the most fun you can have for $2.48

There is such a MAG­IC to the light in these sum­mer days, a light that actu­al­ly trans­lates sur­pris­ing­ly well to pho­tographs, that I sim­ply can­not stop tak­ing pho­tographs and try­ing to cap­ture the fleet­ing beau­ty of our time here. Believe it or not, when I have tough days in the oth­er 10+ months of the year, as much as I love our British lives, I go back to these sum­mer pages and remem­ber that it is always STILL HERE. The seren­i­ty, change­less­ness, com­fort and famil­iar­i­ty of Red Gate Farm sus­tains me all year long.

Part of the expe­ri­ence is in read­ing the writ­ings of Gladys Taber, from across the road 60 years ago, and hear­ing in her “voice” the same tim­bre of love and appre­ci­a­tion of these trees, hills, bird­song, dusty roads, neigh­bor­li­ness, wildlife, fresh pro­duce, I could go on and on! I love it all. Of course our lives 60 years on are very dif­fer­ent: in some ways won­der­ful­ly the same, but the dif­fer­ences are some good, some bad. I wish I were a gar­den­er, but I am not, don’t know if I would ever be, but being first a week­end-er and now a “sum­mer-er,” I have not ever had a chance to find out. So my sum­mer mem­o­ries do not include a glut of cucum­bers (as my dar­ling father’s gar­den in my child­hood yield­ed, along with toma­toes), or peach­es to put up, or a must-cre­ate-zuc­chi­ni-recipes insis­tence in August, or six dif­fer­ent vari­eties of beets to glo­ry in. I wish these were my expe­ri­ences! In my next life I will not be strug­gling with Lon­don traf­fic or super-com­pet­i­tive chil­dren’s school accep­tance, or dying to break into the British food-writ­ing mar­ket, or mov­ing every two years. In my next life, I will be set­tled at Red Gate Farm grow­ing hol­ly­hocks. My moth­er in law’s dream for me! She loves them.

And even though we built up many won­der­ful mem­o­ries of win­ter­time Red Gate Farm on our week­ends from New York (the wood­fires John tend­ed with all his heart, our exper­i­ments with pop­ping corn! puz­zles on the kitchen table, count­less dish­es of meat­loaf com­ing out of the oven), my fond­est mem­o­ries are of summertime.

What’s changed for the good? Well, I must vote for cell phones and email. It is pos­si­ble to feel quite close to those we love most by those beloved calls and mes­sages in our inbox­es! I think Gladys Taber would have LOVED email: any way that keeps peo­ple writ­ing and shar­ing sto­ries is a good thing, I believe, even if it’s hard­er to keep copies of what you say. I absolute­ly cher­ish the emails I receive from Lon­don friends, beck­on­ing through the sum­mer dust motes like mes­sages from anoth­er world! And in the Lon­don world, how won­der­ful it is to receive reports on our dar­ling farm­house from Anne and David. And to have the phone ring and it’s my best friend Alyssa, tak­ing me RIGHT to her beach in Fire Island, with her lit­tle boy shout­ing in the back­ground. These things make mod­ern life almost worth the… let’s see, real­i­ty tele­vi­sion and icky polit­i­cans of mod­ern life? And chil­dren’s med­i­cine that is now sold in “pre-mea­sured” dose pack­ets? What­ev­er hap­pened to the per­fect­ly good word “mea­sured”? Pre- to what? I am real­ly a curmudgeon.

Good­ness, I’m digress­ing! But I do adore every lit­tle thing about our gold­en sum­mers here, even the gray and lash­ing after­noons of glo­ri­ous rain that only under­score the shim­mery bits we enjoy so much.

Well, John’s home! We reunit­ed with him at Beck­y’s house in Green­wich on Sat­ur­day: such a shock to see him so much taller than I remem­bered, and with a fresh hair­cut and smil­ing at us all. We repaired to the love­ly Old Green­wich Beach House with Beck­y’s fam­i­ly, enjoy­ing some whole­some Amer­i­can food like burg­ers, baby back ribs, cole slaw, French fries! Then home for John to take a nap (after duly admir­ing Hast­ings, of course: and Avery is most anx­ious that every­one know he’s named after Poirot’s side­kick, NOT the “Bat­tle of”!). Avery and I of course end­ed up at the beloved if grot­ty old town pool, just what we had been wait­ing for all sum­mer, all YEAR: the per­fect sun­ny after­noon, com­plain­ing to the lazy life­guards that the music is too loud, lying about try­ing to get com­fort­able with our books, know­ing that John is here!

His first morn­ing home, we head­ed to the Lau­rel Din­er for that brunch that kills all oth­er brunch­es: the two twin cooks, one fat and one thin (we’re con­cerned, though, because the plump cook is slim­ming down!). The entire stick of but­ter siz­zling on the grill for our hash­browns, corn beef hash (or “rash” as Avery said as a baby), Avery’s Reuben with­out dress­ing… we savor every bite! And the same bright-eyed wait­ress Ker­ry every sum­mer, who loves that we come back from Lon­don and nev­er for­gets that I drink some­thing crazy: half iced tea, half lemon­ade! Only this morn­ing, on our way to the din­er, we glanced around our prop­er­ty to fill our hearts and… there were HORS­ES in our MEAD­OW! OK, pit stop!

We knew they were com­ing, but still! Hors­es in our mead­ow, swish­ing their tails in what we know is an effort to get rid of flies but still looks love­ly, drink­ing from an aban­doned bath­tub as you see! We suc­cumbed to hunger, but were hap­py on our arrival back home to see our neigh­bors Mark and lit­tle Tay­lor work­ing in the mead­ow, and they stopped to chat. Mark is a career fire­fight­er, with that inef­fa­ble aura of author­i­ty and just-this-side-of-intim­i­dat­ing boom­ing voice that marks any town’s Bravest. He’s the kind of guy who has the local police force 1) on his cell­phone speed-dial, and 2) in his debt for some­thing gen­er­ous he’s done for them, so if he needs help… look out for the sirens! He curbs his nor­mal total author­i­ty to get down on Tay­lor’s three-year-old lev­el, and it shows in her: she is the total explor­er and intim­i­dat­ed by noth­ing. John said, “I love your hair­cut,” and she imme­di­ate­ly jumped down from the tram­po­line, cov­ered her head and said, “No one talk about my hair­cut! I refuse!”

We gave her the cook­ie she expects at my house and then head­ed to the ten­nis courts, where we have as much fun as two real­ly BAD play­ers and their long-suf­fer­ing male com­pan­ion can have. Home again, hot and red and sweaty, to see Anne, David and lit­tle Katie cross­ing the road to meet John, home from oceans and oceans away! So many thou­sands of miles he’s come and gone, in so many direc­tions, to be with us. After prop­er­ly admir­ing the blue-eyed elf, we walked the prop­er­ty, dis­cussing dredg­ing projects, fence-build­ing projects around the pro­tect­ed bor­der by Phillips Farm, weed­ing and win­dow-replac­ing. And dis­cussing the ancient stinky smoke­house! “Years ago,” Anne remem­bered, “we were giv­en a head cheese that was smoked in that place, and… it sat in our freez­er for YEARS before we threw it out!”

Through it all Katie smiled opaque­ly at us, look­ing for all the world like a philoso­pher who has yet to come to a con­clu­sion about the state of things around her. As always we talk over and over each oth­er, all four of us, nev­er enough time to dis­cuss, com­pare, agree, add com­ments. Increas­ing­ly I think what we all need is more pow­er out­ages: that evening sit­ting in the can­dle­light with Anne, David and Katie, Avery and I had a more relaxed, free-float­ing con­ver­sa­tion than we’ve been able to have with any­one else all sum­mer. We were forced to sit qui­et­ly. There’s some­thing Gladys Taber’s world under­stood: the beau­ty of sit­ting qui­et­ly and bask­ing in the com­pa­ny of beloved friends.

Of course, I should­n’t be so hard on myself: cram­ming all our love and fond­ness for each oth­er, all of these peo­ple all sum­mer, into six weeks is not easy! But we try, and it builds the blocks for next sum­mer, and the rest of our lives and our chil­dren’s lives. Fun­ny to think that some­day, when they are mid­dle-aged and old, the 10-year dif­fer­ence between Avery and Katie will be… noth­ing. They’ll still have just as many sil­ly sto­ries to exchange about their dot­ing par­ents, no doubt, and, I hope, the many nights we spent around our pic­nic table, and their can­dlelit liv­ing room, chatting.

Anne and David told a hilar­i­ous sto­ry about a gift of veni­son one year from Rol­lie (“was it road kill?” I asked, and they thought it prob­a­bly was, got to love Rol­lie). “There it was, year after year,” David said, “this big bloody deer leg in the freez­er,” and I thought of Lord Peter Wim­sey when he says “some­times ‘bloody’ is just a good old Anglo-Sax­on adjective!”

After a spec­tac­u­lar­ly thun­der­stormy after­noon, we end­ed up sit­ting on garbage bags at the pic­nic table, unwill­ing to eat inside no mat­ter what, feast­ing on slow-braised brisket, mac­a­roni and cheese and bean sal­ad. And just as we watched the skunk come to claim the left­overs, up popped… Rol­lie! In his icon­ic bat­tered blue pick­up. I made a pre­tense of chat­ting for a moment, but then wise­ly left him to his long-await­ed reunion with John, who he is tremen­dous­ly tick­led to find work­ing again! Out came all his best sum­mer sto­ries. “All this rain, we’ve been hayin’ two days, off two days…” I issued my annu­al all-boys din­ner invi­ta­tion, which as every sum­mer I call din­ner.” Out comes his cell phone: “I’m call­in’ the boss.… Hey, how are you? Lis­ten, can we make sup­per tomor­row night?” I call it din­ner, he repeats it as sup­per, every year. Got to stay true to our­selves, after all.

So today we got up and drove to Mys­tic to see my old friend and stu­dent and bril­liant painter Kath­leen, and to divest her of her eldest child, Cici, who hap­pens to be Avery’s old­est friend. Hard to top it: they met when Avery was three days old! We stayed for lunch and then head­ed home, to arrive in time for the girls to “slip ‘n slide,” a total­ly plas­tic thing from Tar­get, inspired by Beck­y’s girls, a hose-filled affair that they throw them­selves on, stom­ach first, and slosh down­hill. As it was the end-of-sum­mer clear­ance sale (weep), this gem of a play­thing was reduced from its orig­i­nal astro­nom­i­cal price tag of $20 to… $2.48. Seri­ous­ly? Seri­ous­ly! And the fun they had, in the blinky late after­noon light? Price­less, as they say.

From there to our less-than-stel­lar, but always fun ten­nis les­son, and our indi­gestible but love­ly clas­sic Cici first-night din­ner at Mag­gie McFly­’s… I sang to the girls as they went to sleep, and I could­n’t get over how LONG they are under the cov­ers! Their being togeth­er, as I have seen them since Avery was prone on her back as a new­born baby, then to tod­dler­dom, lit­tle girl­hood, and the long sad sep­a­ra­tion in our Lon­don years, under­scores the incred­i­ble STRETCH­ING of their lit­tle bod­ies! The ever­last­ing upward length­en­ing of who they are! Quite mag­i­cal, and also to hear their back­seat con­ver­sa­tion, the same as every year, as every Tues­day after­noon in our New York days when I drove them up to the Bronx to ride togeth­er, their chat­ter­ing from num­ber­less sleep­overs, Book Clubs at our house, birth­day par­ties and Hal­loween traipses. John and I exchanged a word­less glance that said MILES: “It’s the same as always. Some things nev­er change, and one of them is Avery and Cici.” Long may it last.

Well, I’m relax­ing to the Olympics and try­ing to remem­ber when I last did a round­off-back-hand­spring-back-flip! Some 30 years ago! But in the glass-half-full mode I plan to take back with me to Lon­don: I should be glad I could ever do it at all! And here’s hop­ing the next 30 years are as much fun…