The Hunt

In 1971, after our June honeymoon, Arthur and I moved into his little apartment above a garage - three little rooms, strung off a narrow windowless hallway. What might have seemed otherwise a bit grim, was in fact the exciting beginning of a long adventure of babies and houses. The garage stood as a sentinel at the foot of a long, winding drive that led up to the house - a 20+room mansion that overlooked the marshes that lead to the sea. A path lead through the marsh, under the railroad bridge to a glorious little stony beach. We lived rent-free. Arthur fed the cats.

Occasionally I would walk up the driveway with Art so he could feed the cats and I could play the harpsichord. How could you do better than to play a tapestry of Beethoven A minor triplets on a harpsichord in a 40 foot sunken living room overlooking the Atlantic? The notes floated up and out like the sparrows and quail that lived amidst the grasses.

But I was 21 years old and I did not fully appreciate the wild beauty at our doorstep. We could walk along the marsh in all seasons. Marshes now are magical to me. Liminal places -threshholds of mystery and otherness. In the fall, marshes glow orange and gold. But back then, I was fresh out of college (finished in three years because I was anxious to get on with life) and ready for larger things.

My first larger thing was a job working the register and bagging groceries at the little A&P in downtown Beverly Farms. Larger world? Why sure. I had never bagged groceries before.

Arthur taught 5th grade at The Brookwood School, the private K-8, practically right across the street. Our landlord was part of the ‘Brookwood family.’ The call must have gone out in the inner private school network, because I got a job that fall teaching French and Latin at The Pingree School in South Hamilton. I was only three years older than some of my students. At the moment, I don’t remember much about all that, except the day when I was teaching Camus’ L’Étranger. As I was blah-blah-blahing about existentialism (which I didn’t understand), I walked into an open closet at the front of the room, still talking, just to see if anyone was listening. It took a while for them to miss me.

In the fall, the members of the Myopia Hunt Club would gallop by out in the fields - dressed in all the finery, with the horns, the dogs, the horses, and a fox, I presume. Caesar and his Omnis Gallia divisa est in tres partes could wait! The Hunt was the thing.

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I did not intend to write about The Pingree School today. The narrative just drifted that way and drifting narratives make us human. I called the school to ask if they had any old yearbooks. They did. I drove over to leaf through 1972-75, looking for proof that I was there. Looks like Mrs. Arthur Beane put her folk guitar chops to good use! I must say, walking into that elegant old building this morning was quite odd. (I even peeked into that Camus classroom to see if the closet was still there. It was.

I quit teaching a few years later. I remember telling Arthur that I needed time to think. Hmmm. I never taught full time again, although I did spend many years as the itinerant music/language carnival barker in various schools.

Truth was, I did need to think… about other stuff I wanted to try. I was not ready to settle into the steady life of a teacher. As it turned out, I never was ready to do that.

* * *

There was no hint of painting in my background, but I was intrigued with Arthur’s Famous Artists School Correspondence course, a huge looseleaf binder full of instruction by Norman Rockwell and Albert Dorne.

I took my first painting course at Montserrat School of Art in the summer of 1972. At that time, Montserrat was behind the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly. I remember our class setting up for a plein air session alongside route 128 to paint a row of poplars that lined the highway.

Over the years, I just never stopped. But painting always shared the stage with music and writing. I spent many teenage hours learning Peter Paul and Mary tunes, Tom Rush guitar riffs and at the piano, Vince Guaraldi, putting the needle back, back again on the LP in the family stereo, which, as I recall, was the size of a couch. Until a certain point, my writing was mostly for song lyrics. My deep dive into writing began with the 70 odd journals I filled, trying to make sense of mid-life.

When I am deep into one art form, the others melt away.
When I am a painter, I think I’ve forgotten how to write music.
When I am a composer, I think I don’t know how to paint.
When I am writing, I think there’s nothing more important in the world.

This makes for a large dose of the imposter syndrome, but truth be told I love the juxtaposition of it all - the opposites - old and new; classical, jazz; words, pictures, songs, hot, cold, the woiks.

Over the years, I’ve read that it would be wise to concentrate on one area of interest and expertise. I couldn’t.

And so, here I am, 50 years later, still trying to make sense of it all.

* * *

Chewing Gum Man

Remember I was telling you about the man on London’s Millenium Bridge, lying on his side, painting teeny scenes on dried-up pieces of chewing gum stuck in the cracks? He gave me his card. The Chewing Gum Man. Tourists paid no attention. Is he at peace? Does he ever wonder if he’s taken a wrong path? And what makes any of us do what we do anyway? I squirrel away at my computer with writing projects, wondering if I should get back to the guitar or that my painting career is dead in the water the days slipping by while my knees become more and more arthritic and threads of memory fray. Terrifying, when I think of my mother languishing away for 10 years, her mind gone. What’s the point? Maybe I’ll head up to Vermont for a dose of assisted suicide when the time comes, but I won’t know when the time comes. So, there you have it. Back to the chewing gum, the writing, the bossa nova, the watercolors and whatever else I want to discover in this wide, wide world.

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Stay curious.