When Father left the boarding house, I remained there, and continued to live in it, because it was near the school. He was living in some other part of Somerset, with some people he had met, and he spent his days at work, painting landscapes. In fact, after that winter in Bermuda he had finished enough work to have an exhibition, and this made him enough money to go back to Europe. But meanwhile, I was going to the local school for white children, which was next to a large public cricket field, and I was constantly being punished for my complete inability to grasp the principles of multiplication and division.
It may have been very difficult for Father to try to make all these decisions. He wanted me to go to school, and he wanted me to be with him. When both these things ceased to be possible at the same time, he first decided in favor of the school: but then, after considering at length the nature of the place where I had to live, and the kind of talk I heard there, all day long, with my wide-open and impassive understanding, he took me out of the school, and brought me to live where he was. And I was very glad, because I was relieved of the burden of learning multiplication and long division.
The only worry was that my former teacher passed along that road on her bicycle on her way home, and if I was playing by the road, I had to get out of sight for fear that she would send the truant officer around and make me come back to school. One evening, I did not see her coming, and I was a little late in diving into the bushes that filled a deserted quarry and, as I peeked out between the branches, I could see her looking back over her shoulder as she slowly pedaled up the white hill.
Day after day the sun shone on the blue waters of the sea, and on the islands in the bay, and on the white sand at the head of the bay, and on the little white houses strung along the hillside. I remember one day looking up into the sky, and taking it into my head to worship one of the clouds, which was shaped at one end like the head of Minerva with a helmet--like the head of the armed lady on the big British pennies.
Father left me in Bermuda with his friends, who were literary people and artists, and went to New York and had an exhibition. It got good press and he sold many pictures. His style had developed, since Mother's death had delivered him from landscape gardening. It was becoming at the same time more abstract, more original, and simpler, and more definite in what it had to say. I think that the people in New York did not yet see the full force of his painting, or the direction in which he was going, because the Brooklyn Museum, for instance, bought the kind of pictures of Bermuda that might be thought remotely to resemble Winslow Homer, rather than the things that indicated Father's true originality. And anyway, there was not much in common between him and Winslow Homer, except the bare fact of having painted watercolors of sub-tropical scenes. As a water-colorist, he was more like John Marin, without any of Marin's superficiality.
After the exhibition was over, and the pictures were sold, and Father had the money in his pocket, I returned from Bermuda, and found out that Father was going to sail for France, with his friends, and leave me in America.
Merton has just lost his mother to stomach cancer. Now, his artist father achieves some modest success with his paintings and decides to leave Merton in America while he pursues a bohemian existence in France. I wouldn't be surprised if Merton suffered from abandonment issues for most of his adult life. The two most important people in his childhood leave him--his mother, not voluntarily; his father, completely voluntarily.
Everyone, young and old, experiences loss. Sometimes, it's simple: losing a tooth. Sometimes, it's complex and devastating: the end of a life, a marriage, a job, a friendship. We all face the same struggles. And, like many self-help books will tell you, it's how you react to these struggles that define who you are.
As most of you know, 2019 was not a good year for me. Lots of upheaval and loss. I couldn't wait to have all 365 days behind me, never to be thought of again. Memory doesn't quite work that way, however. I find myself returning to the last days of last year with a bit of retrospective falsification at work. When the present becomes the past, the human psyche has a way of whitewashing the experiences, polishing them until the rough edges are gone and all that's left is beautiful and shining. It's how flawed childhoods become "the good old days." How flawed human beings become saints.
I'm sure, in about 11 months, I will be looking back fondly on the events of this past Christmas season. Although, financially and emotionally, it was a difficult December the 25th, I will always have one golden memory: my son and daughter finding out that Santa was bringing them a puppy for Christmas. The joy of that moment will be with me for the rest of my life.
Really, that's what happiness is all about. Pushing away the feelings of abandonment and focusing on the puppy moments. It's a choice. This evening was the culmination of the promise of Christmas, 2019. We went a picked up the newest member of our family--an eight-week-old female Miniature Australian Shepherd named Juno. My son and daughter took turns holding her on the way home.
I maintained that vow until this past December. Now, I am the proud father of a four-legged, blue-eyed fur baby. My kids couldn't be happier. (My daughter kept looking at Juno tonight and saying, "She's perfect." My son practiced his trombone without a major meltdown.) My wife, while anxious about raising and training a puppy, is in love with her, as well.
Me? I held Juno in my arms as she slept for 45 minutes tonight. I swear I felt my blood pressure decreasing as I listened to Juno's sleeping breaths, felt her heartbeat against my chest. I felt calmer that I have felt in months. It was a moment of unconditional surrender, trust, and love.
Saint Marty hasn't had one of those moments for a while.
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