30 years ago on my cross-country bike ride I was resting for a few days in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana (just the phrase "Fort Wayne, Indiana" is making my friend Marty smile right now. Something about the name tickles him and it tickles me to think of him smiling.) In my journal I speak of spending time with both my mom and my dad who had divorced in 1977. Dad had already remarried Barb Parks, a woman who had been a salesclerk at my dad's drugstore for years, and mom would remarry that year, twice in fact, soon in Fort Wayne surrounded by friends, and later in Alabama near my future stepdad's sons. This second ceremony I would attend at the beginning of September, flying to Alabama from San Francisco where I would have just ended my bike trip.
My future stepdad was Joseph Francis O'Hara, a big, expansive Irish New Yorker working for Slater Steel in Fort Wayne and very in love with my mother. He was more than a decade older than she, but his life force had a youthful zing to it. At this time in 1979 I was still warming to him, and though we'd never see eye-to-eye about several things - politics, for example - Joe was almost impossible not to like. He always seemed genuinely interested in what you were doing (at least, he made it seem that way. He was a salesman, after all) and, most of the time, he had a cheery disposition, a ready smile, and an infectious laugh. He embraced all that was Irish, the light and the dark side. He was forever playful, game for anything. He embraced life full throttle. And he had great stories to tell which included: teaching Jimmy Breslin how to swim (Joe had been a life guard when he was young, a past he shared with one of his heroes - Ronald Reagan); palling around with JD Salinger in college (he reconnected with Salinger in his later years and through that connection, my mom was able to persuade ole JD to inscribe a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" for me!); and narrowly escaping the Coconut Grove fire in Boston during World War II. The Coconut Grove fire story was my favorite.
The club had been recommended by his Beacon Hill girlfriend’s folks - it had just opened and was THE place to be. But Joe had been unable to talk himself in the door because he didn’t have any money to bribe the doorman ("I only had $5 for the whole night, Danny."). Also the place was packed to overflowing with the crowd from a big football game that had been in Boston that Thanksgiving weekend. The doorman had been a friendly fellow, though, and had recommended they go to a hotel a couple blocks down the street that had a carousel bar that they’d probably enjoy. They had gone there. An hour or so later a doctor had come rushing into the hotel yelling for anyone who knew CPR to come with him and Joe volunteered, his life guard training standing him in good stead. I can hear him now describing what he saw when he got back to the club: "No one was burnt up, Danny. They’d all just smothered to death. The crepe paper decorations along the ceiling had all caught fire and whoosh! all the oxygen in the place was sucked up. They had those turnstile doors that were just crammed with people trying to get out, piled on top of one another. That fire changed those doors, they put in emergency exits after that. Inside it was so eerie, Danny. Like I said, there was no fire damage, no one was burnt up. You'd walk by the bar, and people were still sitting at their stools just slumped over as if they'd gone to sleep. I'll never forget it."
The best part of the story was that somehow Joe had communicated with his folks down in Long Island that he was going to the club that night and in all the confusion and emotion of the moment in Boston he had not gotten back in touch with his folks to tell them he was alright. So while Joe spent a few more days in New England, his family had started making funeral preparations in New York. (This “long distance phone call” twist to the story always seems out of place to me, especially back in World War II, but it was Thanksgiving AND it happened. And his girlfriend's folks were rich, I guess.) When Joe finally got back into Grand Central Station he decided to pop in to his uncle's barbershop to say "hi" - his uncle had a place right there inside the station. When Joe walked into the barbershop, his uncle gave out a shout and dropped his clippers. He thought he'd seen a ghost. After squeezing Joe hard he told him that he had to get on the phone to his folks right now and set them straight. I’m sure there was celebration aplenty that night for the son having come back from the dead.
Ghosts are a part of the fabric of a 30 year old journal. People rise up from the dead and begin wandering around again, alive and spry in their 1979 skins. There’s magic in this, a little bit of presto chango. Joe’s gone now, and as far as I know he hasn't shown up at any barbershops lately to set the record straight. Barb, my stepmom, is gone too, as are my grandparents, Nanna and Papaw, who I note having visited at their retirement home during my stay. And as I sit here and think and remember, there’s a long line of family and friends that are going to show up soon in my journal pages who are no longer “here” – Uncle Flave, Uncle Prentis, Aunt Nona and Uncle Jim, Shelby and Margaret, my Irish Setter Bernie (who had been given to a family in Beaver Dam, Kentucky, near my cousins living there and who had died a week before I arrived due to a vets’ prescribing him the wrong medicine). John Wayne Tombstone’s up in my pages; he will die this summer losing his battle with the Big “C.” And many others I will share a day with, a conversation, a lunch, a bed; I’m sure a goodly chunk of them are gone now too. As well as that 24 year old me. He can crop up every now and then, pass through, pay a visit, perhaps persuade me that I’m him again, until the morning when my 54 year old body may tell me otherwise. All of them gone. But in another sense I’ll have to side with Joseph Campbell and say that none of these people, none of these times are gone. All of them - Joe, Nanna and Papaw, Barb, that 24 year old me, every age I’ve ever been - all live inside of me in an everlasting place, real and potent and sustaining. It gives me very little sadness reading the pages of my journal. Instead it fills me with wonder about the passing of time, gratitude for all the people, places, and things I’ve experienced (and for those riches yet to come), and a sweet uplift.
And also now I get to tell their stories and the stories of having experienced them. That’s not too shabby.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Watching Richard From an Upstairs Window
He's standing by the side of the coop, still, watching, like a parent dropping their child off at school for the first time, observing from afar how they're being treated by the others, wondering if they'll be safe now, not wanting to be overly protective and not wanting to be overly callous either and simply leave. The geese are all motion nearby, nibbling grass, stretching their wings after a night of being crammed up in their own enclosure. When he goes to pet them soon, they'll skitter away, untrusting. I can imagine their squeaky complaints. It's raining, our third day of rain; it's supposed to abate tomorrow, and he's standing our their getting sopped, no rain gear, the bottom of his pant legs brushing the ground and slowly darkening up with moisture. He makes several false starts to the other coop to let our laying hens out, but stops, watching still. I love this silent view point, just watching him, still. Nothing much going on, just the morning, a rainy morning at 5:30 or so, me dry and waking up, looking out our upstairs bathroom window and him down below, wet and going about his morning duties.
I hear him down in the kitchen now. The door from the mudroom squeaked open a moment ago as I was writing this. Things must be fine. I hear him start up the fire. He's a major pyro from way back, he enjoys it, he's good at it. And the morning could use it, there's a bit of a chill. There always seems to be a bit of a chill in our place. I can smell the smoke now, there's a hint of cedar in it, it's pleasant. The rain's picking up, I can hear its thrum on the metal roof. There's the dull thump of cabinets and the small plates coming out. He must be feeding the cats before coming back up.
He put Anita (formerly "Spike") out with the other older hens and roosters last night. We'd been told that introducing them in this way when the others are sleepy and sedate is the best way to avoid the worst of "pecking order" trauma. Richard had balked at this suggestion a week or so ago and had brought Anita out in broad daylight and tossed her into the pen. Good thing Anita was quick. They were all over her, roosters AND hens. We've since found out that the hens are nastier toward newbys than the roosters. The harassment was so bad and constant that we had to rescue her and let her stay in her posh surroundings in the utility room, alone and spoiled, for a week or so longer. Last night was it, though. With a "toughen up big baby" attitude made famous by his mother Frieda, Richard took a screaming Anita out to the coop again, this time placed among the sleeping and perched flock per instructions, and left her there. He was up at 5:30 to check on her and make sure she was fine; that's when I spied him out the window.
Richard is up the stairs and back in bed, fading back to sleep, as he gives me an update:
"She's fine. She screams which draws their attention. She's quick enough, though, she can get away from them. But then when they lose interest in her and their attention goes elsewhere, she's still in a panic and starts screaming again which draws their attention back to her. It's crazy."
'Where is she now?'
"Underneath the coop. I hope she doesn't starve to death down there. I'm going back to sleep now."
Richard makes announcements like that when he's going to sleep so I won't continue talking to him.
So I watch him fall back asleep beneath the light coming in our bedroom window.
I hear him down in the kitchen now. The door from the mudroom squeaked open a moment ago as I was writing this. Things must be fine. I hear him start up the fire. He's a major pyro from way back, he enjoys it, he's good at it. And the morning could use it, there's a bit of a chill. There always seems to be a bit of a chill in our place. I can smell the smoke now, there's a hint of cedar in it, it's pleasant. The rain's picking up, I can hear its thrum on the metal roof. There's the dull thump of cabinets and the small plates coming out. He must be feeding the cats before coming back up.
He put Anita (formerly "Spike") out with the other older hens and roosters last night. We'd been told that introducing them in this way when the others are sleepy and sedate is the best way to avoid the worst of "pecking order" trauma. Richard had balked at this suggestion a week or so ago and had brought Anita out in broad daylight and tossed her into the pen. Good thing Anita was quick. They were all over her, roosters AND hens. We've since found out that the hens are nastier toward newbys than the roosters. The harassment was so bad and constant that we had to rescue her and let her stay in her posh surroundings in the utility room, alone and spoiled, for a week or so longer. Last night was it, though. With a "toughen up big baby" attitude made famous by his mother Frieda, Richard took a screaming Anita out to the coop again, this time placed among the sleeping and perched flock per instructions, and left her there. He was up at 5:30 to check on her and make sure she was fine; that's when I spied him out the window.
Richard is up the stairs and back in bed, fading back to sleep, as he gives me an update:
"She's fine. She screams which draws their attention. She's quick enough, though, she can get away from them. But then when they lose interest in her and their attention goes elsewhere, she's still in a panic and starts screaming again which draws their attention back to her. It's crazy."
'Where is she now?'
"Underneath the coop. I hope she doesn't starve to death down there. I'm going back to sleep now."
Richard makes announcements like that when he's going to sleep so I won't continue talking to him.
So I watch him fall back asleep beneath the light coming in our bedroom window.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Morning Has Broken
Morning here on the homestead.
The geese are in the kiddie pool in back. They flop themselves in and out, righting themselves immediately as if to say "I'm alright! I meant to do that! Pretty funny, huh?" and then they go squeaking off in search of something else green to munch.
The garden is half-planted. The geese helped weed yesterday afternoon as Richard hoed and I carried up blue slate flagstones to set paths throughout our plantings. Looking up to the garden now from the vantage-point of our kitchen table I can see the colored plastic cups and white isagenix jars we used to cover the sweet potato sprigs by flashlight last night to protect them from the 27 degree drop. Yes, 27 degrees. These are the percs, folks. Most of the sweet potatoes seem to have weathered the chill well. We're holding off on putting the tomato plants in, as well as the butternut and acorn squash, lima bean, and cabbage starters because we're expecting freezing temperatures again tonight BUT we still have seeds for lettuce, chard, turnips, and radishes to put in as well as several varieties of pumpkin for Richard's uphill garden just north of the orchard.
Sophia brought in a little pink mole baby from outside earlier that we had to wrest from her only to give it a watery death in the whirling toilet waters.
Richard has a broody hen going. A broody hen is a hen who is trained to sit on eggs 24/7 (with some stretches worked in, a nice roll in the dust, a bathroom break or 2. Other than that, their union is very weak and makes very few demands on their behalf. After all we're talking about a chicken here.) Broody hens are rare things indeed these days and Richard seems very happy about the creation of one of his very own. "Nanna" (as we've named her) is a big girl. We've named her after my grandmother on my dad's side, Grace Thomas Butler (nee Renfrow), Nanna to me. Nanna was big, at one time topping 300 pounds. Our "Nanna" is suited well for the job - a good sitter, patient, very protective - and Richard has ordered 5 fertile eggs to place under her so she can actually hatch something. He's also built her a "broody pen" to quarantine the chicks off with her after they hatch to protect them from the other peck crazy hens. Richard needed a new project since the Narragannsett turkeys aren't coming.
The Canadian Goose family on the pond are coming along nicely, the offspring growing by leaps and bounds. The adults are exceptionally good parents, calm, watchful, almost regal in their demeanor, very patient.
The stars were glorious last night in the clear chill air. Inside was a nice wood fire we'd stoked for our dinner party guests. We put on a nice big apple wood log when we went to bed and its warmth greeted us this morning when we woke at 6 for coffee and some writing. It's a little disconcerting having such cool temperatures on Memorial Day, but it did feel very comforting, like being wrapped in flannel sheets and pajamas. Some of the sting of cold weather is taken away, though, when I look outside and it's green, green, green instead of white, white, white and barren.
All is sunny and bright and warm/cool outside and beckons long walks in the country and musings along the way, so I plan to take a book along with me and a nice empty journal to write in along my peripatetic way. Valderee, valderah.
Have a grand day one and all.
The geese are in the kiddie pool in back. They flop themselves in and out, righting themselves immediately as if to say "I'm alright! I meant to do that! Pretty funny, huh?" and then they go squeaking off in search of something else green to munch.
The garden is half-planted. The geese helped weed yesterday afternoon as Richard hoed and I carried up blue slate flagstones to set paths throughout our plantings. Looking up to the garden now from the vantage-point of our kitchen table I can see the colored plastic cups and white isagenix jars we used to cover the sweet potato sprigs by flashlight last night to protect them from the 27 degree drop. Yes, 27 degrees. These are the percs, folks. Most of the sweet potatoes seem to have weathered the chill well. We're holding off on putting the tomato plants in, as well as the butternut and acorn squash, lima bean, and cabbage starters because we're expecting freezing temperatures again tonight BUT we still have seeds for lettuce, chard, turnips, and radishes to put in as well as several varieties of pumpkin for Richard's uphill garden just north of the orchard.
Sophia brought in a little pink mole baby from outside earlier that we had to wrest from her only to give it a watery death in the whirling toilet waters.
Richard has a broody hen going. A broody hen is a hen who is trained to sit on eggs 24/7 (with some stretches worked in, a nice roll in the dust, a bathroom break or 2. Other than that, their union is very weak and makes very few demands on their behalf. After all we're talking about a chicken here.) Broody hens are rare things indeed these days and Richard seems very happy about the creation of one of his very own. "Nanna" (as we've named her) is a big girl. We've named her after my grandmother on my dad's side, Grace Thomas Butler (nee Renfrow), Nanna to me. Nanna was big, at one time topping 300 pounds. Our "Nanna" is suited well for the job - a good sitter, patient, very protective - and Richard has ordered 5 fertile eggs to place under her so she can actually hatch something. He's also built her a "broody pen" to quarantine the chicks off with her after they hatch to protect them from the other peck crazy hens. Richard needed a new project since the Narragannsett turkeys aren't coming.
The Canadian Goose family on the pond are coming along nicely, the offspring growing by leaps and bounds. The adults are exceptionally good parents, calm, watchful, almost regal in their demeanor, very patient.
The stars were glorious last night in the clear chill air. Inside was a nice wood fire we'd stoked for our dinner party guests. We put on a nice big apple wood log when we went to bed and its warmth greeted us this morning when we woke at 6 for coffee and some writing. It's a little disconcerting having such cool temperatures on Memorial Day, but it did feel very comforting, like being wrapped in flannel sheets and pajamas. Some of the sting of cold weather is taken away, though, when I look outside and it's green, green, green instead of white, white, white and barren.
All is sunny and bright and warm/cool outside and beckons long walks in the country and musings along the way, so I plan to take a book along with me and a nice empty journal to write in along my peripatetic way. Valderee, valderah.
Have a grand day one and all.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Being Distracted by Life
Friday, May 22, 2009
Just down from a walk to the top of our hill accompanied all the way by Ginger and Mary Ann who plodded along steadily and uncomplaining right behind me. . I loved the whisper of their padded feet in the grass as they followed me, intermittently accented with a series of squeaks. The walk was at a slower, smoother pace and I would rest a couple of times for their sakes, at which time they would sit and nibble contentedly on grass and weeds and occasionally my shirt. They were my meditation this morning. I would watch them and a peace would descend. Their eyes are marvels, deep black, almost opaque, and probably simply what they are, devices to see where their “parents” are, to watch for predators, and to spot food. Still I project a docile kindness onto them, a curiosity. Ah well. My inner Disney at work It’s a beautiful day here, warm/cool, a touch of sun, then a passing grey cloud darkens the sky. Rain? Who knows. Inbetween weather, keeps you guessing. I love the variety.
We’ve been very busy here of late, puttering around with various jobs and clean up. We’ve fortified the chicken coop fence and goose shelter and plan to insulate and finish boarding up the interior. Also, the garden fence went up yesterday in pretty short, steady order. If all goes well, we’ll plant the rest of our garden this weekend and add to the already planted potatoes (sweet and russet) as well as beets (golden and red) and sugar snap peas. They’re already pipping up out of the ground. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that no late frosts come to visit us. We did have a few earlier this week and our neighbor Royce has told us that he’s known it to frost on the 4th of July. Now that’s crazy. I believe him, but it’s just not right. Also 2 days ago after putting a few finishing touches to it, we battened down a small pier that we’d built onto the shore of our pond. It fits perfectly into the scenery over there. Just right.
I find myself caught up in all the happenings here, most of the times happily so. There are things I’m writing, things I want to write, but I can easily get carried away by chores, by the things that “need to be done” especially with the multiple visits of friends and family that are being scheduled into the calendar. And many times the sheer beauty of this place - the sound of the geese squeaking or the feel of the wind through the window, the view out back, all of it sirens to me. Answering that call, letting myself be caught by it doesn’t shatter my ship against the rocks, but I’m very eager to impose rigid judgments that I’m getting slack, I’m not creating enough, I’m not using my gifts, I’m not sticking to my writing schedule. A knot of nots that does not entice me to write but sends me wandering off like Ginger and Mary Ann, up a hill for a fantastic view. Or I begin hanging lights in the entryway and suddenly the 4 hours I’d set aside for writing have vanished. I call that active procrastination. Should I follow the example of one famous author who also lived out in the country and chained himself to his desk to prevent himself from answering nature’s call to wander about and enjoy the beauty and wouldn’t unchain himself until the day’s writing was done? That imposed schedule sounds a bit extreme (even to me) even though in his case it seems to have been successful. I wonder though who had the key to unchain him after the work was done? Was it his wife? A servant? Or did he have the key to unchain himself all the time, the whole thing being a ruse to get him to work. Ah, the odd games we play with ourselves, the tricks we play to get the work done. I find it especially cunning and baffling when my schedule, as I may have mentioned before, is completely up to me. I have only myself to answer to. Maybe the theme of this whole thing is the same one that keeps creeping up throughout my blogs: What if there’s no problem here? What if there’s nothing wrong? What if it’s all unfolding exactly as it should? So interesting to revisit this theme again and again on the ferris wheel of fortune. The trick is being at the center and not on the outside constantly going up and down. Yes, but that would take some of the roller coaster fun out of life, wouldn’t it?
Monday, Memorial Day, May 25, 2009
The chicken coop has been insulated and boarded inside. We are planting some seeds today though the temperature is going down to 27!!!! this evening. Yeow! Well, good cuddle weather. We will have to cover the sweet potatoe sprouts with straw and be sure Ginger and Mary Ann, who are sleeping outside in their coop these days, are sufficiently swaddled round with nice warm hay. It’s glorious out today, shimmering blue. The wind is whipping through and there is a chill in the air.
A trip back in time is due.
30 years ago on the Ride I had just left Stratford, Ontario, where I had stopped for 2 days to see some Shakespeare: Henry IV: Part 1 and Richard II. Henry IV was my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays back then. Oh, how I yearned to play “Hotspur.” The production I saw in Stratford I HATED!! I thought it was stiff, fake, and passionless, not even close to what I pictured in my mind and heart. I’d built up the play to Chuck, an instructor accompanying a high school group of privileged students up from Rochester, Michigan, and felt embarrassed about what he had seen after my description. We were all staying in a hostel in Stratford and I had “splurged” on both tickets for the theatre and for room and board. ($7.00 for the 2 tickets and $9.00 for 2 nights at the hostel – my 1979 idea of splurging!) I’d made friends with others at the hostel and had watched the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And the production of Richard II was quite excellent which helped salve the the deeply felt creative wounds from having witnessed the Henry IV travesty.
Chuck offered me a place to stay in Michigan which was right near the route I was taking back into the US from Canada. I was not very adept at gauging distances and how long it would take to get to the next place on bike and thus I had set myself an overly ambitious day trek from Stratford to Chuck’s. I had crossed Lake St. Clair on a ferryboat which brought me into Michigan, a bit lost, at around 9 pm. I’ll pick up from my account on the 24th:
“A whirr of people and events to convey and document. Chronological order may be the best. Took off in the cold from the bar (which was right at the ferry crossing) which obviously was a mistake – odds, God, nature, and man against me – also a barwoman’s directions. Finally got to M-29 (back road) at 9 pm, tired, scared, weak, and despairing. Luck or predestination stepped in. I met 2 fishermen bringing a boat out of Lake St. Clair, shared my dilemma, asked for information and directions AND one of the men offered me a ride to Rochester. So we piled the bike in, conversed along the way, and he invited me over for tuna casserole and coffee. Bob Willette was his name – a Ford engineer, charismatic Christian (they briefly proselytized), static faced, kind, and generous human being. Called up Chuck’s, talked to EB (Chuck’s roommate), and got a ride to the house – a loooooong way. EB (reminded me of the junkie from “Midnight Run”) was paranoid, pensive, and pissed at Chuck for breaking a “house rule” and inviting a guest without getting in touch with him. We had a fairly good conversation nonetheless.”
Chuck came home eventually, the 2 of them had it out for a bit, and I ended up staying the night amid all the tension. The next day I visited the Roper School where Chuck was teaching “Martin Eden” in his English class. The class was lively with discussion, interjection, and passionate debate, something I had none of in high school. Here’s to the privileged. We dined on Mexican Food later - Chuck kindly treated – and that night, to mollify EB, I stayed in a vacant plush house up for sale in a ritzy neighborhood of Pontiac. This move was brought about by Chuck’s friend Holcomb who was in foreclosures and was taking care of his grandmother’s estate. I take it that this had been his grandmother’s house. I remember we all smoked a couple joints, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor. The house had no furniture but the carpeting still retained the indentations where all the ghost furniture once had been. It was a little strange sleeping there that night, the air felt unsettled. After a good breakfast I was off again on the bike and during the day I rode through Ann Arbor, a town for which I’ve always had a fond spot, and Saline, heading south, back home to Indiana.
Back here in the present, Richard has finished watering our plants and trees around the property and is off to the market. He was going by himself, but the journey sounds too fun, so I’m letting myself be caught up and go with him. It sounds too fun to let pass. Have a great day.
Just down from a walk to the top of our hill accompanied all the way by Ginger and Mary Ann who plodded along steadily and uncomplaining right behind me. . I loved the whisper of their padded feet in the grass as they followed me, intermittently accented with a series of squeaks. The walk was at a slower, smoother pace and I would rest a couple of times for their sakes, at which time they would sit and nibble contentedly on grass and weeds and occasionally my shirt. They were my meditation this morning. I would watch them and a peace would descend. Their eyes are marvels, deep black, almost opaque, and probably simply what they are, devices to see where their “parents” are, to watch for predators, and to spot food. Still I project a docile kindness onto them, a curiosity. Ah well. My inner Disney at work It’s a beautiful day here, warm/cool, a touch of sun, then a passing grey cloud darkens the sky. Rain? Who knows. Inbetween weather, keeps you guessing. I love the variety.
We’ve been very busy here of late, puttering around with various jobs and clean up. We’ve fortified the chicken coop fence and goose shelter and plan to insulate and finish boarding up the interior. Also, the garden fence went up yesterday in pretty short, steady order. If all goes well, we’ll plant the rest of our garden this weekend and add to the already planted potatoes (sweet and russet) as well as beets (golden and red) and sugar snap peas. They’re already pipping up out of the ground. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that no late frosts come to visit us. We did have a few earlier this week and our neighbor Royce has told us that he’s known it to frost on the 4th of July. Now that’s crazy. I believe him, but it’s just not right. Also 2 days ago after putting a few finishing touches to it, we battened down a small pier that we’d built onto the shore of our pond. It fits perfectly into the scenery over there. Just right.
I find myself caught up in all the happenings here, most of the times happily so. There are things I’m writing, things I want to write, but I can easily get carried away by chores, by the things that “need to be done” especially with the multiple visits of friends and family that are being scheduled into the calendar. And many times the sheer beauty of this place - the sound of the geese squeaking or the feel of the wind through the window, the view out back, all of it sirens to me. Answering that call, letting myself be caught by it doesn’t shatter my ship against the rocks, but I’m very eager to impose rigid judgments that I’m getting slack, I’m not creating enough, I’m not using my gifts, I’m not sticking to my writing schedule. A knot of nots that does not entice me to write but sends me wandering off like Ginger and Mary Ann, up a hill for a fantastic view. Or I begin hanging lights in the entryway and suddenly the 4 hours I’d set aside for writing have vanished. I call that active procrastination. Should I follow the example of one famous author who also lived out in the country and chained himself to his desk to prevent himself from answering nature’s call to wander about and enjoy the beauty and wouldn’t unchain himself until the day’s writing was done? That imposed schedule sounds a bit extreme (even to me) even though in his case it seems to have been successful. I wonder though who had the key to unchain him after the work was done? Was it his wife? A servant? Or did he have the key to unchain himself all the time, the whole thing being a ruse to get him to work. Ah, the odd games we play with ourselves, the tricks we play to get the work done. I find it especially cunning and baffling when my schedule, as I may have mentioned before, is completely up to me. I have only myself to answer to. Maybe the theme of this whole thing is the same one that keeps creeping up throughout my blogs: What if there’s no problem here? What if there’s nothing wrong? What if it’s all unfolding exactly as it should? So interesting to revisit this theme again and again on the ferris wheel of fortune. The trick is being at the center and not on the outside constantly going up and down. Yes, but that would take some of the roller coaster fun out of life, wouldn’t it?
Monday, Memorial Day, May 25, 2009
The chicken coop has been insulated and boarded inside. We are planting some seeds today though the temperature is going down to 27!!!! this evening. Yeow! Well, good cuddle weather. We will have to cover the sweet potatoe sprouts with straw and be sure Ginger and Mary Ann, who are sleeping outside in their coop these days, are sufficiently swaddled round with nice warm hay. It’s glorious out today, shimmering blue. The wind is whipping through and there is a chill in the air.
A trip back in time is due.
30 years ago on the Ride I had just left Stratford, Ontario, where I had stopped for 2 days to see some Shakespeare: Henry IV: Part 1 and Richard II. Henry IV was my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays back then. Oh, how I yearned to play “Hotspur.” The production I saw in Stratford I HATED!! I thought it was stiff, fake, and passionless, not even close to what I pictured in my mind and heart. I’d built up the play to Chuck, an instructor accompanying a high school group of privileged students up from Rochester, Michigan, and felt embarrassed about what he had seen after my description. We were all staying in a hostel in Stratford and I had “splurged” on both tickets for the theatre and for room and board. ($7.00 for the 2 tickets and $9.00 for 2 nights at the hostel – my 1979 idea of splurging!) I’d made friends with others at the hostel and had watched the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And the production of Richard II was quite excellent which helped salve the the deeply felt creative wounds from having witnessed the Henry IV travesty.
Chuck offered me a place to stay in Michigan which was right near the route I was taking back into the US from Canada. I was not very adept at gauging distances and how long it would take to get to the next place on bike and thus I had set myself an overly ambitious day trek from Stratford to Chuck’s. I had crossed Lake St. Clair on a ferryboat which brought me into Michigan, a bit lost, at around 9 pm. I’ll pick up from my account on the 24th:
“A whirr of people and events to convey and document. Chronological order may be the best. Took off in the cold from the bar (which was right at the ferry crossing) which obviously was a mistake – odds, God, nature, and man against me – also a barwoman’s directions. Finally got to M-29 (back road) at 9 pm, tired, scared, weak, and despairing. Luck or predestination stepped in. I met 2 fishermen bringing a boat out of Lake St. Clair, shared my dilemma, asked for information and directions AND one of the men offered me a ride to Rochester. So we piled the bike in, conversed along the way, and he invited me over for tuna casserole and coffee. Bob Willette was his name – a Ford engineer, charismatic Christian (they briefly proselytized), static faced, kind, and generous human being. Called up Chuck’s, talked to EB (Chuck’s roommate), and got a ride to the house – a loooooong way. EB (reminded me of the junkie from “Midnight Run”) was paranoid, pensive, and pissed at Chuck for breaking a “house rule” and inviting a guest without getting in touch with him. We had a fairly good conversation nonetheless.”
Chuck came home eventually, the 2 of them had it out for a bit, and I ended up staying the night amid all the tension. The next day I visited the Roper School where Chuck was teaching “Martin Eden” in his English class. The class was lively with discussion, interjection, and passionate debate, something I had none of in high school. Here’s to the privileged. We dined on Mexican Food later - Chuck kindly treated – and that night, to mollify EB, I stayed in a vacant plush house up for sale in a ritzy neighborhood of Pontiac. This move was brought about by Chuck’s friend Holcomb who was in foreclosures and was taking care of his grandmother’s estate. I take it that this had been his grandmother’s house. I remember we all smoked a couple joints, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor. The house had no furniture but the carpeting still retained the indentations where all the ghost furniture once had been. It was a little strange sleeping there that night, the air felt unsettled. After a good breakfast I was off again on the bike and during the day I rode through Ann Arbor, a town for which I’ve always had a fond spot, and Saline, heading south, back home to Indiana.
Back here in the present, Richard has finished watering our plants and trees around the property and is off to the market. He was going by himself, but the journey sounds too fun, so I’m letting myself be caught up and go with him. It sounds too fun to let pass. Have a great day.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
30 years ago check-in - the Ride continues!
30 years ago today I was in Ontario heading toward Stratford. I'd crossed over a day or so before, treated to free nights at various campsites and befriended by the border gaurd at the bridge who, impressed by the trip I was on, raised the gate and let me pass through gratis. I had had my first taste of anti-French Canadian sentiment when I visited the washroom in diner I where I was breakfasting and read all the vitriol scratched on the walls and door of the toilet stall. Raw rage equivilant to unleashed homophobia. What a waste of passion. But it does remind me of my favorite inscription on a bathroom stall wall, a syllogism:
"God is Love
Love is Blind
Ray Charles is Blind
Ray Charles is God."
More convincing evidence of God's existence than most religions provide.
But on with the Ride. I was staying in a campsite/trailer park. It was Queen Victoria's Day Weekend which I found was a holiday on par with our Memorial Day. Everyone was going or on vacation. Busy roads, especially as I neared Toronto.
"8:00 am Deseronto May 19 (1979)
A nice windy night which "blew the mosquitos up to French Quebec where they can have them" as Harold would say. Very windy off the lake - may be a bit hard going - beautiful day.
Let us now praise famous men. HAROLD - next door. 58 - stonecutter - in the war - traveler - just had a stroke this winter, but fully recovered except for a slight eye twitch. Good talker & listener. Had a Labotts & talked til 11 under a clear sky. MARNEY 81 - been coming here fishing for 50 yrs. Told me of the fish: "everything you want except trout - including a new fish the gov't calls a white perch but we call "stinkers" because they always nab the bait." A short animated good-natured man. The owners, the place, the people - all pleasant. A pleasure. Hope to get above Toronto tonight - we shall see. Good night's rest - now off for a good breakfast & goodbyes."
The "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" reference is from James Agee and Walker Evans book of the same name which I had carried around for years, but had never gotten past Agee's and Evan's Forward which I read over and over and over. Never ventured into the book proper despite good intentions. I love the little snippets of people I set down briefly in the journal. Just shared them with Richard and said that even a brief sentence gives you the rhythm of that person as sharp as if you were cloning them from DNA samples. My God how enriched my life has been with the people that have passed through it, even if only for a conversation or a night's lovemaking.
Not that I made love to either Harold or Marney. I just wanted to clear that up.
"5:30 pm Newtonville
Stopped by rain - the most amazing cloud formations before the storm - like a gigantic sideways tornadoe. From afar it looked like a peninsula jutting into the lake. Good morning ride - lots of sun, blisters on back, a bit of negativity as the clous came in. Perfection is demanded by Dan. Nice parade - Highlanders & all - in Caroque where I ate lunch. Sipping coffee in a general store as the sky hopefully (wrong usage) clears long enough for me to get to a campsite 15 miles away. Who knows???
9:00 pm Provincial Park (Darlington)
Just to a shower & waiting for clothes to wash. $5.50 for a spot on Lake Ontario near Oshawa. I'm hungry & on the verge of being grouchy, but I will survive. Breakfast will save me - an early start perhaps because rain threatens again tomorrow afternoon. The rain-wait was fine & I was treated to a spectacular double rainbow afterwards - then coming into the park, I took a spill that was alot of fun."
Actually, it was. More embarrassing than anything. My front tire got stuck in train tracks as I went over a track heading into the campsite and the fall was cushioned by my back side packs.
"Stratford sometime Monday it looks like. These places are so crowded - suburbia by the sea. Hmmm? I forgot to mention this morning that I dreamt of Al Pacino & Marlon Brando - Godfatherish-type rigamarole - don't ask me where it came from."
That's me 30 years ago; oh so interested in dream interpretation.
"The countryside after the rain was emaculate. All of a sudden I had these panoramic views of the surrounding land - gently rolling green farmland as far as the eye could see. There are some wonderful moments on a bike."
That's it for the ride. And here 30 years later, our Canadian Geese are the proud parents of 4, count 'em 4, baby goslings. The parents had them out on the pond pronto. They're adorable.
"God is Love
Love is Blind
Ray Charles is Blind
Ray Charles is God."
More convincing evidence of God's existence than most religions provide.
But on with the Ride. I was staying in a campsite/trailer park. It was Queen Victoria's Day Weekend which I found was a holiday on par with our Memorial Day. Everyone was going or on vacation. Busy roads, especially as I neared Toronto.
"8:00 am Deseronto May 19 (1979)
A nice windy night which "blew the mosquitos up to French Quebec where they can have them" as Harold would say. Very windy off the lake - may be a bit hard going - beautiful day.
Let us now praise famous men. HAROLD - next door. 58 - stonecutter - in the war - traveler - just had a stroke this winter, but fully recovered except for a slight eye twitch. Good talker & listener. Had a Labotts & talked til 11 under a clear sky. MARNEY 81 - been coming here fishing for 50 yrs. Told me of the fish: "everything you want except trout - including a new fish the gov't calls a white perch but we call "stinkers" because they always nab the bait." A short animated good-natured man. The owners, the place, the people - all pleasant. A pleasure. Hope to get above Toronto tonight - we shall see. Good night's rest - now off for a good breakfast & goodbyes."
The "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" reference is from James Agee and Walker Evans book of the same name which I had carried around for years, but had never gotten past Agee's and Evan's Forward which I read over and over and over. Never ventured into the book proper despite good intentions. I love the little snippets of people I set down briefly in the journal. Just shared them with Richard and said that even a brief sentence gives you the rhythm of that person as sharp as if you were cloning them from DNA samples. My God how enriched my life has been with the people that have passed through it, even if only for a conversation or a night's lovemaking.
Not that I made love to either Harold or Marney. I just wanted to clear that up.
"5:30 pm Newtonville
Stopped by rain - the most amazing cloud formations before the storm - like a gigantic sideways tornadoe. From afar it looked like a peninsula jutting into the lake. Good morning ride - lots of sun, blisters on back, a bit of negativity as the clous came in. Perfection is demanded by Dan. Nice parade - Highlanders & all - in Caroque where I ate lunch. Sipping coffee in a general store as the sky hopefully (wrong usage) clears long enough for me to get to a campsite 15 miles away. Who knows???
9:00 pm Provincial Park (Darlington)
Just to a shower & waiting for clothes to wash. $5.50 for a spot on Lake Ontario near Oshawa. I'm hungry & on the verge of being grouchy, but I will survive. Breakfast will save me - an early start perhaps because rain threatens again tomorrow afternoon. The rain-wait was fine & I was treated to a spectacular double rainbow afterwards - then coming into the park, I took a spill that was alot of fun."
Actually, it was. More embarrassing than anything. My front tire got stuck in train tracks as I went over a track heading into the campsite and the fall was cushioned by my back side packs.
"Stratford sometime Monday it looks like. These places are so crowded - suburbia by the sea. Hmmm? I forgot to mention this morning that I dreamt of Al Pacino & Marlon Brando - Godfatherish-type rigamarole - don't ask me where it came from."
That's me 30 years ago; oh so interested in dream interpretation.
"The countryside after the rain was emaculate. All of a sudden I had these panoramic views of the surrounding land - gently rolling green farmland as far as the eye could see. There are some wonderful moments on a bike."
That's it for the ride. And here 30 years later, our Canadian Geese are the proud parents of 4, count 'em 4, baby goslings. The parents had them out on the pond pronto. They're adorable.
Monday, May 18, 2009
My father's visiting
My father’s visiting.
There’s a picture in an old frayed book of “Bible Stories” of my dad’s of some Biblical character wrestling God all night on a riverbank. (Is it Joshua? My knowledge of Bible lore is very threadbare.) Needless to say, God wins. If you were an oddsmaker, I think the fight was heavily favored in God’s favor to begin with. God being God, though, he probably let Joshua (Or whomever; I know it’s not David – he was probably busy tending sheep or writing a psalm or getting sculpted) at least think that he had a chance of coming out on top in the fight. The story sounds very Greek mythology to me, but the picture sticks with me, very dramatic, done in deep purples and blues, the action caught in mid-struggle. Here at 3 am in Vermont I’ve gotten up from a similar Biblical struggle.
My father’s visiting.
That should pretty thoroughly encapsulate my inner riverbank wrestle right there. My father and I have very little in common. Whenever he’s around, which isn’t that often, an inner teenager phoenixes up to lock horns in ancient struggle despite my best efforts to rise above the situation. To give myself credit, I am much less reactionary outwardly then I have been in years past, but inside it doesn’t feel that way. Inside it can feel the same way it always has, as if I haven’t changed a bit. Inside, I’m on that river bank wrestling with myself, biting my tongue from saying this or that, reining myself in from overtly picking a fight, purple and blue from punishing myself for having not been evolved and serene around him this time. And my dad’s an easy mark, he invites fights. He (perhaps unconsciously) goads them on. He can be bigoted (“when will those people finally get their act together?”), he tends toward the negative and cynical (“our government’s the best government that money can buy”), he can be apocalyptic in his predictions for the future, his conversation and jokes and viewpoints are frozen and repetitive, he doesn’t really listen, he apologizes for ancient wrongs ad infinitum (ie “Will you ever forgive me for divorcing your mother?” 30 years ago, long forgotten and forgiven; “I hope you’ll forgive me for what I said about you being gay?” Again, years ago and forgiven several times every one of our visits), he assures me how much fun he is having, again ad infinitum (‘Really, dad? Fun? We’re just sitting at a table.’) The list goes on, of course, and to carry the riverbank mud wrestling to another level I’m now applying that list to me and hear a resoundingly Biblical voice intone “Judge not lest ye be Judged.” Okay, okay, you win, you win, I’m up, I’m writing, so shut the fuck up.
My father’s visiting.
And I sit here wondering a host of things, and in no particular order of importance, a series of questions comes pouring out: What can I possibly talk about with him for 3 to 4 days? How will I keep my sense of humor? How can I incrementally (or maybe all at once) let go of this inner grip? How can I state how I feel about any number of things clearly and effectively - maybe in opposition - without it having any little sting of “so there!” attached to it? How can I simply let him live his life as he wants to, as he chooses to, and not be so affected by it? How can I let him be who he is and be who I am fully around that? How can I be happy and live with a sense of ease and joy – a state I’m finding more and more is my natural state - despite whatever he may be doing or however he may be acting? How can I love him for who he is, just as he is, without any little improvements or changes I’m sure would make him better? (Oh boy.) How can I see this all as an opportunity instead of a burden? After all, I did invite him here. And I’m terminally unique in this experience.
On the subject of fathers, with the lesson a bit reversed, the other day we were having a bit of a problem with our visiting Canadian gander from across the road. To recap, he was being alarmist and always around hissing and making a nuisance of himself whenever Richard and I would be outside with our adorable and adoring goslings, Ginger and Mary Ann. Finally fed up, I asked Richard if I should turn the hose on him, a hose that had a newly bought nozzle which could inflict a powerful force. “Let her rip,” Richard encouraged. So I let her rip and it was literally like “water off a duck’s back.” He stood firm and immoveable, unbudgeable, the water pouring off of him effortlessly like bullets off of Superman’s chest. I think he rather enjoyed it. Richard and I couldn’t help but laugh. So much for forcing a solution.
So instead of wrestling out a solution with various father’s visits, eastern ways are called for, a tai chi-ish, letting defenses down, co-habitating despite differences, blah-blah-blah. Okay. We’ll see. I’ll give it a try.
It’s nearing 5 and the birds are waking up outside. I just leaned forward on the couch here for a peak out the window and saw that it’s still dark. I wonder what stirred such early morning tunes? We were supposed to have gotten a freeze last night and I can feel a slight chill at the window, but things are nice and snug here right now. Delilah, our big Maine Coone, is curled up warm and safe by my side. It’s good having her here by my left leg, a companion in my writings.
My father’s visiting.
He’s downstairs sleeping right now, as comfortably as Delilah, I hope. Dad usually peppers his conversations with complaints. I’m not sure he’s even aware of it. When he wakes and begins his morning conversations he may have a few complaints about the nights’ sleep, I don’t know. But there’s an opportunity in that - he can help me police my own conversations. Where are my complaints dandelioning up? It’s addictive being negative and complaining, it’s familiar territory, I can fit into that behavior like an old comfortable shoe. It’s kneejerk behavior; I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It can even be enjoyable. But it eventually has an erosive effect; I don’t like myself for doing it. It puts a cawl between me and life. So, thanks dad.
My father’s visiting.
And he can remind me what gifts I’ve gotten from him. A love of history and travel. A knack for story telling. He’s a good storyteller. He can exaggerate and stretch things – there’s always at least one person in each of his stories who has “tears in their eyes” - but what storyteller doesn’t embellish. A love of learning. He’s bright. There’s still a kid in him underneath that sometimes crust of fear and distrust, a pure spirit that still loves to learn new things and laugh. I love the books he’s passed on to me, in addition to the frayed blue bound “Bible Stories” they include: Minute Biographies, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, etc. I love the family history he linked me to through Nanna and Papaw, his parents, and their stories of times past. I love the cherry bedroom suit he gave me (really given to me by Nanna, but dad had it at his house), the bed he’s sleeping in right now. It was floated up the Mississippi and then the Ohio on a flatboat in the 19th century.
My father’s visiting.
And I don’t get him, I don’t understand him, sometimes I don’t even like him. I’m sure there are times he really doesn’t like me either, though I don’t know if he’d ever allow himself to think or say such a thing. Maybe all that’s not important, I don’t know. He’s my father. He helped give me life for which I’m eternally grateful, a life I feel I’m just beginning to appreciate to the extent it deserves.
My father’s visiting.
And I don’t know how much longer he’ll be around. And I have no idea what it’ll feel like when he’s not around.
The light is coming in through the window now and I might creep back in with Richard. The wrestling match has ended for the night. I’d say it’s a draw. We’ll see if there are more rounds to come or if the inner cease fire holds.
There’s a picture in an old frayed book of “Bible Stories” of my dad’s of some Biblical character wrestling God all night on a riverbank. (Is it Joshua? My knowledge of Bible lore is very threadbare.) Needless to say, God wins. If you were an oddsmaker, I think the fight was heavily favored in God’s favor to begin with. God being God, though, he probably let Joshua (Or whomever; I know it’s not David – he was probably busy tending sheep or writing a psalm or getting sculpted) at least think that he had a chance of coming out on top in the fight. The story sounds very Greek mythology to me, but the picture sticks with me, very dramatic, done in deep purples and blues, the action caught in mid-struggle. Here at 3 am in Vermont I’ve gotten up from a similar Biblical struggle.
My father’s visiting.
That should pretty thoroughly encapsulate my inner riverbank wrestle right there. My father and I have very little in common. Whenever he’s around, which isn’t that often, an inner teenager phoenixes up to lock horns in ancient struggle despite my best efforts to rise above the situation. To give myself credit, I am much less reactionary outwardly then I have been in years past, but inside it doesn’t feel that way. Inside it can feel the same way it always has, as if I haven’t changed a bit. Inside, I’m on that river bank wrestling with myself, biting my tongue from saying this or that, reining myself in from overtly picking a fight, purple and blue from punishing myself for having not been evolved and serene around him this time. And my dad’s an easy mark, he invites fights. He (perhaps unconsciously) goads them on. He can be bigoted (“when will those people finally get their act together?”), he tends toward the negative and cynical (“our government’s the best government that money can buy”), he can be apocalyptic in his predictions for the future, his conversation and jokes and viewpoints are frozen and repetitive, he doesn’t really listen, he apologizes for ancient wrongs ad infinitum (ie “Will you ever forgive me for divorcing your mother?” 30 years ago, long forgotten and forgiven; “I hope you’ll forgive me for what I said about you being gay?” Again, years ago and forgiven several times every one of our visits), he assures me how much fun he is having, again ad infinitum (‘Really, dad? Fun? We’re just sitting at a table.’) The list goes on, of course, and to carry the riverbank mud wrestling to another level I’m now applying that list to me and hear a resoundingly Biblical voice intone “Judge not lest ye be Judged.” Okay, okay, you win, you win, I’m up, I’m writing, so shut the fuck up.
My father’s visiting.
And I sit here wondering a host of things, and in no particular order of importance, a series of questions comes pouring out: What can I possibly talk about with him for 3 to 4 days? How will I keep my sense of humor? How can I incrementally (or maybe all at once) let go of this inner grip? How can I state how I feel about any number of things clearly and effectively - maybe in opposition - without it having any little sting of “so there!” attached to it? How can I simply let him live his life as he wants to, as he chooses to, and not be so affected by it? How can I let him be who he is and be who I am fully around that? How can I be happy and live with a sense of ease and joy – a state I’m finding more and more is my natural state - despite whatever he may be doing or however he may be acting? How can I love him for who he is, just as he is, without any little improvements or changes I’m sure would make him better? (Oh boy.) How can I see this all as an opportunity instead of a burden? After all, I did invite him here. And I’m terminally unique in this experience.
On the subject of fathers, with the lesson a bit reversed, the other day we were having a bit of a problem with our visiting Canadian gander from across the road. To recap, he was being alarmist and always around hissing and making a nuisance of himself whenever Richard and I would be outside with our adorable and adoring goslings, Ginger and Mary Ann. Finally fed up, I asked Richard if I should turn the hose on him, a hose that had a newly bought nozzle which could inflict a powerful force. “Let her rip,” Richard encouraged. So I let her rip and it was literally like “water off a duck’s back.” He stood firm and immoveable, unbudgeable, the water pouring off of him effortlessly like bullets off of Superman’s chest. I think he rather enjoyed it. Richard and I couldn’t help but laugh. So much for forcing a solution.
So instead of wrestling out a solution with various father’s visits, eastern ways are called for, a tai chi-ish, letting defenses down, co-habitating despite differences, blah-blah-blah. Okay. We’ll see. I’ll give it a try.
It’s nearing 5 and the birds are waking up outside. I just leaned forward on the couch here for a peak out the window and saw that it’s still dark. I wonder what stirred such early morning tunes? We were supposed to have gotten a freeze last night and I can feel a slight chill at the window, but things are nice and snug here right now. Delilah, our big Maine Coone, is curled up warm and safe by my side. It’s good having her here by my left leg, a companion in my writings.
My father’s visiting.
He’s downstairs sleeping right now, as comfortably as Delilah, I hope. Dad usually peppers his conversations with complaints. I’m not sure he’s even aware of it. When he wakes and begins his morning conversations he may have a few complaints about the nights’ sleep, I don’t know. But there’s an opportunity in that - he can help me police my own conversations. Where are my complaints dandelioning up? It’s addictive being negative and complaining, it’s familiar territory, I can fit into that behavior like an old comfortable shoe. It’s kneejerk behavior; I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It can even be enjoyable. But it eventually has an erosive effect; I don’t like myself for doing it. It puts a cawl between me and life. So, thanks dad.
My father’s visiting.
And he can remind me what gifts I’ve gotten from him. A love of history and travel. A knack for story telling. He’s a good storyteller. He can exaggerate and stretch things – there’s always at least one person in each of his stories who has “tears in their eyes” - but what storyteller doesn’t embellish. A love of learning. He’s bright. There’s still a kid in him underneath that sometimes crust of fear and distrust, a pure spirit that still loves to learn new things and laugh. I love the books he’s passed on to me, in addition to the frayed blue bound “Bible Stories” they include: Minute Biographies, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, etc. I love the family history he linked me to through Nanna and Papaw, his parents, and their stories of times past. I love the cherry bedroom suit he gave me (really given to me by Nanna, but dad had it at his house), the bed he’s sleeping in right now. It was floated up the Mississippi and then the Ohio on a flatboat in the 19th century.
My father’s visiting.
And I don’t get him, I don’t understand him, sometimes I don’t even like him. I’m sure there are times he really doesn’t like me either, though I don’t know if he’d ever allow himself to think or say such a thing. Maybe all that’s not important, I don’t know. He’s my father. He helped give me life for which I’m eternally grateful, a life I feel I’m just beginning to appreciate to the extent it deserves.
My father’s visiting.
And I don’t know how much longer he’ll be around. And I have no idea what it’ll feel like when he’s not around.
The light is coming in through the window now and I might creep back in with Richard. The wrestling match has ended for the night. I’d say it’s a draw. We’ll see if there are more rounds to come or if the inner cease fire holds.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Back home and back 30 years
I'm back in Vermont after a few days in fantastic New York City, back with our hissing Canadian Geese who come honking over from our pond whenever we take our goslings out for a waddle and a chomp of grass. Richard and I try to take it all in stride, mostly by ignoring them. I think they're a bit confused by the undying affection Ginger and Mary Ann show us, the way those cuties follow us anywhere, cheeping and beeping contentedly whenever we're around. The kanooks are instinctually whipped up, ready to hiss and charge, and the gosling's behavior pulls the rug out from under them. And it's the male that seems to be the alarmist, the female soon realizes nothing untoward is going on and ventures back to her nest on our pond where we believe beaks are beginning to pip out. The male seems not to know what to do with himself. He's going through the motions that nature has bred in him, but I think even he knows it's a bit of a farce.
I can empathize with goosey gander. Coming back from the metropolis I can often feel displaced and not know what to do with myself. I'm amped to a different pace, used to walking everywhere at a much faster pace, used to the manmade rather than the trees and flora (although Poet's Walk in Central Park canopied me with green very nicely, thank you very much). I come back grateful for having seen some theatre, a taste of culture, jazzed and rejuvenated from having been around masses of people. And now I'm alone in the country (Richard was away when I arrived home.) Who am I again? What am I doing here? "Just take a walk up the hill," I kept whispering to my antsy self, but I easily got distracted by unpacking, by things I saw that I felt Richard should have gotten done while I was gone. I made some coffee (just what I needed, a calming beverage), put it in a mug, and forced myself up the hill and man, the entire meadow needed a haircut. Incredible. Everything was so much greener. Magnificent. "Focus on the joy, focus on the joy," I mantra-ed. And up the hill, up the hill, up the hill. The treelines were filled out. The eastern larches, those amazing trees that do a death fake-out every autumn and lose their needles, were sprouted out like Japanese lanterns, all these filagrees dangling down with dainty finesse. Wonderful. How could I not smile? How could I not breathe? How could I not slow my pace?
Back down the hill, greeted by all the various chickens - 'hello, hello, yes, cluck, cluck. Hey! You didn't have to peck my back! Geez!" And inside I found my bike trip journal and caught up. It's humbling reading those entries from that 30 year ago me. Some issues have not changed, like dramatic reactivity, moodiness, restlessness. I'm more aware of them now, of course, and I take contrary action when they rear their heads, but, oh, it is amazing experiencing their timelessness. And as I've learned over the years, whenever I've set out to work on something as I had on the bike trip -- namely getting away from planning, learning patience, taking things on life's or the day's time table rather than insisting it fit into a certain design, MY design -- then all the things that screamed out for me TO plan, TO be impatient about, to demand things go my way showed up. I seem to be in a hurry these first few days on the ride. I want to "make good time." Why? I don't know. I don't know what I was measuring my pace against. There was no real time constraint on me, but I acted as if I were behind time. Strange and familiar behavior. I would comment about the beautiful country which is a good sign. Just the fact that I was on a bicycle was slowing me down and forcing me to take things in.
The route I'd mapped out took me up through a bit of Vermont (Hancock is where I stopped to have lunch and write a few words) and then I crossed over into New York around Port Henry, where I spent the night in a trailer park. I was headed north because I was heading to Stratford, Canada, to see some Shakespeare at the theatres there and then I would cut down through the midwest to relatives and then south to Houston where my sister was living at the time, fresh out of college and practicing nursing in a hospital there.
The first few days were unfolding as they should. I did get a huge sunburn on the 15th; I remember a section of my back blistering into an arc of freckles near my right shoulder blade, an arc that still remains. And there were a few surprises. For instance, the Adirondack Mountains shocked me!! I hadn't expected mountains like that back east! I thought I wasn't going to have mountain riding until I got out west when I was really in shape, so the appearance of these mammoth uphills was a big jolt to my ego. I found myself eating more, eating better. My body knew what it needed and demanded it. No junk food. I'd also begun mailing any extra clothing back home to Providence pronto. Any extra weight was outa there. Hiking boots, change of clothes? Nuh-uh, goodbye. I'd brought 2 paper back books along with me: a book about Vietnam whose name escapes me and Shogun. When I got to Shogun later in the ride, a book I loved and which complemented the ride so well, I would rip off the pages I'd read and throw them away in another endeavor to cut down on any extra weight.
The 16th of May, 1979 turned out to be one of those surprising, momentous days on the ride that snuck up on me unexpected. It began with a kindness. A woman named Kay Seems from Bowaga Bay (and who I had sign my journal so I would remember her) made me French Toast. She and her husband had brought their small trailer over for a short vacation and we had a pleasant chat. Most people I met and spoke too were so intrigued with my ride, you could see it light up some hidden dream in them, not necessarily a bike ride they'd always wanted to take, just a dream place, something they'd put on a back burner. It was as if they were grateful to me for waking them up. They'd be so supportive and sweet, wishing me well. Godspeed. I was tired that morning, the sun burn ached, I had shakey hands at the post office. The nerves in my hands were numbing out from the constant pressure I would put on them as I leaned forward on my handle bars. (It would get to where I couldn't touch my thumb to my little finger.) I had a plan for the day. I wanted to see Lake Placid. The Winter Olympics would be there in 1980 and I had the town up on a pedestal as the day's destination. But there were mountains to ride over, high winds, wrong directions given that took me 8 miles out of my way and whipped me into a froth. Here's an excerpt from my journal:
'The day as I said was frustrating - road construction, detours, expectations, numb hands, cold, yelling even at nature when I don't get my way, just to be duped by an amazing view as if nature stopped to say, "You're so hot, shithead, make a mountain."'
Love it.
Lake Placid was anything but - noisy, touristy, the constant ramming sound of construction. It reminded me of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and I got out of there quick. I meandered on to a small town called Samarac Lake. At the town's grocery I was inquiring, as I would many times throughout the ride, about a place nearby to camp for the night. I was addressing the clerk at the cash register, but a nice guy in line behind me named Cliff at first suggested a place just outside of town, but then after sharing about the ride with him, he offered his families camper that was parked in the driveway by their house. Did he give me a ride to his place or did I ride my bike and follow him? I forget. When we got to his place, he introduced me to his family, his wife and kids, showed me the trailer in the driveway, gave me a Lowenbrau (he was a beverage distributor) AND THEN he and his family were about to go off to a Little League game, so he gave me THE KEYS TO HIS HOUSE so I could wash some clothes if I'd like. Not only that, but because their dryer was on the blink, he told me to go to the neighbors and tell them that I was his cousin visiting so I could use their dryer. Incredible. He did not know me from Adam and yet he trusted me with the keys to his house. Silly? Stupid? Naive? Another time? All I know is that despite my fussing and fuming I was led to some incredible people along this trip, people that I will probably never see again, and I can only hope that some of the generosity they showed me I've shown others. It was a cold night that night and it felt good being snuggled in that trailer, inside rather than out on the ground in my tent and sleeping bag. If I remember correctly I rose very early the next morning and took off before Cliff and his family were up. In my journal I described Cliff's acts as "hospitalic." I had an irksome habit of trying to coin new words. Oh boy.
Well, Cliff, if I had a Lowenbrau in my hands right now, I would "hospitalicly" raise it on high to you. I hope life has been splendid for you and your family and friends these past 30 years, full of adventure and fun and laughter. Be well and thank you for your kindness. Know that it was felt and appreciated.
I can empathize with goosey gander. Coming back from the metropolis I can often feel displaced and not know what to do with myself. I'm amped to a different pace, used to walking everywhere at a much faster pace, used to the manmade rather than the trees and flora (although Poet's Walk in Central Park canopied me with green very nicely, thank you very much). I come back grateful for having seen some theatre, a taste of culture, jazzed and rejuvenated from having been around masses of people. And now I'm alone in the country (Richard was away when I arrived home.) Who am I again? What am I doing here? "Just take a walk up the hill," I kept whispering to my antsy self, but I easily got distracted by unpacking, by things I saw that I felt Richard should have gotten done while I was gone. I made some coffee (just what I needed, a calming beverage), put it in a mug, and forced myself up the hill and man, the entire meadow needed a haircut. Incredible. Everything was so much greener. Magnificent. "Focus on the joy, focus on the joy," I mantra-ed. And up the hill, up the hill, up the hill. The treelines were filled out. The eastern larches, those amazing trees that do a death fake-out every autumn and lose their needles, were sprouted out like Japanese lanterns, all these filagrees dangling down with dainty finesse. Wonderful. How could I not smile? How could I not breathe? How could I not slow my pace?
Back down the hill, greeted by all the various chickens - 'hello, hello, yes, cluck, cluck. Hey! You didn't have to peck my back! Geez!" And inside I found my bike trip journal and caught up. It's humbling reading those entries from that 30 year ago me. Some issues have not changed, like dramatic reactivity, moodiness, restlessness. I'm more aware of them now, of course, and I take contrary action when they rear their heads, but, oh, it is amazing experiencing their timelessness. And as I've learned over the years, whenever I've set out to work on something as I had on the bike trip -- namely getting away from planning, learning patience, taking things on life's or the day's time table rather than insisting it fit into a certain design, MY design -- then all the things that screamed out for me TO plan, TO be impatient about, to demand things go my way showed up. I seem to be in a hurry these first few days on the ride. I want to "make good time." Why? I don't know. I don't know what I was measuring my pace against. There was no real time constraint on me, but I acted as if I were behind time. Strange and familiar behavior. I would comment about the beautiful country which is a good sign. Just the fact that I was on a bicycle was slowing me down and forcing me to take things in.
The route I'd mapped out took me up through a bit of Vermont (Hancock is where I stopped to have lunch and write a few words) and then I crossed over into New York around Port Henry, where I spent the night in a trailer park. I was headed north because I was heading to Stratford, Canada, to see some Shakespeare at the theatres there and then I would cut down through the midwest to relatives and then south to Houston where my sister was living at the time, fresh out of college and practicing nursing in a hospital there.
The first few days were unfolding as they should. I did get a huge sunburn on the 15th; I remember a section of my back blistering into an arc of freckles near my right shoulder blade, an arc that still remains. And there were a few surprises. For instance, the Adirondack Mountains shocked me!! I hadn't expected mountains like that back east! I thought I wasn't going to have mountain riding until I got out west when I was really in shape, so the appearance of these mammoth uphills was a big jolt to my ego. I found myself eating more, eating better. My body knew what it needed and demanded it. No junk food. I'd also begun mailing any extra clothing back home to Providence pronto. Any extra weight was outa there. Hiking boots, change of clothes? Nuh-uh, goodbye. I'd brought 2 paper back books along with me: a book about Vietnam whose name escapes me and Shogun. When I got to Shogun later in the ride, a book I loved and which complemented the ride so well, I would rip off the pages I'd read and throw them away in another endeavor to cut down on any extra weight.
The 16th of May, 1979 turned out to be one of those surprising, momentous days on the ride that snuck up on me unexpected. It began with a kindness. A woman named Kay Seems from Bowaga Bay (and who I had sign my journal so I would remember her) made me French Toast. She and her husband had brought their small trailer over for a short vacation and we had a pleasant chat. Most people I met and spoke too were so intrigued with my ride, you could see it light up some hidden dream in them, not necessarily a bike ride they'd always wanted to take, just a dream place, something they'd put on a back burner. It was as if they were grateful to me for waking them up. They'd be so supportive and sweet, wishing me well. Godspeed. I was tired that morning, the sun burn ached, I had shakey hands at the post office. The nerves in my hands were numbing out from the constant pressure I would put on them as I leaned forward on my handle bars. (It would get to where I couldn't touch my thumb to my little finger.) I had a plan for the day. I wanted to see Lake Placid. The Winter Olympics would be there in 1980 and I had the town up on a pedestal as the day's destination. But there were mountains to ride over, high winds, wrong directions given that took me 8 miles out of my way and whipped me into a froth. Here's an excerpt from my journal:
'The day as I said was frustrating - road construction, detours, expectations, numb hands, cold, yelling even at nature when I don't get my way, just to be duped by an amazing view as if nature stopped to say, "You're so hot, shithead, make a mountain."'
Love it.
Lake Placid was anything but - noisy, touristy, the constant ramming sound of construction. It reminded me of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and I got out of there quick. I meandered on to a small town called Samarac Lake. At the town's grocery I was inquiring, as I would many times throughout the ride, about a place nearby to camp for the night. I was addressing the clerk at the cash register, but a nice guy in line behind me named Cliff at first suggested a place just outside of town, but then after sharing about the ride with him, he offered his families camper that was parked in the driveway by their house. Did he give me a ride to his place or did I ride my bike and follow him? I forget. When we got to his place, he introduced me to his family, his wife and kids, showed me the trailer in the driveway, gave me a Lowenbrau (he was a beverage distributor) AND THEN he and his family were about to go off to a Little League game, so he gave me THE KEYS TO HIS HOUSE so I could wash some clothes if I'd like. Not only that, but because their dryer was on the blink, he told me to go to the neighbors and tell them that I was his cousin visiting so I could use their dryer. Incredible. He did not know me from Adam and yet he trusted me with the keys to his house. Silly? Stupid? Naive? Another time? All I know is that despite my fussing and fuming I was led to some incredible people along this trip, people that I will probably never see again, and I can only hope that some of the generosity they showed me I've shown others. It was a cold night that night and it felt good being snuggled in that trailer, inside rather than out on the ground in my tent and sleeping bag. If I remember correctly I rose very early the next morning and took off before Cliff and his family were up. In my journal I described Cliff's acts as "hospitalic." I had an irksome habit of trying to coin new words. Oh boy.
Well, Cliff, if I had a Lowenbrau in my hands right now, I would "hospitalicly" raise it on high to you. I hope life has been splendid for you and your family and friends these past 30 years, full of adventure and fun and laughter. Be well and thank you for your kindness. Know that it was felt and appreciated.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The First 2 Days of the ride 30 years ago
"May 13, 1979 Rain and decisions & the clock ticks away."
It was pouring down rain that Mother's Day, but I knew if I didn't go that day I wouldn't go because I was starting to get cold feet.
"5:30 pm Amherst
A free dry bed for the night at Amherst College. Interesting green day - got soaked in Rhode Island and Mass., but made good time. Greens were beautiful. Difficult goodbye to Greg - beginnings. Just sent Mothers Day wishes Indiana way and plan to read tonite. Nice start. I still have never written down the "what's and why's" about this trip; hopefully they'll formulate, but here's a few jabs. 1) The decisiveness of just doing something with your heart and mind; 2) Following the track of the indefatigableness of man; 3) The wonders of our bodies; 4) The wonder of this country and its people. Let it go - let it happen. Very pleasant place - soft rain - friendly people."
Oh, that 24 year old me! " ... the indefatigableness of man ..." I was crashing on a couch at one end of a big room in a dormitory where people would flock into periodically during the night, but mostly I was left alone. They were very kind to let me stay there. That day marked 1 of only 2 negative occurences for the whole trip. I was pedaling up a pretty hefty hill in the pouring rain and some kids driving by through a half empty beer can at me, it bounced off my back and hit the ground beside me. I heard them laughing as they sped off. So strange and gratuitous.
“May 14th 9 am
Yoga-ed and breakfasted after an on-again-off-again sleepless night. Ah dorm life – thank God I bypassed that experience.
Another grey sprinkled day, but the weather promises to break and be sunny for the rest of the week. One last goodbye to Amherst and I’m off.
“7 pm Weston, VT – close to Ludlow, but no cigar.” (My first venture into Vermont; I guess Ludlow had been my “planned” goal for the day.) “I’m tired. Hilly, beautiful, green country, but let’s go chronologically as I watch my dishwater boil.” (I had a tiny gas burner stove with me.) “We here in Vermont feel the weather will break tomorrow. It was a (?) day weatherwise – cloudy and a very light sprinkle ½ the day. I forgot to mention yesterday I was hit by a Miller’s beer thrown from a truck full of kids and the hall I stayed in was Morrow.
Took off this morning about 9:15 and between Amherst and Sunderland had a flat tire. Fixed it & onwards. Very easy beginnings – lush green river rides with beautiful homes & landscapes. Had a couple of encounters with dogs that were scarey & brought on a massive amount of adrenalin. Pissed me off – I’ll have to get some preventative device other than water.” (I was avoiding mace and squirting those snarlers with my water bottle. They’d come galloping in out of nowhere, usually from behind, silent until they got right on me. Scared the shit out of me.) “The ride was filled with mtns. & little waterfalls & silence. The only thing – I push myself too hard; I was nearing exhaustion by the time I hit the big hills. I don’t stop enough I suppose. Or something. Also, I started having fantasies of Ken Cheeseman’s legs compared to mine. Christ, what is that mtn. going to be like tomorrow? Anyway, Vermont is wonderful. Every small town looks very similar – basicly white houses with green shutters and a strange steepled church in the midst of it all. Lots of maple sugar stands too.
Weston, I believe, is a summer theatre camp town (Interlochenish) with lots of camp-“
Unfortunately there I will have to stop for today because I’m in NYC and neglected to bring the old journal along with me. Richard scanned and sent the pages I’ve used so far, so we’ll all have to wait for the next installment until I get back to Vermont.
I love that 30 year ago me still hard on himself, aware of driving oneself and not taking time to enjoy the scenery. Pushing, pushing, pushing. I also wonder why the word “strange” to describe the church steeples? Hmmm.
Hope this finds you all well on whatever journeys you happen to be taking.
It was pouring down rain that Mother's Day, but I knew if I didn't go that day I wouldn't go because I was starting to get cold feet.
"5:30 pm Amherst
A free dry bed for the night at Amherst College. Interesting green day - got soaked in Rhode Island and Mass., but made good time. Greens were beautiful. Difficult goodbye to Greg - beginnings. Just sent Mothers Day wishes Indiana way and plan to read tonite. Nice start. I still have never written down the "what's and why's" about this trip; hopefully they'll formulate, but here's a few jabs. 1) The decisiveness of just doing something with your heart and mind; 2) Following the track of the indefatigableness of man; 3) The wonders of our bodies; 4) The wonder of this country and its people. Let it go - let it happen. Very pleasant place - soft rain - friendly people."
Oh, that 24 year old me! " ... the indefatigableness of man ..." I was crashing on a couch at one end of a big room in a dormitory where people would flock into periodically during the night, but mostly I was left alone. They were very kind to let me stay there. That day marked 1 of only 2 negative occurences for the whole trip. I was pedaling up a pretty hefty hill in the pouring rain and some kids driving by through a half empty beer can at me, it bounced off my back and hit the ground beside me. I heard them laughing as they sped off. So strange and gratuitous.
“May 14th 9 am
Yoga-ed and breakfasted after an on-again-off-again sleepless night. Ah dorm life – thank God I bypassed that experience.
Another grey sprinkled day, but the weather promises to break and be sunny for the rest of the week. One last goodbye to Amherst and I’m off.
“7 pm Weston, VT – close to Ludlow, but no cigar.” (My first venture into Vermont; I guess Ludlow had been my “planned” goal for the day.) “I’m tired. Hilly, beautiful, green country, but let’s go chronologically as I watch my dishwater boil.” (I had a tiny gas burner stove with me.) “We here in Vermont feel the weather will break tomorrow. It was a (?) day weatherwise – cloudy and a very light sprinkle ½ the day. I forgot to mention yesterday I was hit by a Miller’s beer thrown from a truck full of kids and the hall I stayed in was Morrow.
Took off this morning about 9:15 and between Amherst and Sunderland had a flat tire. Fixed it & onwards. Very easy beginnings – lush green river rides with beautiful homes & landscapes. Had a couple of encounters with dogs that were scarey & brought on a massive amount of adrenalin. Pissed me off – I’ll have to get some preventative device other than water.” (I was avoiding mace and squirting those snarlers with my water bottle. They’d come galloping in out of nowhere, usually from behind, silent until they got right on me. Scared the shit out of me.) “The ride was filled with mtns. & little waterfalls & silence. The only thing – I push myself too hard; I was nearing exhaustion by the time I hit the big hills. I don’t stop enough I suppose. Or something. Also, I started having fantasies of Ken Cheeseman’s legs compared to mine. Christ, what is that mtn. going to be like tomorrow? Anyway, Vermont is wonderful. Every small town looks very similar – basicly white houses with green shutters and a strange steepled church in the midst of it all. Lots of maple sugar stands too.
Weston, I believe, is a summer theatre camp town (Interlochenish) with lots of camp-“
Unfortunately there I will have to stop for today because I’m in NYC and neglected to bring the old journal along with me. Richard scanned and sent the pages I’ve used so far, so we’ll all have to wait for the next installment until I get back to Vermont.
I love that 30 year ago me still hard on himself, aware of driving oneself and not taking time to enjoy the scenery. Pushing, pushing, pushing. I also wonder why the word “strange” to describe the church steeples? Hmmm.
Hope this finds you all well on whatever journeys you happen to be taking.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
30 Year Ago Tomorrow
On May 13, 1979 (Mother’s Day that year) I took off on a cross-country bicycle trip by myself from Providence, Rhode Island to San Francisco, California. I mapped out an up-and-down, zig-zag route so I’d be able to visit friends and relatives as well as see theatre and sights from Canada to the deep south to the far west. The places I stayed varied from bedrooms to my tent, trailers, hostels, empty model homes, the floor of a grain mill, and a university dorm couch. Along the way I would spend time with family and friends, sometimes interrupting my trip for a few days to a week. I even took a tangential trip to Illinois in the midst of the ride to be Best Man in the wedding of the first man I ever slept with. More of that anon. Though there were certain parts of the country I had no intention of riding across -- Texas, for example, as well as the desert from Arizona to California – I did end up riding 3,400 miles. It was a grand and varied adventure and I cannot get my mind around the idea that 30 years have passed since then.
In addition to other blog writing in the coming months, I intend to include a daily check-in from the small journal I kept on that trip. I reserve the right to edit, but I’ll try to keep the editting to a minimum with some background information when needed. Following is the first installment I made in the small beige steno pad which I tucked into the side pack hitched to my dependable Fuji cross country bike through rain and wind and sun:
“Prologue May 12, 1979
Providence – rainy, heavy, off & on humid & cool. Rain forecast for tomorrow & no bed in Northhampton, but I’m going. Good test, I suppose. Caution advised though fortune & Tarot are seemingly on my side. Feel fat, jittery – want to get going. Set for rain, packed efficiently.
Nice day with Greg – breakfast, paddle boat, “Manhattan”, Chinese food & preparations. Now beers & the future. I love him, but thoughts are basicly on tomorrow & days to come. God bless Greg – (have) a good summer & don’t forget me.”
I was 24 and in my first gay relationship with a beautiful, kind hearted black man named Greg, also from Indiana. We’d met in Trinity Square’s production of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that past autumn; Trinity was the regional theatre in which I was a member. In addition to acting, Greg was a fantastic singer, an expert tailor (picked up from his father), and a trained instructor for disabled patients at the local hospital. I was pretty frisky sexually that first autumn in Rhode Island and couldn’t imagine being with just one man, but we decided to move in with one another and give it a go. Over the course of the ride, we had decided to have an “agreement” and open the relationship somewhat. I’m sure I had some say in that matter.
What brought about this idea to ride cross country? It was a confluence of things. I’d always loved bicycle riding. Growing up, I used to tool all over the place on our family’s gold Schwinn tandem bike, rarely with another rider. I’d take off to my dad’s drugstore, 10 miles out in the “country” on highway 3. (“country” that doesn’t exist anymore replaced by non-stop developments.) Or I’d go across to the south side of town to visit my friend Jeff Silverman and then call my mom to tell her what I’d done. She was none too pleased.
The idea of a cross country trip had been swimming around in my mind for awhile. I forget what had set that in motion, but an extra fanning to that ember came from Ken Cheeseman, a student at the Trinity Conservatory, who had made several cross country trips himself and who became a kind of mentor/factotum and began suggesting different routes. That winter, I just decided to do it and bought a bike and sent off for the needed packs and tent and sleeping bag. I was in good shape, but once the equipment arrived, Ken urged me to get used to the difference in weight disbursement on the bike by taking rides fully packed. The month before I took off, despite a full schedule at the theatre rehearsing and performing, I would get up early every morning and do a 20 mile trip, fully weighted and packed. The weekend before, again at Ken’s suggestion, I got a 100 mile day under my belt. I was psyched and ready.
On top of the air of adventure surrounding the trip, the main reasons I was doing it was to break up my rigid habit of planning everything. I knew that on a trip like this, weather would change, tires would blow, spokes would break, life would happen and I would have to deal with it as it happened. Of course there would be a route mapped out and a time table of sorts, but plans would definitely change.
The journal entry above refers to “fortune & Tarot” cards. I’m a believer in most everything, sometimes a skeptical believer, but a believer nonetheless. A member of the Trinity company and dear friend, Amy Van Nostrand, offered to read my cards before the trip. She laid them out and was beginning my reading when she discovered that she had inadvertently left one of the cards out of the deck, so she reshuffled and laid the cards out once again and to our surprise and delight with the exception of 1, maybe 2 cards, the chosen cards and placement was almost identical to the first layout. We decided this boded very well.
The trip was definitely on.
In addition to other blog writing in the coming months, I intend to include a daily check-in from the small journal I kept on that trip. I reserve the right to edit, but I’ll try to keep the editting to a minimum with some background information when needed. Following is the first installment I made in the small beige steno pad which I tucked into the side pack hitched to my dependable Fuji cross country bike through rain and wind and sun:
“Prologue May 12, 1979
Providence – rainy, heavy, off & on humid & cool. Rain forecast for tomorrow & no bed in Northhampton, but I’m going. Good test, I suppose. Caution advised though fortune & Tarot are seemingly on my side. Feel fat, jittery – want to get going. Set for rain, packed efficiently.
Nice day with Greg – breakfast, paddle boat, “Manhattan”, Chinese food & preparations. Now beers & the future. I love him, but thoughts are basicly on tomorrow & days to come. God bless Greg – (have) a good summer & don’t forget me.”
I was 24 and in my first gay relationship with a beautiful, kind hearted black man named Greg, also from Indiana. We’d met in Trinity Square’s production of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that past autumn; Trinity was the regional theatre in which I was a member. In addition to acting, Greg was a fantastic singer, an expert tailor (picked up from his father), and a trained instructor for disabled patients at the local hospital. I was pretty frisky sexually that first autumn in Rhode Island and couldn’t imagine being with just one man, but we decided to move in with one another and give it a go. Over the course of the ride, we had decided to have an “agreement” and open the relationship somewhat. I’m sure I had some say in that matter.
What brought about this idea to ride cross country? It was a confluence of things. I’d always loved bicycle riding. Growing up, I used to tool all over the place on our family’s gold Schwinn tandem bike, rarely with another rider. I’d take off to my dad’s drugstore, 10 miles out in the “country” on highway 3. (“country” that doesn’t exist anymore replaced by non-stop developments.) Or I’d go across to the south side of town to visit my friend Jeff Silverman and then call my mom to tell her what I’d done. She was none too pleased.
The idea of a cross country trip had been swimming around in my mind for awhile. I forget what had set that in motion, but an extra fanning to that ember came from Ken Cheeseman, a student at the Trinity Conservatory, who had made several cross country trips himself and who became a kind of mentor/factotum and began suggesting different routes. That winter, I just decided to do it and bought a bike and sent off for the needed packs and tent and sleeping bag. I was in good shape, but once the equipment arrived, Ken urged me to get used to the difference in weight disbursement on the bike by taking rides fully packed. The month before I took off, despite a full schedule at the theatre rehearsing and performing, I would get up early every morning and do a 20 mile trip, fully weighted and packed. The weekend before, again at Ken’s suggestion, I got a 100 mile day under my belt. I was psyched and ready.
On top of the air of adventure surrounding the trip, the main reasons I was doing it was to break up my rigid habit of planning everything. I knew that on a trip like this, weather would change, tires would blow, spokes would break, life would happen and I would have to deal with it as it happened. Of course there would be a route mapped out and a time table of sorts, but plans would definitely change.
The journal entry above refers to “fortune & Tarot” cards. I’m a believer in most everything, sometimes a skeptical believer, but a believer nonetheless. A member of the Trinity company and dear friend, Amy Van Nostrand, offered to read my cards before the trip. She laid them out and was beginning my reading when she discovered that she had inadvertently left one of the cards out of the deck, so she reshuffled and laid the cards out once again and to our surprise and delight with the exception of 1, maybe 2 cards, the chosen cards and placement was almost identical to the first layout. We decided this boded very well.
The trip was definitely on.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A Flurry of Activity
We are in a war with our Canadian Geese. Like most wars, this began with a misunderstanding: they think that since we have 2 goslings we must be an invading goose family. This was all fine and good when the goslings were inside and their cries for attention were muffled by house wood and insulation, but now that we’ve begun to bring them outside to a makeshift pen to chomp on grass and enjoy the sunshine for an hour or so, things have taken a dramatic turn. Up until recently the Canadian’s have been friendly neighbors, glad for our company and for the corn we deposit on a slate rock by the pond shore. The male has been very watchful and chivalrous toward his mate who sits most of the day on her nest. But once they heard our goslings’ sounds, what began as curiosity quickly escalated into low flying harassment. Richard and I are both very strongly imprinted on Ginger and Mary Ann (yes, those are our goslings' names) and whenever we leave them alone in their pen and walk away EVEN FOR A MOMENT they begin squawking and keening and crying bloody murder. This tends to attract the attention of parent aged Canadian Geese and thus the back and forth Pearl Harbor maneuvers from our (THEIR) pond to the top of our (THEIR) hill. Our neighbor Royce commented that they either want to adopt our gosling or kill them. To exacerbate the issue, Richard and I have chosen this time as the perfect opportunity to build a 10’ by 4’ wooden pier that we’re erecting by the pond shore. I think the male thinks this is some kind of big nest; I saw him raise his wings at it and flap away last night while his wife was dining at the rock. Ah well. We shall weather this storm. Once the goslings go inside, all seems to revert to détente.
There’s been a lot of activity here this week and little time to write. Richard and I, along with our contractor/friend Keith, spent the past few days beginning to insulate and frame part of the upstairs of what had once been the hayloft to a rather large stable. All the various inhabitants of this house have never thought of turning over that space which seems like a huge waste. It’s a great feeling having our ideas, which have gone through many changes, begin to take shape as reality. Most of the week was forming a 2 X 4 frame structure inside the existing barn beams which we’d like to keep partially exposed and then filling that framing with 16” pieces of 3” solid foam insulation. Once Richard and I got the knack of it, we flew like a well-honed machine. I have a love/hate relationship to construction work. There are times when I’m amazed and grateful at this new talent I’m learning; “Me a carpenter?” I think. But then there are other times when this elation of reinvention holds no sway and my impatience sets in or my focus goes to the mess, the fiber glass dust and sawdust in the air that permeates not only the space we’re working in but the entire house, and a darkness descends over the land. In those times I think Lizzy Borden had a very good thing going. But this phase of construction and mess is over, not to begin again for a week or 2. That will entail electrical work and sheet rocking. Joy! Rapture!
Richard’s off for a real estate weekend and I’m watching over the various flocks. I’m also about to launch into a heavy cleaning of the house to make our abode ready for a guest this weekend. I’m sitting out on our screened in porch serenaded by birdsong, being watched over by our cats, and watching the skies change from clear to cloudy.
I walked up the hill for the first time in a week last night at dusk with Richard and the change in the countryside is astounding. The meadow is green, the trees are leafed, all is full and stretching out and showing off. I felt like transchanneling Walt Whitman. The earth was ALIVE!!
UPDATE: I was in the midst of cleaning the upstairs, popping my head out the window to see how the goslings were doing and they would be at the edge of the pen, beckoning me back, while the Canadians soared by overhead. I’d coo something out to the kids and go back to cleaning. Then on the third look, I was greeted bu the site of the 2 Canadian Geese landed, striding about next to the pen, surveying the surroundings. Oh great, I thought, what now? My heart’s pace ratcheted up a skosh as I grabbed a broom, arming myself for a skirmish, a skirmish I’d just as soon avoid. When I came out our back door the 2 adult geese turned to face me, and out of the pond, out of that docile, idyllic, floaty atmosphere, they looked pretty intimidating - big and beautiful. God, they’re beautiful. As I neared, the gosling spotted me and squealed their delight, the adults began hissing. No flapping wings, no attack mode, just a low hiss from both of them, like vipers. Oh great. I put the broom out in front of me which brought on more hisses, but slowly I was able to maneuver so the gosling’s pen was between me and them. They positioned themselves to either side of it in a kind of “V” action. With me in such proximity, the goslings had now calmed themselves and began swimming around in their little pool, oblivious to all the drama taking place. I OK Corralled the geese a bit and all 3 of us waited for the other’s next move. What now? Feeling in a poultry mood, I ducked down behind the pen and took a deep breath. I’m sort of a spiritual grab bag when it comes to some idea of Higher Power or Creator, but I just turned the whole thing over to God. “I don’t know what to do with this situation,” I said to whomever was listening, “so you take it.” I stayed squatted down and focused on the bobbing, splashing antics of the wee ones. Finally, one of the adults, I’d guess the female, turned and began slowly walking away, every once and awhile checking back over “her” shoulder. The remaining adult, let’s call it “him”, watched her go, perplexed it seemed. He turned back to me, gave a last half-hearted hiss, and followed her. And that’s when the Jehovah Witnesses showed up. A carload of them. And as the geese walked away back to the pond, I was invited to an “End of the World” symposium up in Burlington. The “witnesses” would have gone into a lot more detail about the upcoming event, but I put the kibosh on the proceedings when I informed them that I was gay and happy about that and that Richard and I had been together for 15 years. After that the subject shifted back to geese and they soon went off to save someone else.
When I recounted the goose showdown to Richard later, he felt that the sound of keening young instinctively sets something off in the adults, and that when the keening calms and quiets, the adults are in turn calmed and assured. I came to the conclusion that the geese were acting as representatives of their version of child’s services, come to check out reports of gosling abuse. Satisfied that there was nothing of the sort going on, they went back to nesting, after giving a firm warning of their seriousness surrounding the issue. It was a close call. I’m grateful for the cease-fire. I look forward to the negotiations we have planned over cracked corn at dusk near the slate rock on the pond’s shore. It’s so beautiful at that time of day. All the things that seemed so important during the day, that you got yourself so worked up about, seem to fade away with the fading of the light. I’m going to risk being optimistic in this instance and look forward to the day when we can gather together there, 2 different species, and laugh over tales about our respective young. I’m sure we’ll be able to agree that they grow up so fast.
There’s been a lot of activity here this week and little time to write. Richard and I, along with our contractor/friend Keith, spent the past few days beginning to insulate and frame part of the upstairs of what had once been the hayloft to a rather large stable. All the various inhabitants of this house have never thought of turning over that space which seems like a huge waste. It’s a great feeling having our ideas, which have gone through many changes, begin to take shape as reality. Most of the week was forming a 2 X 4 frame structure inside the existing barn beams which we’d like to keep partially exposed and then filling that framing with 16” pieces of 3” solid foam insulation. Once Richard and I got the knack of it, we flew like a well-honed machine. I have a love/hate relationship to construction work. There are times when I’m amazed and grateful at this new talent I’m learning; “Me a carpenter?” I think. But then there are other times when this elation of reinvention holds no sway and my impatience sets in or my focus goes to the mess, the fiber glass dust and sawdust in the air that permeates not only the space we’re working in but the entire house, and a darkness descends over the land. In those times I think Lizzy Borden had a very good thing going. But this phase of construction and mess is over, not to begin again for a week or 2. That will entail electrical work and sheet rocking. Joy! Rapture!
Richard’s off for a real estate weekend and I’m watching over the various flocks. I’m also about to launch into a heavy cleaning of the house to make our abode ready for a guest this weekend. I’m sitting out on our screened in porch serenaded by birdsong, being watched over by our cats, and watching the skies change from clear to cloudy.
I walked up the hill for the first time in a week last night at dusk with Richard and the change in the countryside is astounding. The meadow is green, the trees are leafed, all is full and stretching out and showing off. I felt like transchanneling Walt Whitman. The earth was ALIVE!!
UPDATE: I was in the midst of cleaning the upstairs, popping my head out the window to see how the goslings were doing and they would be at the edge of the pen, beckoning me back, while the Canadians soared by overhead. I’d coo something out to the kids and go back to cleaning. Then on the third look, I was greeted bu the site of the 2 Canadian Geese landed, striding about next to the pen, surveying the surroundings. Oh great, I thought, what now? My heart’s pace ratcheted up a skosh as I grabbed a broom, arming myself for a skirmish, a skirmish I’d just as soon avoid. When I came out our back door the 2 adult geese turned to face me, and out of the pond, out of that docile, idyllic, floaty atmosphere, they looked pretty intimidating - big and beautiful. God, they’re beautiful. As I neared, the gosling spotted me and squealed their delight, the adults began hissing. No flapping wings, no attack mode, just a low hiss from both of them, like vipers. Oh great. I put the broom out in front of me which brought on more hisses, but slowly I was able to maneuver so the gosling’s pen was between me and them. They positioned themselves to either side of it in a kind of “V” action. With me in such proximity, the goslings had now calmed themselves and began swimming around in their little pool, oblivious to all the drama taking place. I OK Corralled the geese a bit and all 3 of us waited for the other’s next move. What now? Feeling in a poultry mood, I ducked down behind the pen and took a deep breath. I’m sort of a spiritual grab bag when it comes to some idea of Higher Power or Creator, but I just turned the whole thing over to God. “I don’t know what to do with this situation,” I said to whomever was listening, “so you take it.” I stayed squatted down and focused on the bobbing, splashing antics of the wee ones. Finally, one of the adults, I’d guess the female, turned and began slowly walking away, every once and awhile checking back over “her” shoulder. The remaining adult, let’s call it “him”, watched her go, perplexed it seemed. He turned back to me, gave a last half-hearted hiss, and followed her. And that’s when the Jehovah Witnesses showed up. A carload of them. And as the geese walked away back to the pond, I was invited to an “End of the World” symposium up in Burlington. The “witnesses” would have gone into a lot more detail about the upcoming event, but I put the kibosh on the proceedings when I informed them that I was gay and happy about that and that Richard and I had been together for 15 years. After that the subject shifted back to geese and they soon went off to save someone else.
When I recounted the goose showdown to Richard later, he felt that the sound of keening young instinctively sets something off in the adults, and that when the keening calms and quiets, the adults are in turn calmed and assured. I came to the conclusion that the geese were acting as representatives of their version of child’s services, come to check out reports of gosling abuse. Satisfied that there was nothing of the sort going on, they went back to nesting, after giving a firm warning of their seriousness surrounding the issue. It was a close call. I’m grateful for the cease-fire. I look forward to the negotiations we have planned over cracked corn at dusk near the slate rock on the pond’s shore. It’s so beautiful at that time of day. All the things that seemed so important during the day, that you got yourself so worked up about, seem to fade away with the fading of the light. I’m going to risk being optimistic in this instance and look forward to the day when we can gather together there, 2 different species, and laugh over tales about our respective young. I’m sure we’ll be able to agree that they grow up so fast.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Derek Meader
It was September 1978, a rainy day, at least it had been most of the drive up from New York City. Tom, the diminutive Irish guy who had waited tables with me at Leo’s at 72nd and Lexington and whose railroad apartment at York and East 90-something I had lived in for the past few months, had been kind enough to offer me a ride up to Trinity Square Repertory, the regional theatre in Rhode Island where I had landed a job. We’d piled into his beat up and LARGE station wagon that grey morning, and splattered our way north to Providence which was to be my new home for awhile. “The armpit of the east coast” many people I had asked dubbed it. I’d also heard “the junk jewelry capitol” or “major mafia stronghold.” All I knew was the theatre had a great reputation, I had an acting job, and I was venturing into New England for the first time. I was still recovering from having had all of my wisdom teeth extracted a few weeks before, but my flu-like symptoms seemed to lift and loft away as the rain eased then disappeared, replaced by an autumn chill in the air. I liked that, there was a familiar beckoning to it - autumn, September, going back to school, a call for new learning. It reminded me of a passage from a long forgotten short story I’d read: “the wonderful magic of the beginning of things, when work is unsullied by effort.” That’s what I felt when I stepped out of the station wagon across the street from the theatre and thanked and bid goodbye to Tom, someone I would never see again. I had stepped out of one chapter of my life and another was about to begin.
There had been a few heralds to this upcoming change. A few weeks before I’d treated a friend of mine to the production of “Dracula” at the (then) Martin Beck Theatre in New York and afterwards we had gone to Barrymores (now gone) for an after-dinner bite. (Because of my wisdom tooth operation, my “bite” was confined to a bowl of mushroom soup.) My friend and I began rehashing the show and as we did I had the curious feeling that we were being watched and studied by a lively group at the next table and when I turned to see if my hunch was true, they gushed introductions. All of them were Trinity Rep members and had heard of my being hired. This news was incredibly flattering because I doubted that anyone knew who I was. They too had just seen “Dracula” because a noted member of the Trinity company, Richard Kavenaugh, had played the part of “Renfield” the insect-eating captive of the count. They spoke in glowing terms of the upcoming season, of Adrian Hall - the eccentric and “genius” artistic director, and of the strong acting tradition there. I glowed inside and out with anticipation.
One member of this group would become a dear friend of mine and would soon instill a deep love for New England, a zest that probably helped pull me back here from Los Angeles. He was uncharacteristically untalkative that night, he simply smiled broadly from the other side of the table, erect and forward in his chair, his somewhat long hair framing a patrician face, hair that he would toss back out of his eyes from time to time with a distinguishing flair. His name was Derek Meader and if you didn’t know him, it’s your loss.
Where to begin with Derek? He was an actor, yes, but Derek “acted” in real life and it was by far a better performance than any he ever gave on stage. All the world was his stage. Not to say he was fake, no, he was simply being Derek. I always felt he’d been born in the wrong century for his mellifluous tones, his sentences which roundabouted themselves with elevated language, his carriage, his dress, his demeanor, his laugh, his stance, his grand gesture were all pure nineteenth. He had been a child prodigy on the violin, a gift which was snatched away due to a debilitating muscle disorder. He had been able to reteach himself and would play violin whenever needed in Trinity productions, but never at his former level. He had also been a dancer and that talent too had disappeared and had to be reclaimed. He had been Nureyev’s lover (I can imagine him swaddled in furs, riding across the snowy Russian steppes in a horse drawn troika.) He had traveled extensively. He dressed in a combination of expensive clothing and thrift store gay chic which always looked fantastic.
Derek had a terrific loft apartment in New York City at University Place and 12th Street, if memory serves. (Again, this recurring theme of a back-and-forth balance between New England and New York City.) The doorbell never worked; Derek would have to know you were coming. Either that or you could yell your voice box dry trying to get his attention. He’d usually be playing some classical piece of music at fever pitch. Eventually he'd stick his head out one of his windows from above (in all seasons) and toss a heavy ring of keys down. Then you’d wobble up a canted set of stairs up to his bank vault-like door. His was the first door of that kind I’d ever seen where the lock wound from the center, engaging several dead bolts in the door frame with the finishing touch being a metal pole that triangled from the center of the back of the door down to a metal grommet in the floor. Security! The loft was an eclectic and inviting space with high tin ceilings, comfortable tables and chairs and cushiony couches. Most often we’d drink a bottle of Folinari and wax away at whatever was striking our fancies. Oh, it makes me pine for youth and those glorious times in New York.
But back to New England!
In Rhode Island, Derek shared a fantastic place with his dear friend Richard Kneeland, an older stalwart of the Trinity Square Repertory who I had earlier met during my apprenticeship at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California. Richard and Derek lived in Narragansett, Rhode Island, about 30 minutes outside Providence, right on the Atlantic Ocean. Where they lived had once been a string of mansions to rival the opulence across the bay in Newport, but most were all gone now due to fire and age. They were living in what had been servant’s quarters of one of those long gone mansions and it was a splendid place with 4 or 5 bedrooms on the second story and an open living room and kitchen on the first floor chalk full of theatre memorabilia and pictures. You really felt as if you’d climbed into an old actor’s traveling trunk. It was so cozy and inviting, perfect for get togethers. And the back windows and doors opened onto a long sloping lawn down to the rocky seashore where waves continually crashed and geysered up. We would dive off those rocks into the smashing waves and the danger was exhilirating. Richard knew just when to dive in as the last wave was receding and by the time you’d surface the next wave would be gently swelling you up to the natural rock steps to ascend back up for your next daredevil dive. Thrilling!
But the piece de resistance was Derek’s family cottage up in New Hampshire. Derek was an only child. His father had died years ago of complications connected to alcoholism, but his mother – a tough, red-head with a thick New Hampshire accent – lived most of the year in a cottage on a petite peninsula on Merrymeeting Lake in southern New Hampshire. This more than Trinity, more than Providence or Narragansett or trips to beautiful Boston, marks my true first love embrace from New England. It was idyllic, those trips up Derek’s lake. The first was in September of 1979 with my first lover Greg, also living in Providence, also in Trinity productions. Everything about that memory hums in a timeless place. The photos from that trip – Derek reclining on a lawnchair, reading; views across the lake, me diving off the huge boulders into the crystal clear water, clear all the way to the bottom – transport me back. It was unseasonably warm during the day, cool at night. We’d play croquet on the front lawn, kayak around the point, drink bloody marys, concoct wonderful meals, and swim, swim, swim. I could not stop diving off those rocks! I felt like I was 10 years old again. I would return there with 2 other lovers over the years – Tim and Robert – and I think they shared a similar joy being there. I especially remember a rope tied to a tree off in another cove of the lake that you had to row to get to where we would swing out high above the water and let go with Tarzan-like yelps before crashing down into the bracing drink. At night the loons would call across the lake, that lonely eerie call. I’d conjure up Derek’s place whenever I’d watch "A Place in the Sun" and hear the loons call in the background of the scene where Montgomery Clift is out to drown Shelley Winters or "On Golden Pond" with Katherine Hepburn standing, warbling out to her favorite loon.
I wish Richard had been able to visit that cottage. I wish Richard had met Derek. They just missed one another in New York City when I was performing my one-man show “The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me …” in 1995. In one of the sections of the play, I commemorated an evening I’d had with Derek years ago in which he called me on my latent homophobia. Within the scene I played Derek befriending then lambasting an invisible me over my uncomfortability about being around someone so “effeminate.” I’m very proud of the scene, it’s probably one of the most political scenes of the piece, and I think I do Derek justice. And I’m grateful for the memory of that embarrassing and enlightening comeuppance. I’m also grateful and proud that Derek got to see it. I think he liked it a lot.
At the end of the run of the show before returning to California where I was living at the time, I traveled back up to Merrymeeting Lake for what turned out to be my last time there. I went there by myself this time. I’m wondering if his lover George was there? Or his mother? By that time she was beginning to fade with Alzeheimers, but in that funny way that memory freezes images of people as well as places, I imagined her still getting up every morning with her light pink bathing cap snugly on and tromping down to the lake’s shore for her early morning swim – very Katherine Hepburn indomitable. There were no special occurrences during that trip, just an easy time together, filled with strolls and swimming and the sound of water lapping. It was the perfect wrapping up of one chapter of my life – my play in New York City – and the coming of another, all in the embrace of the end of a New England summer.
Derek passed away in 1997 from complications due to AIDS. The last time he spoke to me he was up at the cottage, resting. I think I’ll always imagine him there. He’d just had a shunt put into his chest which he described with characteristic curiosity and aplomb. He sounded the same, carrying on with style with whatever life was bringing on. That’s what I remember most about Derek - the way he talked and the sound of his voice. That’s what I wish I could share with you right now. And so I’ll give you the next best thing. I think I captured the way he talked pretty well in my play, so I’ll give you a printed sampling from the very beginning of the Derek scene where my writer’s imagination weaves in with bits from a tape recording I had made of Derek years before:
“Once again, the food was terrible and I hate you, so … I’m off!”
[Derek crosses to a closet, hand held high ballet-like. He sets down his wine glass and retrieves a coat and dons it in preparation for his exit into the New York City winter outside.]
“So we’re meeting each other Saturday by the fountain. Good. I still can’t believe you’ve never seen “Tristan and Isolde.” Oh! Four hours of sturm und drang that will fly right by. It’s about two people whose love is so great that they die. They die. That’s what they do, they die. What they really do is die. You’ll love it.”
They included a reading of the “Derek” scene from my play in a memorial service held in honor of Derek at Trinity Square. It made me very proud.
The service was a celebration of Derek’s life.
There was a lot to celebrate.
There had been a few heralds to this upcoming change. A few weeks before I’d treated a friend of mine to the production of “Dracula” at the (then) Martin Beck Theatre in New York and afterwards we had gone to Barrymores (now gone) for an after-dinner bite. (Because of my wisdom tooth operation, my “bite” was confined to a bowl of mushroom soup.) My friend and I began rehashing the show and as we did I had the curious feeling that we were being watched and studied by a lively group at the next table and when I turned to see if my hunch was true, they gushed introductions. All of them were Trinity Rep members and had heard of my being hired. This news was incredibly flattering because I doubted that anyone knew who I was. They too had just seen “Dracula” because a noted member of the Trinity company, Richard Kavenaugh, had played the part of “Renfield” the insect-eating captive of the count. They spoke in glowing terms of the upcoming season, of Adrian Hall - the eccentric and “genius” artistic director, and of the strong acting tradition there. I glowed inside and out with anticipation.
One member of this group would become a dear friend of mine and would soon instill a deep love for New England, a zest that probably helped pull me back here from Los Angeles. He was uncharacteristically untalkative that night, he simply smiled broadly from the other side of the table, erect and forward in his chair, his somewhat long hair framing a patrician face, hair that he would toss back out of his eyes from time to time with a distinguishing flair. His name was Derek Meader and if you didn’t know him, it’s your loss.
Where to begin with Derek? He was an actor, yes, but Derek “acted” in real life and it was by far a better performance than any he ever gave on stage. All the world was his stage. Not to say he was fake, no, he was simply being Derek. I always felt he’d been born in the wrong century for his mellifluous tones, his sentences which roundabouted themselves with elevated language, his carriage, his dress, his demeanor, his laugh, his stance, his grand gesture were all pure nineteenth. He had been a child prodigy on the violin, a gift which was snatched away due to a debilitating muscle disorder. He had been able to reteach himself and would play violin whenever needed in Trinity productions, but never at his former level. He had also been a dancer and that talent too had disappeared and had to be reclaimed. He had been Nureyev’s lover (I can imagine him swaddled in furs, riding across the snowy Russian steppes in a horse drawn troika.) He had traveled extensively. He dressed in a combination of expensive clothing and thrift store gay chic which always looked fantastic.
Derek had a terrific loft apartment in New York City at University Place and 12th Street, if memory serves. (Again, this recurring theme of a back-and-forth balance between New England and New York City.) The doorbell never worked; Derek would have to know you were coming. Either that or you could yell your voice box dry trying to get his attention. He’d usually be playing some classical piece of music at fever pitch. Eventually he'd stick his head out one of his windows from above (in all seasons) and toss a heavy ring of keys down. Then you’d wobble up a canted set of stairs up to his bank vault-like door. His was the first door of that kind I’d ever seen where the lock wound from the center, engaging several dead bolts in the door frame with the finishing touch being a metal pole that triangled from the center of the back of the door down to a metal grommet in the floor. Security! The loft was an eclectic and inviting space with high tin ceilings, comfortable tables and chairs and cushiony couches. Most often we’d drink a bottle of Folinari and wax away at whatever was striking our fancies. Oh, it makes me pine for youth and those glorious times in New York.
But back to New England!
In Rhode Island, Derek shared a fantastic place with his dear friend Richard Kneeland, an older stalwart of the Trinity Square Repertory who I had earlier met during my apprenticeship at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California. Richard and Derek lived in Narragansett, Rhode Island, about 30 minutes outside Providence, right on the Atlantic Ocean. Where they lived had once been a string of mansions to rival the opulence across the bay in Newport, but most were all gone now due to fire and age. They were living in what had been servant’s quarters of one of those long gone mansions and it was a splendid place with 4 or 5 bedrooms on the second story and an open living room and kitchen on the first floor chalk full of theatre memorabilia and pictures. You really felt as if you’d climbed into an old actor’s traveling trunk. It was so cozy and inviting, perfect for get togethers. And the back windows and doors opened onto a long sloping lawn down to the rocky seashore where waves continually crashed and geysered up. We would dive off those rocks into the smashing waves and the danger was exhilirating. Richard knew just when to dive in as the last wave was receding and by the time you’d surface the next wave would be gently swelling you up to the natural rock steps to ascend back up for your next daredevil dive. Thrilling!
But the piece de resistance was Derek’s family cottage up in New Hampshire. Derek was an only child. His father had died years ago of complications connected to alcoholism, but his mother – a tough, red-head with a thick New Hampshire accent – lived most of the year in a cottage on a petite peninsula on Merrymeeting Lake in southern New Hampshire. This more than Trinity, more than Providence or Narragansett or trips to beautiful Boston, marks my true first love embrace from New England. It was idyllic, those trips up Derek’s lake. The first was in September of 1979 with my first lover Greg, also living in Providence, also in Trinity productions. Everything about that memory hums in a timeless place. The photos from that trip – Derek reclining on a lawnchair, reading; views across the lake, me diving off the huge boulders into the crystal clear water, clear all the way to the bottom – transport me back. It was unseasonably warm during the day, cool at night. We’d play croquet on the front lawn, kayak around the point, drink bloody marys, concoct wonderful meals, and swim, swim, swim. I could not stop diving off those rocks! I felt like I was 10 years old again. I would return there with 2 other lovers over the years – Tim and Robert – and I think they shared a similar joy being there. I especially remember a rope tied to a tree off in another cove of the lake that you had to row to get to where we would swing out high above the water and let go with Tarzan-like yelps before crashing down into the bracing drink. At night the loons would call across the lake, that lonely eerie call. I’d conjure up Derek’s place whenever I’d watch "A Place in the Sun" and hear the loons call in the background of the scene where Montgomery Clift is out to drown Shelley Winters or "On Golden Pond" with Katherine Hepburn standing, warbling out to her favorite loon.
I wish Richard had been able to visit that cottage. I wish Richard had met Derek. They just missed one another in New York City when I was performing my one-man show “The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me …” in 1995. In one of the sections of the play, I commemorated an evening I’d had with Derek years ago in which he called me on my latent homophobia. Within the scene I played Derek befriending then lambasting an invisible me over my uncomfortability about being around someone so “effeminate.” I’m very proud of the scene, it’s probably one of the most political scenes of the piece, and I think I do Derek justice. And I’m grateful for the memory of that embarrassing and enlightening comeuppance. I’m also grateful and proud that Derek got to see it. I think he liked it a lot.
At the end of the run of the show before returning to California where I was living at the time, I traveled back up to Merrymeeting Lake for what turned out to be my last time there. I went there by myself this time. I’m wondering if his lover George was there? Or his mother? By that time she was beginning to fade with Alzeheimers, but in that funny way that memory freezes images of people as well as places, I imagined her still getting up every morning with her light pink bathing cap snugly on and tromping down to the lake’s shore for her early morning swim – very Katherine Hepburn indomitable. There were no special occurrences during that trip, just an easy time together, filled with strolls and swimming and the sound of water lapping. It was the perfect wrapping up of one chapter of my life – my play in New York City – and the coming of another, all in the embrace of the end of a New England summer.
Derek passed away in 1997 from complications due to AIDS. The last time he spoke to me he was up at the cottage, resting. I think I’ll always imagine him there. He’d just had a shunt put into his chest which he described with characteristic curiosity and aplomb. He sounded the same, carrying on with style with whatever life was bringing on. That’s what I remember most about Derek - the way he talked and the sound of his voice. That’s what I wish I could share with you right now. And so I’ll give you the next best thing. I think I captured the way he talked pretty well in my play, so I’ll give you a printed sampling from the very beginning of the Derek scene where my writer’s imagination weaves in with bits from a tape recording I had made of Derek years before:
“Once again, the food was terrible and I hate you, so … I’m off!”
[Derek crosses to a closet, hand held high ballet-like. He sets down his wine glass and retrieves a coat and dons it in preparation for his exit into the New York City winter outside.]
“So we’re meeting each other Saturday by the fountain. Good. I still can’t believe you’ve never seen “Tristan and Isolde.” Oh! Four hours of sturm und drang that will fly right by. It’s about two people whose love is so great that they die. They die. That’s what they do, they die. What they really do is die. You’ll love it.”
They included a reading of the “Derek” scene from my play in a memorial service held in honor of Derek at Trinity Square. It made me very proud.
The service was a celebration of Derek’s life.
There was a lot to celebrate.
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