Beginnings

I grew up in an eleven-room house built in the mid-1800’s, a house surrounded by fields, a pond, a brook, acres of woods and a stand of ancient soaring pines. The property sustained wild and cultivated flowers, birds, butterflies and moths and animals such as deer, raccoon and fox. The ecosystem contained a cranberry bog, blueberry bushes, grape vines, wild strawberries and fruit trees.

Heady fragrances, home-remedies and ingredients for recipes emerged from the brick-paved herb garden. Stonewalls, an antique sundial and old-fashioned roses climbing over white trellises were part of everyday life. No one could find me? Check my secret hiding places: lichen-covered logs, carpets of green velvet moss and tiny pools patrolled by damselflies and dragonflies.

The seasons circled. Winter came and went, marked by ice skating, toasted marshmallows, snow angels, ice igloos, snow shoeing, cross-country skiing and cold toes. Jewels sparkled when the sun’s rays danced on ice-coated tree branches.

Spring arrived with the flowering of pear, peach and apple trees. Opposite my bedroom window, sprays of crabapple blossoms foamed high above the second story. The intoxicating scent of Persian and common lilacs permeated the house and gardens.

Spring was the season when we paced the perimeter of the property, duplicating the ancient ritual of “beating the bounds”. Armed with sticks like our English predecessors, we noted which boundary markers needed straightening and which stonewalls required repair. It was a way to honor the land and to celebrate our good fortune in being its owners.

During summer afternoons, I practiced the piano. Neighbors walking by would stop to listen to the music of Bach and Mozart issuing from the open window of the music room. Birds accompanied my playing with their songs while they perched on boughs of the cedar tree that reached three stories high beside the window.

Summer meant picnics in the countryside, hikes to pick blueberries and huckleberries and excursions to a dam along the local river. I launched leaf boats into our brook and followed their course downstream. When I wanted to rest, I stretched out on an Indian blanket spread over Mother Earth, inhaled the smell of freshly mowed grass and watched cloud formations sail over me.

During steamy August days, neighbors took refuge under the lawn’s mighty trees. I was too busy giving tea parties for my dolls to pay the adults much attention. “There was a pink and blue tea cart with tea pot, creamer and sugar bowl. You silently poured cold tea into tiny pink teacups and saucers. Before serving each cup, you nodded and touched your heart.”

The dolls sat in a circle around me on the grass: Cassandra and Hector, the twins, and Andromeda, Artemis, Europa, Hepzibah, Penelope; Hebe, Rosebud and Jason. I loved them all, but Cassandra and Hector were my favorites. Cassandra was one of my family nicknames; it was said that I could foretell the future. And I longed for a brother. “Call him Hector,” I begged my parents.

Jason held a special place in the circle. I always served him first. There was no doubt in my mind that when I grew up I would sail with the Argonauts and be by Jason’s side when he discovered the Golden Fleece.

Autumn was the time to scuff through dried leaves before we raked them into piles at the edge of the road. The acrid smell of burning leaves was a signal that colder, crisper weather was approaching. The wispy tendrils of smoke that rose and circled above the cones made the mounds look like miniature, active volcanoes.

Every room in the old house had a distinct atmosphere. My favorites were the dining room and the library. Both were hushed and serene cocoons in which sounds from inside and outside the house were muffled and muted. They were spaces for meditating and dreaming.

Another beloved spot was the hayloft. The view to the back was of the woods, lawns, gardens and pond.

To the front, I could follow the course of the lively brook, watch the ancient elms along the road or monitor the forsythia bush, which was large enough to conceal a small child. I reclined against scratchy bales of hay, wrote in my diary and composed tunes for family birthdays. I wrote plays for the neighborhood children that I later staged on a granite ledge behind the pond. The scenery was the forest, and in late spring the audience sat on cushions of lilies-of-the-valley.

My mother was dark and mysterious. She was Mother and Friend, but it wasn’t until much later that I realized she was my first Teacher. She was a magnet for the neighborhood children and young people who needed someone to help them with their lessons, someone to have fun with and someone to whom they could confide their deepest fears. She moved about the house assuredly and calmly or wove herself into the community, collecting for charities and visiting the sick and elderly. Guided by her example, I shone in my own circle, teaching reading and mathematics to slow learners in the lower grades, providing leadership to youth organizations and harmonizing with the network of relationships that bound the community together.

I inherited my mother’s laugh and my father’s looks; however, laughing did not come easily. I found the family’s situational humor puzzling and stared with solemn blue eyes at that noise they called “laughter”. How I wished someone would explain what it meant! Even Santa Claus kept forgetting to bring me the ability to see the funny side of life. And then one memorable day, the unexpected happened; I was baptized with a sense of humor.

My parents told me that when it was warm, and the moon was full, I would slip out the back door in my long, white, lace-trimmed nightdress and head for the lawn beneath the crabapple tree. Believing that no one could see me, I would dance to the moon. “It was a goddess dance,” they said, “bending, bowing and stretching your arms up in supplication to the moon.” Still thinking myself invisible, I would tiptoe back into the house and resume my place in the kitchen until bedtime.

My mental landscape was of the ocean, boats, fog and the aurora borealis. The sounds of the foghorn and creaking masts. But my dream landscape was of the high mountains and plateaus of the Himalayas, lamas in saffron robes, prayer wheels and the piercing bass notes of eight-foot long trumpets, images gleaned from my mother’s collection of books about Tibet. How I longed to penetrate that distant land! To experience it first-hand, not from an author’s description.

There were portents of things to come. Sign posts to point the way on a road that I never realized I was traveling. In a department store in Lisbon, Portugal, I saw a deep blue bowl, the perfect size for a family salad. I accidentally hit the rim, and a beautiful ringing tone filled the store. I listened, entranced. I bought it and sounded it until I discovered Tibetan singing bowls.

And there were the Alps! My heart leapt at the snow-covered heights, the solitary trails, mountain hamlets and the all-encompassing silence broken only by a distant cowbell or a thundering avalanche. The juxtaposition of blue sky and white snow and ice thrilled me. I was content to spend hours watching and listening to the mountains.

And then I knocked on the heart of Oaxaca.

My first encounter with Oaxaca resulted from reading about its markets, supposedly the most varied and colorful in all Mexico. I had to see them. Markets were a favorite of mine. So was folk art. And I loved Mexico.

Soon after I arrived in the City, I bought a package of chocolate bread. Back in my room, I greedily tore open the cellophane covering and took a bite of the bread. As I swallowed it, I knew I would be sick. I translated the first ingredient, “uncooked egg yolk.” Within minutes, I was in bed. I had just enough strength to pop pills into my mouth, place the medicine bottle on the nightstand to my left and a photograph of Our Lady of Solitude, the Patroness of Oaxaca, on the table to my right.

I closed my eyes and succumbed to a violent headache, stomach pains and intense pounding in my ears and eyes; distress coursed through my body. My stomach refused food, but my senses fed on the contents of the City’s markets: produce, bread, chocolate, meats and fish. Recovery was slow. By the third day, I sat in an armchair by the window, basking in the sun and sampling the blandest food that the hotel’s chef could cook.

Later in the week, I booked a tour to the ruins of Monte Alban, which crown a mountain outside the City. Up, up went the van. The higher it went, the more light-headed I felt. Arriving at the ruins, I was dizzy and had to sit on a stone block at one end of the vast plaza. I looked around in a daze. The guide said that the altitude was affecting me because I had been sick. So, no sudden movements. Only snail-like ones. No gazing up into the sun, no climbing the pyramids nor descending the stone steps into the ball court. Just resting or taking a few steps while I waited for the tour to end.

Before returning to Boston, I entered the richly gilded and painted interior of Santo Domingo Church as the streaming rays of the setting sun poured through the west door. Molten gold exploded from the main altar and burst into a yellow radiance, which filled the nave. Stunned by the magnificence of the light that enveloped me, I vowed to return to Oaxaca. My heartfelt intention melted into the extraordinary blaze that transfigured all that it touched. It took years to fulfill that vow. But I did return. I returned again and again, drawn as if by a spell, enchanted by the web Oaxaca wove around me.