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Personal Remembrances Patty DiLauria Now at the beginning of the New Year, and with the snow falling in Connecticut, the temperatures outdoors in the 20’s, let me tell you a story about Springtime, and about Laura. Many years ago, Laura bought her beloved home in Danbury. It was a place with a contemporary home nestled in the woods and down a field, and across a pond, there was a studio perched over a stream. It must have been the second year that she owned the place I came to call ‘Water Song’, when I visited her in late Spring. I recall how excited and pleased she was to be living there, surrounded by trees and water and rocks and fields. It was ever so beautiful there.
Over that winter, Laura had decided to garden. Being a city girl, I suppose that she had studied a good deal about gardening during the wintry days, then the cold, gloomy ones that would have followed. Anyway, her garden was perfectly sited off to the side, a pathway leading through a hedgerow. It was in full sun, the soil marvelously rich. And it was large, maybe 20’ X 30’ in dimension. For a first-time gardener, it was quite the vision and undertaking. With baskets in hand so that we might gather up a salad for dinner, I followed Laura. The garden was magical. It was outlined with string and wooden poles, tied no higher than 3 feet from the ground. And tied to the string, Laura had fastened ribbons here and there on all 4 sides. Hot pink ribbons. They were fluttering in the breezes. She explained to me that deer could be a problem for gardens, and while she didn’t mind sharing, she had read that deer could at any given moment decimate all that was there. And, so, she thought of this way to deter them. Imagine: string and fluttering pink ribbons.
The real beauty of it, aside from the surprise to the eye, was that it did work. Not only did deer not come while I was there, and we were able to fresh-pick our salads each day, but they never did come during that whole growing season. Given what I know about gardening, and it’s a fair amount, Laura’s insight worked. No books tell a gardener to do this. No book would ever suppose that it could possibly be effective. And most likely this poetic approach to gardening could only have worked for Laura. She had a way about her. And she had the ability to truly believe in magic.
Patty DiLauria Books. If there was anything Laura loved to have all around her, it was books. There were certainly a thousand volumes in her cottage, all of them beautifully accessible on simple shelves on one wall of the cottage. They were organized by category: poetry, art books, fiction, feminism, animals, sociology, philosophy, etc. Her library was a world of riches, riches of the mind and soul. As time would have it, I had opportunity to enjoy Laura’s books during the last months of her life. It’s funny, but a particular volume entitled, “Art and Nature”, an illustrated anthology of nature and poetry, caught and held my attention. It is a slim volume as these things go and, perhaps because the demands of life and death at this time were so present, it became a treasure to me. Fine art, fine poetry----quickly, quickly seen, read & sustaining. Early one afternoon when Laura was feeling well and, for once in such a long while, the sun was streaming in the windows, I suggested that we three, Laura, Maria and I might play a game. Even before I said what it was, Laura and Maria were IN. Well, I said as I brought the book to them, what if we, each of us singly, look through this book and find a work of art that is perfect for expressing the nature of each of our souls----and why? Each of us will take the time to rifle through the pages and mark the art work that we think will best express how we perceive the others and ourselves. I passed around the sticky note pads---one color for each of us. I don’t remember who went first, but I know that I went last because I had already done the assignment, before it was an assignment. When things were still and quiet and all by myself, and just for myself. Time passed and the liquid, golden sunshine was the only thing moving through the cottage. The silence was profound. It was like being in a cathedral when no one was there. First one, then the other, and finally, I marked the pages. We all waited. Who would go first and explain the why of our selections ? The time kept passing, slowly, languorously, as we did a show- and- tell. We, each of us, hung on the words of explanation of the others. Never before, nor since, have I shared such sweet intimacy with words and with art as the medium. To say that it was fascinating would be an understatement. In this book there are 145 paintings from which we might choose. We each selected one work of art for each of us, the one that best expressed the others’ soul as well as our own to us. Our choices and our reasons were all different, all very individualized. There was one exception: both Laura and Maria selected the same work of art that personified me. It wasn’t the one I had selected for myself. Their reasons were different, but they chose the same painting. I was stunned. And what I has always known was confirmed: the depth of their connectedness was profound. When we were all through, the game all played out and the sun going low in the sky, Laura said, “Now THAT’S a great use for a book!” We had spent a few hours, enjoying the finest things in life, art and dialogue, and one another. And quite honestly, when I consider the sincerity we put into our efforts to communicate with one another so deeply, I feel that this represents the greatness possible within each and every one of us, here and now. May I suggest that you play the game? P.S. I’ve looked at this painting numerous times since then, and even had the opportunity to see it in an exhibit. Every time I look at it, I’m grateful that this is how they knew me. It is Pierre Bonnard’s “The Terrace at Vernon”.
Barbara Cobb
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