The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile,
nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration
that comes to one when you discover that someone else
believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Dozens of warm eggs are placed into cartons on the large metal swing nearest the sliding door. The beat-up red truck comes down the lane for pick-up, driver waves, as I leave the barn. Walking past the apple tree the fresh air whispers the message ‘all is well.’ Like a song, the words follow me as the land slopes gently up toward the garden. I pause and breathe deeply taking in the scene. I am surrounded by beauty… the sweep of mowed meadows, grazing sheep, low red hen barn, farmhouse, the ring of trees leading my eye down to the ravine, and back to this lush fenced haven.

The garden fence forms an island standing within the surrounding mowed field. Today I feel a bit more confident about entering this private space. I lift the latch, pushing the gate. I know my way around and feel that I belong here. I can walk straight ahead or turn to the left or to the right, all paths wind and loop back here to the gate. The warmth of the earth inside the confines of the densely planted beds envelopes me with welcome. I move slowly looking for a place to sit on the thick bed of woodchips so I can lean back and simply observe.  

I am a skywatcher.  The garden is alive with a breeze that lifts the leaves and has the flower heads nodding as the zipping insects; honeybees, wasps, bumblebees, dragonflies, butterflies, grasshoppers, and small white moths go about their garden business. Looking past the plants I see the occasional passing bird and beyond it all the long barge clouds dragging their weight across space above.

I see my spot up ahead. I pass the trellis hanging heavy with green beans. The opening in the path creates a perfect niche for my next surprise. A voice says, “Hello.” I look to the left and squatting close to a large wooden bowl is my apparition. I recognize her by the long white braid as well as the long white caftan. She is picking beans, tossing them into the bowl. I smile shyly and am immediately ashamed for trespassing. She goes on, “I’m Alice, what’s your name?” I tell her and she inquires, “How did you come to be here at The Farm?” I say, ‘I am here with a friend.’ She seems fine with that and asks if I would like to help her pick. We sit completely hidden within this garden island, our hands winding in and out of the vines pulling the slender green beans and quickly filling the bowl.

The figure from the pond is here in front of me. She is beyond beautiful. There is an other-worldly quality to her. She tells me that she and Larry, her husband, are the owners of The Farm. She shares her love of young people, musicians, and artists, who are so welcome to come here and stay. I watched her rise out of the water yesterday yet she seems no more real today. I am awestruck. When we finish gathering green beans, she invites me to come along. She guides me out of the garden by a back gate, walking the opposite way from which I have come, she moves down the slope and toward the glistening pond. I have never been near anyone who looks, sounds, dresses, or moves as she does. 

I follow her and enter a dream.

Within feet of the sparkling pond, she slides the glass door aside, steps back with a gentle smile she indicates that I enter first. I move through the doorway into a completely open light-filled space. Where am I? What is this place?

She invites me to sit at the counter/bar on a high wooden stool that turns easily. I swivel left and see the dragonflies zipping above the sparkling pond. I turn back toward the bowl of beans to the kitchen area, a wonderfully cluttered arrangement of open shelves holding handmade dishes and mugs, a drying rack overhead filled with drying sprigs of this and that, the pond water pulling the eye out the window above the sink. I push my body toward the right to take in the room. From where I have perched the wooden floor curves gracefully to meet three broad stairs that create an entry to the lower level. It is a home unlike any I have ever seen. The main feature is the floor to ceiling windows as well as the indoor garden. Arranged among the potted plants, and scattered throughout the space are a number of large white marble sculptures that remind me of those I’ve seen in the Asian collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Framed paintings, as well as bowls and baskets, hold one piece of evidence after another that this is the home of an artist.

The garden corner of the lower area is bathed with light. I catch a flash of movement along the baseboards and behind the garden beds, I spy a small arched cut-out where a patch of daylight comes through. With surprise and delight, I watch a chipmunk run inside through the opening. I remark to Alice that I have just seen a small animal scamper among the plants. She nods softly and continues chopping saying, “Larry, knows how much I love this land. We started out in the old farmhouse where you are staying. When he built this house for us, he made sure that the indoors and the outside could talk to each other. We welcome the small animals that come and go. They seem happy staying in the garden corner.” I watch the chipmunk pause on a large stone. It takes its time cleaning its face; front feet tracing over top of puffed-out cheeks stuffed with treats.

This place is a church, inside and out, or at least how I would choose to experience church, quietly connected to something deeply mystical, magnetic, rich in true peace, surrounded by beauty.

Alice appears to float about the space. We visit throughout the day. Late in the afternoon she prepares tea, lights candles, and invites me to stay for dinner. Larry, the maker of the sawdust that fills the hen house and lines the garden paths arrives just as the plates are being taken off the shelf.  he stands out near the water, brushes off his overalls, and slaps his hat against his knee, then straightens his tall body and comes in. His hair and eyebrows are white, bushy, sproinging every which way, giving him a disheveled and wildly eccentric look. He welcomes me as though he expects to find me here. He thanks me for helping out in the hen barn and shows genuine interest in my being in the room. I feel like the center of attention, settling in over soup and salad. After clearing the plates Alice leaves the room. Larry puts the kettle on, makes tea, and we move outdoors, steaming mugs in hand, to sit by the pond. He describes his many building projects starting with the very first, decades ago, when they discovered the land; making the old farmhouse: a leaky roof, uninsulated walls, no heat source, livable for Alice, and their two small children. His favorite tell is in how, years later, he designed and built this hug-the-earth home for Alice. His deep soothing voice holds me rapt. Looking out over the water I wonder how I came to be in this place of ‘All is well.” No matter what direction I gaze, no matter who I see or speak to, this place brings me peace.

Larry asks my birthdate and draws a grid on a half sheet of paper with his thick flat carpenter’s pencil. Each square on the paper contains an unidentifiable symbol, like a foreign alphabet, each symbol appears to be steeped in the information that Larry gives to me. He proceeds to foretell my future/fortune. I do not understand. He is excited to inform me of what to expect, and what to look forward to. His delivery suggests that this future is something to look forward to yet I am unable to comprehend his words or to believe that I am worthy of good fortune. Nevertheless, I am tremendously comforted to be sitting with him, listening.

Alice reappears as I prepare to walk into the field of fireflies, past the garden, beyond the apple tree, to the farmhouse and my waiting sleeping bag. She gives me the same twinkly smile as when we first met in the garden and she says, “Come back in the morning. We will make watercolor poems.”

When was the last time that I held a paintbrush? I suppose it would have been at the ad agency when I applied washes of gray ink to my catalog drawings. Last summer. In another life.

I lie in the sleeping bag on the farmhouse floor staring out past the sheer curtains to the dot and dash pattern of fireflies streaking their light, circling my apple tree. All is well.

Upon my return, in the morning I see everything in a new light. This truly is a church-of-my-heart house. There is the wafting aroma of sandalwood burning, a stick of incense sends its plume up from a small bowl of pebbles on the table near the indoor garden. There is a welcoming berry basket filled with raspberries and thick slabs of whole wheat bread and a new taste, almond butter to accompany hot cups of mint tea. A collection of beautifully woven larger baskets hold art books, as well as supplies; glass jars filled with brushes and pencils, stacks of sketchbooks, watercolors, oil paint tubes, cotton rags, turpentine jars, rolls of thick paper tied with white string.

I walk over to look at the framed paintings, each one signed with a symbol that I learn is Alice’s signature. She also feeds me with stories, referring to the illness, she tells me that art school was difficult because she did not have good stamina. As a young girl, she suffered from life-threatening polio which made her weak yet at the same time steady in her studies. At art school, awarded a scholarship to study marble sculpture, she worked a full year in India learning from master carvers. She describes the slow and difficult task of learning to use the hammers chisels and rasps to rough out her drawing/design. She has me rub my hand over the craggy surface of the unfinished stone as well as the highly polished, gleaming white of the elegant torsos, some discreetly draped in a flowing translucent line indicating fabric.

She talks of traveling to this distant land alone. She speaks of fear. I feel a kinship when she speaks of being afraid of not measuring up. She is particularly afraid that her parents will forbid her to leave. She knows that they will discourage her from going to a foreign country because of her fragile health. She is afraid that her instructors, and perhaps even the art school, will judge her work harshly. She is afraid that she will be an embarrassment to them all.

As she shares her stories, letting me know what it was like for her when she was my age, she sets up a studio area for us and places the basket of watercolors and brushes in front of me. My shyness is palpable. I am afraid to move my hand in front of her. From my perch, at the kitchen bar, I swivel to the right keeping my eye on the movement in and out of the corner garden hoping for a distraction, swivel to the left watching the dragonflies darting over the pond surface, swivel to look at the way Alice moves the brush saturated with paint as she creates a watercolor poem. Magic before my eyes.

Alice speaks to me. Easily. This is a new experience with an adult. She speaks to me as an equal. She talks with me as if I might understand everything that she describes. I do not understand. I am mesmerized. I am transfixed but I do not understand. She breaks into a broad smile that is followed by a hearty laugh as she sweeps her hand across the room acknowledging the power of what she was able to achieve as a ‘sick young woman.’ She tells me that her instructors and parents were enormously proud of what she accomplished.

I take in the exceptional beauty of this home and the story of scholarship that allowed her to study for a year far away, bringing back this exceptional beauty made with the hands that I now watch move so fluidly across the paper creating her watercolor poem.

Over the next days, Alice speaks to me of loving land and community, peace-making, music, miso soup, chiropractic, yoga, and Bhai Hai. She uses words and explains concepts that I have no knowledge of, yet she acts as if I fully understand her every word. Each day, after a few hours together, she suggests that I enjoy a cup of tea and some reading as she drifts down a passageway disappearing around a corner into another part of the house. All is silent. All is well in this church.

When she reappears, she asks if I would like to stay for dinner. I collect vegetables in the garden, she scrubs, chops, and adds them to warm brown rice. Larry describes their next farm dream; he will build a smaller home located midway between the old farmhouse and here, on the edge of the ravine. Eventually, they dream of moving to the southwest near Abiquiu, less humidity, more like-minded people, a good place to grow old with friends.

I lie awake. My mind is a tumble of possibility. I belong here. I want to stay here. I listen to Larry as he shares his vision. I imagine my dream. I wonder what it will be like.

The next day after lunch there is an interruption that takes them both down the lane to the old farmhouse. When they return there is a seriousness as they inform me that L has suffered a slight injury; a twisted swelled ankle when she slipped off a log. They let me know how badly they feel that she is in pain. They tell me that they cannot take chances that our parents become angry and decide to file a lawsuit against them. They ask that L and I leave. 

It feels like too much. Within an hour my body is in the back seat of the beetle as my heart floats off over the cornfield, the car turns out of the lane and onto the winding country road.