home

Sigh of relief.  After nego­ti­at­ing five air­ports suc­cess­ful­ly, I am at Red Gate Farm.  And after an intense­ly hot and sun­ny day spent unpack­ing and weed­ing the ter­race, the skies have opened and the rain is pat­ter­ing gen­tly down in the great upside-down bell of the side mead­ow, pool­ing in the gut­ters that want clear­ing out, and drip­ping from the roof of the big red barn.  I am home.

John and Avery picked me up last evening, one of those gold­en-blue Con­necti­cut evenings when there seem to be more orange lilies wav­ing in the breeze than you knew had grown on earth, when the hour’s jour­ney from the air­port sees the skies turn to pink and pur­ple, mak­ing every­thing look misty and per­fect.  Our own gar­den boasts one last per­fect lily.

This was an intel­li­gent strate­gic deci­sion on the part of our lit­tle farm­house: to appear first in a dim, dim light.  Because poor thing, it’s suf­fered over the long snowy win­ter.  We have arrived to dis­cov­er the ceil­ing of the laun­dry room falling down, mold in the rafters and pathet­i­cal­ly stained walls in the liv­ing room.  Repairs are in order.

It’s a small price to pay for the lux­u­ry of hav­ing this love­ly oasis to come to twice a year.  Poor thing, aban­doned all win­ter while we cavort­ed in Lon­don, all spring while we moved into our new house.  But now it’s Red Gate Far­m’s turn for some ten­der lov­ing care.

First up on the agen­da was to switch out the gor­geous win­ter glass doors for the clever screens made by our clever car­pen­ter.  “Avery, because you are a city child, this is your first expe­ri­ence liv­ing with a screened-door.  DO NOT, EVER, open or close them by the screens!” John warns.  It takes awhile.

Nev­er mind, it will all come right in time.  Mean­while, we can turn our atten­tion to the impor­tant things in life: weed­ing the ter­race, rid­ding the wide lawns of a spring’s worth of fall­en sticks and branch­es, vis­it­ing the super­mar­ket and the farm­stand and fill­ing the fridge with Amer­i­can food and drink: sweet­corn, Amer­i­can cheese, limeade, enor­mous kosher dill pick­les.  It’s impor­tant to take time to appre­ci­ate the July buds of the hydrangea tree, whose sea­son­al blos­som­ing marks the tran­si­tion from begin­ning of sum­mer, to time to say good­bye, every year.  Thank good­ness today it was “hel­lo, hydrangea.”  We have a whole sum­mer to enjoy.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.  In between leav­ing Lon­don and arriv­ing at Red Gate Farm, I have been “home.”  How many places can one call home, any­way?  Well, three, if you’re me.  The third, but by no means least impor­tant, is my child­hood home in Indi­ana.  And that’s where I spent the last five days, with my moth­er and brother.

It breaks my heart not to include my adored father in this list of loved ones, because while I was able to vis­it him, he was­n’t at home.

In Feb­ru­ary, our fam­i­ly was forced to the con­clu­sion that my bril­liant dad, life­long sharpest brain — and tongue to match — in the Mid­west and beyond, must be moved to anoth­er stage of his life, in a home where he could be prop­er­ly cared for.  Alzheimer’s spares no one.  The dis­ease has tak­en my pre­cious father into anoth­er dimen­sion, a place where we can­not fol­low.  How sharply I felt his absence when I emerged from the walk­way from the plane, how keen­ly I missed his sharp gaze, his tight and encir­cling hug.  “Here’s the Kreep­er, then, whad­dya know, safe and sound,” he would say, using my child­hood nick­name with no embar­rass­ment, effort­less­ly shoul­der­ing my heav­i­est bag, “What the dick­ens do you have in here, rocks?”  In the old, dear days, how I loved his dash to grab lit­tle tod­dler Avery from rush­ing into the crowds, “Hey, you lit­tle monkey…”

My dad, who rel­ished the hot days of sum­mer that would bring me home for a vis­it, who adored dis­cov­er­ing the track­ing soft­ware that would help him fol­low my flight in the skies, who could­n’t wait to show me the tallest toma­to plants in his gar­den, the plumpest spec­i­mens, bran­dish­ing with­out eco-obsessed shame his spray can of Mir­a­cle-Gro… who aban­doned any fam­i­ly dis­cus­sion when it was time for his evening roller-blad­ing ses­sion, who sin­gle-hand­ed­ly (my lit­tle self thought) kept all of Cen­tral Indi­ana in its right mind (“I’m out spread­ing men­tal health,” he’d say with irony as he went off to work)… he is anoth­er per­son now.

That dad has been replaced by anoth­er, qui­eter, more puz­zled man.  I approached him at his home, sur­round­ed as he was by warm, lov­ing ladies hold­ing his arm, coax­ing him to eat.  They were not expect­ing me.

“Hey, here comes some­body who means some­thing to the Doc­tor!” one nurse said, watch­ing my dad stand up straighter, take his hands out of his pock­ets.  His eyes stared mag­net­i­cal­ly into mine as I greet­ed him, press­ing a framed pho­to of Avery into his hands.  He clutched it tight­ly, I asked if I could hug him, and after a few sec­onds his arms came around me tight­ly, the framed pho­to in one hand.  We stood a bit apart, he star­ing intent­ly at me.  Was he look­ing for some­thing, I won­dered, or was he try­ing to tell me some­thing, or both?  I could only look back, try­ing both to give and to receive, what­ev­er the impor­tant mes­sages might be.

“Want to take him for a spin around the porch?” a nurse asked.  “Hold tight, don’t let the Doc­tor wan­der, because he will,” she warned.  I took him around the shoul­ders and we descend­ed in the ele­va­tor, work­able only with a code to be punched in, on his safe, safe floor.  We went out the front doors of the home, for my dad the first time in the fresh air since Feb­ru­ary.  He lift­ed his face to the sun.  “I know you love to be hot and sweaty,” I said, “so let’s take a lit­tle walk.”

We walked around the porch, greet­ing fel­low res­i­dents with the hes­i­tant smile he he has now — by no means shy, just reserved — and emerged into the park­ing lot, where he iden­ti­fied cars as Ger­man, and I remind­ed him of his Ger­man car when I was a lit­tle girl, ask­ing, “Do you remem­ber your license plate said ‘PSYCH”?  And Mom’s said “PSY­CHE.’  Because you were a bril­liant psychologist.”

“Was I real­ly,” he mar­velled.  “Unbe­liev­able.”

A lot of things are unbelievable.

We had our walk, and I held him around the shoul­ders, so dimin­ished now, so far removed from the broad, beefy swim­mer’s shoul­ders that accom­plished the fastest but­ter­fly stroke in his Wis­con­sin high school, the shoul­ders that car­ried my suit­cas­es, plant­ed toma­toes, cra­dled my daugh­ter.  “Do you remem­ber tar­ring the dri­ve­way togeth­er every sum­mer, Dad?”  “Did I do that this sum­mer?” he asked.  “Of course,” I lied stout­ly.  “Every sum­mer, get­ting so hot.”  “Some­times too hot to work,” he remembered.

Some­times.

Sud­den­ly, as we walked, he leaned into my enclos­ing arm and said, “Bet­ter.  Bet­ter now Kreep­er’s here.”

I felt that the world had start­ed all over again, from the moment before.  “Bet­ter for me too,” I said.  “Bet­ter for Kreep­er to be here.”

It seems to be the pro­found­est mys­tery of the world, where my father is now.

And home again, to cher­ish being with my moth­er.  Where on earth did her sense of design go since I seem to have inher­it­ed none of it; did it skip a gen­er­a­tion to emerge in Avery one day, when she has her own house?  My moth­er has spent the last six months throw­ing her­self into projects to enliv­en our child­hood house, her home of 45 years.  Every room is stamped with her inim­itable style: warm, cozy, personal.

Every room con­tains fur­ni­ture made by my father, dis­cov­ered and refin­ished by my moth­er, her hand­made sam­plers, her chi­na col­lec­tion, her shad­ow box­es.  A home filled with the pos­ses­sions and love of a life­time of family.

She is brave beyond any­thing I could have imag­ined.  What fun we had.  She invit­ed her best friend Janet to lunch, and I cooked for them a com­pli­cat­ed, fresh­ly sum­mery sal­ad of chick­en baked in a parme­san crust, on a bed of but­ter let­tuce with steamed heir­loom pur­ple pota­toes, tiny toma­toes, dev­illed eggs.  We rev­elled in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny, with a life­time of friend­ship to amuse us.

And we went out to lunch, to the gor­geous and mys­te­ri­ous (no sig­nage!) Black Mar­ket Bistro on Indi­anapolis’s Mass Ave.  Tongue sal­ad with beets and cot­tage cheese!  Ice­berg let­tuce wedge with creamy dress­ing, roast­ed rain­bow trout on a bed of arugu­la with two kind of olives and pan­zanel­la — stale toast­ed bread, a sort of supe­ri­or crou­ton.  Heav­en, with my old friend Amy.  A joy to see her.

An evening con­cert in an Indy “pock­et park,” sur­round­ed in the hot, steamy Indi­anapo­lis sum­mer air by old, cher­ished friends, here Shel­ley and Amy again!

Cozy times at home with my moth­er, my broth­er, going through child­hood mem­o­ries, some­times lit­er­al­ly in boxes.

Of course there was time to bond with Maisie, my moth­er’s boon com­pan­ion, fur­ry con­so­la­tion in so many moments of the new life we are all learn­ing to accept, at home.

And one whole day spent cook­ing my moth­er’s — and my! — favorite foods, stop­ping to switch the sprin­kler in the gar­den, to try to draw breath in the awe­some Indi­ana humid­i­ty, and final­ly to wel­come old friends for a com­plete­ly heart­warm­ing sup­per par­ty on the gor­geous back porch, built by my dad years ago.  Crab­cakes, Moroc­can meat­balls, fried huge shrimp, stuffed baked mush­rooms, col­or­ful three-cab­bage slaw, steamed aspara­gus with shaved Asi­a­go… and pals from the past.  What a joy to see Kevin and Todd…

My clos­est friend in the world from child­hood, Amy… turned up total­ly unex­pect­ed­ly as my moth­er’s new land­scape gar­den­er.  There IS such a thing as fate.

And hap­pi­est-mak­ing of all, Kev­in’s and Amy’s gor­geous daugh­ters, first cousins and the clos­est of friends, Colleen and Jesi.  I believe that is the way we sur­vive the pains of adult­hood: we rev­el in watch­ing the next gen­er­a­tion leap whole­heart­ed­ly into the joys of THEIR whirl­wind ride.  Long may it last.

That was my vis­it “home,” bit­ter­sweet, filled with child­hood and adult mem­o­ries, leav­ing me with grat­i­tude for the life I had as a lit­tle girl, with two lov­ing par­ents I cher­ish, a sis­ter and broth­er I love and don’t see near­ly often enough, friends in abun­dance who still sur­round my moth­er with love.  A beau­ti­ful way to start my Amer­i­can summer.