I admit always gives me pause.  What’s under that murky sur­face?  They did­n’t care.

Tues­day morn­ing found me loung­ing on the ter­race, read­ing and cor­re­spond­ing with John and Avery, lazy in their Lon­don July lives.  And then up popped Mark, sweaty from scyth­ing the mead­ow, and hap­py to replace my propane tank.  It takes a vil­lage!  You can’t help but smile when Mark’s around, which is a gift, in case you did­n’t realise it.

“Kon­nie tell you about the rab­bits she’s plan­ning to raise, for meat?” he asked me, eye­brow quirked.

“Yep, she did.”  A pause.

“Now, keep in mind this is a lady who has­n’t eat­en pork since she was a tiny kid.  She helped her grand­ma raise a pig on her farm, named it, played with it, the whole nine yards.  Then she turns up at Sun­day din­ner one day and there’s ham. Uh-oh.”

“Ooh, that’s harsh,” I said.

“And so she’s gonna raise lit­tle East­er bun­nies and eat ’em?  I don’t know about that.”

He downed a huge glass of icy water, and was back to the meadow.

I set­tled down to a bison burg­er — grilled with my new propane tank in place! — with a small feel­ing of guilt that Avery and John weren’t there to help me enjoy it.  Just a small feeling.

There was suc­co­tash to go with it: zuc­chi­ni, crisp fresh Con­necti­cut corn, red onion, gar­lick­ly olive oil.

A qui­et after­noon, a trip to the Gap.  Our favorite salesla­dy exclaims.  “Oh, you’re here!  I won­dered what had hap­pened to you all.  I won­der — could you be my son’s emer­gency con­tact when he spends his fall semes­ter in Lon­don?”  Of course.

Wednes­day meant a trip to the sea­side with Rol­lie and Judy!  Guil­ford, a love­ly spot.

Oh, the fresh breeze stir­ring the Amer­i­can flag, the scents of ocean and bait, the sailors buff­ing up their boats.  What a treat, an out­ing with two of my favorite peo­ple in the world.  They’re not at all old enough to be my par­ents, but when I’m with them, I feel like a bit of a daughter.

I got home in time to wan­der, in the stun­ning­ly sun­ny humid­i­ty, up San­ford Road to vis­it Mike, hard at work on the new barn at Phillips Farm.

Mike is an artist, giv­ing his heart and soul to this building.

To think that when we arrived at Red Gate Farm for the first time eleven years ago, this spot was occu­pied by a sad­ly dilap­i­dat­ed, falling-down, neglect­ed struc­ture.  It took the pas­sion of the South­bury Land Trust to clear it away and put in its place this beau­ti­ful, arti­san barn.

“We had a fundrais­er,” Mike explained, “where peo­ple could buy pegs — the whole struc­ture’s pegs — with names on them.  Here’s Abi­gail’s peg.”

Abi­gail, her lit­tle broth­er Gabriel, moth­er Lau­ren and Mike appeared lat­er in the day for a deli­cious din­ner at the pic­nic table.  There is some­thing heart­warm­ing about the bond between beau­ti­ful Lau­ren and intre­pid Abi­gail.  Lau­ren is one of those women who can whol­ly devote her­self to a “real” job — a pedi­atric nurse — and then some­how also have 110% to give to being a mother.

They had kind­ly invit­ed me to their house, but had suc­cumbed to my wish to spend as much time at Red Gate Farm as pos­si­ble, mere­ly bring­ing their kebabs to me, lux­u­ri­ous with giant shrimp, zuc­chi­ni, pep­pers.  How thoughtful!

Mike was there, and since he was a man, he grilled.  What a won­der­ful per­son he is, a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of dreamy artist, prac­ti­cal griller, devot­ed father and husband.

We feast­ed, and tried to work sort of six months’ worth of news, reflec­tions, pre­dic­tions into one evening.  The sto­ry of my Amer­i­can hol­i­day, in short.

Thurs­day I spent run­ning errands mad­ly, to the post office to thank our dear friends for for­ward­ing our mail, to the Lau­rel Din­er for one quick “two eggs on a roll” and brief “hel­lo” with bril­liant Pete, din­er chef extra­or­di­naire.  Home to wash sheets and tow­els, clear out the fridge.  Did­n’t I JUST arrive?  And in the evening, off for an Ital­ian din­ner with the nieces, one last treat before I had to say goodbye.

That evening, in the warm dusk, I could­n’t help think­ing about all the clas­sic Con­necti­cut things I nev­er man­aged to do, in my five days.  No library trips (I love that library), no loung­ing by the scruffy Town Pool, no ice cream excur­sion to Rich’s, no trip to the Hick­o­ry Stick book­shop in near­by Wash­ing­ton, CT, no vis­it to the lowkey, inti­mate farmer’s mar­ket.  There just was­n’t time, and my heart broke, a bit, to turn my back on so many pleasures.

In the morn­ing I was off, lock­ing the door, look­ing back over my shoul­der at Red Gate Farm, good­bye until Christ­mas.  How hard it is to dri­ve away, every time.

New York City, pos­i­tive­ly siz­zling in the heat, await­ed.  I man­aged — read­ers, it was a mir­a­cle — to drop my lug­gage off at the hotel down­town, wend my way through the end­less­ly cir­cuitous one-way streets of the West Vil­lage to return my rental car, then saunter along the side­walks, enjoy­ing the inim­itable ener­gy of New York City.  There is just no place quite like it.

Lunch with my dar­ling Alyssa!  Mario Batal­i’s Lupa - fried bac­cala, heir­loom beet sal­ad, pep­pered, but­tery spaghet­ti — did not disappoint.

We talked fever­ish­ly, exchang­ing obser­va­tions of the unbe­liev­able posi­tion we find our­selves in — send­ing our girls to col­lege.  How I miss Alyssa and our almost dai­ly cof­fees, lunch­es, walks, talks.

How on earth could any place be so HOT?  I walked slow­ly, cook­ing in my shell, to meet my friend Eliz­a­beth’s gor­geous daugh­ter Isabel, and her friend Alex, and brave­ly make our way to Long Island City — I can’t con­vey to you my pride on not get­ting lost!

My dar­ling artist friend Kate await­ed, to wel­come us to her stu­dio.  Our friend­ship goes back 20 years, to my first expe­ri­ences teach­ing in New York City.  My gallery would not have thrived with­out her work, her intel­lect, her heart.

I had almost for­got­ten what a joy it is to be wel­comed into an artist’s realm, to have her pull image after image — mag­i­cal — from her flat file, to help her unwrap framed trea­sures, to look and ask ques­tions and lis­ten to the descrip­tion of an artist’s life.

I think Isabel real­ly enjoyed her­self, and as a future art his­to­ri­an, it does­n’t get any bet­ter than that afternoon.

After the heav­en­ly cool of Kate’s stu­dio, we braved the harsh sun and took the sub­way to Brook­lyn to find Kate’s hus­band David, the most bril­liant sculp­tor I know, hap­py to wel­come us as well.  Oh, the work.

Isabel and Alex went off for a fur­ther Williams­burg adven­ture, and Kate, Dave and I found our­selves at a gor­geous local Ital­ian spot, to share pro­sciut­to e mel­one, piz­za with bre­sao­la, and the lux­u­ry of con­ver­sa­tion.  I head­ed back, exhaust­ed by my day  — Con­necti­cut, West Vil­lage, Long Island City, Brook­lyn, Tribeca.

Sat­ur­day, my last day in Amer­i­ca, and I was in an emo­tion­al mood.  I toured my beloved Tribeca, home of Avery’s baby­hood and child­hood.  How many games of hide and seek were played in this gaze­bo, fig­ures of col­ored chalk drawn around her tod­dler body, birth­day par­ties with cake and ice cream eat­en, in her lit­tle local Wash­ing­ton Mar­ket Park?

Her hero­ic school once more thrives in the shad­ow of the World Trade Center.

It was, quite sim­ply, the warmest neigh­bor­hood any­one could ever wish for, site of the Sep­tem­ber 11 tragedy and despair and fear, but then recov­ery and beau­ty and love.

I went for lunch at one of my favorite spots in the world, Roc, in my beloved Tribeca.

And who, out of the blue, appeared before me?

Roc­co him­self, of course, to give me a much-need­ed hug and to remem­ber the old, dark days (“I remem­ber you stood just here and cried,” he said, shak­ing his head, “and I told you every­thing would be all right.  And it is.”), and to cel­e­brate the hot, hap­py after­noon we had right now.

My dar­ling friend Binky — of whom no pho­to can ever be tak­en — joined me for tuna tartare, for bac­cala cro­quettes, for tortelli­ni with peas and ham.  And for irre­place­able friend­ship, of a life­time, rem­i­nis­cences about last sum­mer, Avery’s life with them.  Why, oh why, I won­dered, do I have to leave New York?

Because it was time to go “home,” what­ev­er that could pos­si­bly mean after my Sum­mer Adven­ture 2015.  Exchang­ing one bril­liant set of char­ac­ters for anoth­er.  Home to Lon­don it was, with enough mem­o­ries to last the sum­mer, or even longer.