Time went on as it does. The ticking of my biological clock had stopped and I made a phone call to an adoption agency. I scheduled an
appointment to go to an orientation.
During that time, the group was deeply involved in the
process of building on a site that had been purchased in Pawling, NY which was
to become our new Country Retreat (CR). There was a non-profit corporation formed named the Hudson Valley Artists Foundation. It was a 20-acre property with 2 houses on it – a main house and a caretakers cottage. I was responsible for almost all of the architectural drawings.
Our previous CR had been in Mahopac and there were concerns about our privacy since there was some new construction planned adjacent to the property. Sharon and Alex had had a house right down the road from the house in Mahopac that had burned down in 2002. There were some rumors that they burned it down themselves for the insurance money. There were other rumors that it was an electrical fire and when they realized the house was on fire they called a student, T, who lived nearby and he came over to investigate. Who calls a friend when their house is burning down instead of the fire department? I remember Sharon coming into class after the fire and telling us about it. She told us that her house was totally destroyed (which it was) and that she had lost EVERYTHING and was now homeless and without her possessions. This I later learned was not quite true. She had a co-op on 12th Street, a house in Southampton and a ranch in Montana. She was hardly homeless. She was in some ways a great actress. Her performances were for us though and performances they were. She had a small part in the movie version of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and had been active in the off-Broadway theater scene in the 1960's but her "career" on the legitimate stage never got farther than that.
Our previous CR had been in Mahopac and there were concerns about our privacy since there was some new construction planned adjacent to the property. Sharon and Alex had had a house right down the road from the house in Mahopac that had burned down in 2002. There were some rumors that they burned it down themselves for the insurance money. There were other rumors that it was an electrical fire and when they realized the house was on fire they called a student, T, who lived nearby and he came over to investigate. Who calls a friend when their house is burning down instead of the fire department? I remember Sharon coming into class after the fire and telling us about it. She told us that her house was totally destroyed (which it was) and that she had lost EVERYTHING and was now homeless and without her possessions. This I later learned was not quite true. She had a co-op on 12th Street, a house in Southampton and a ranch in Montana. She was hardly homeless. She was in some ways a great actress. Her performances were for us though and performances they were. She had a small part in the movie version of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and had been active in the off-Broadway theater scene in the 1960's but her "career" on the legitimate stage never got farther than that.
One very wealthy student G had purchased the property
outright. I think the price was close to $430,000. We were all asked to make a
minimum contribution of at least $1,000. A number of us were asked to make much
larger contributions as well. I was asked to contribute $100,000. I gave them
$50,000 to start and when I was asked for the second installment, I said that I
had second thoughts about it and didn’t want to contribute any more.
Gratefully, I wasn’t pressured about my decision nor was I punished for it. I
had several friends who I knew did not have the money and I paid for their
contributions as well as my own. In return, we were told that this property
would belong to all of us equally and were would all be able to enjoy it
whenever we wished to. It was a lovely place, with an in-ground pool and I did
spend many happy weekends there in the summer.
We created a “master plan” for the property which included
adding a large dance studio/performance space onto the main house, building a
smaller house just for Sharon and the other “teachers” as well as building
three additional buildings that were to serve as “studios” for the different
artists. The Foundation was set up to offer “retreat spaces” for artists (who
had to complete an application process) to come to work and live for various
lengths of time in a beautiful country setting. The truth as that the three
additional building were for us to live in on our weekends there.
They applied to the town of Pawling for tax free status as the
Foundation was a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. The deal was that in exchange
for the elimination of the property taxes, we would present performances and
workshops open to the residents of Pawling. I don’t remember all of the specifics but we
literally dressed up the property one weekend for the town to come visit. We turned
all the buildings into studios. I remember creating a fiber studio – I brought
my spinning wheel along with lots of fiber and fabric. We also created a
writing studio, a painting studio, etc. and then we took it all home at the end
of the weekend. They never did qualify for tax free status. In addition, there
were a couple of instances where the fire company came because the alarm was
set off for some reason. They were really paranoid about having uninvited
people on the property – mostly because we had a Certificate of Occupancy for I
think something like 12 people and on any given weekend, we had probably 30
adults and 25 children on the property. Eventually, they put up a gate that was
to be locked at all times in order to eliminate the threat of surprise visits
by any town authorities.
That summer, I had given up my architecture job in the city
and moved up to Pawling for the duration of the construction to be the resident
architect. Of course, I drove to Manhattan twice a week for class getting back
to Pawling usually about 3 or 4 am. I was exhausted and frustrated. Being in
Pawling greatly reduced my ability to meet people (i.e. men) and get on with my
project of trying to at least adopt a child.
One particularly frustrating/despairing weekend, I was
sitting and chatting in the kitchen with a number of people. A few of my
friends were present as well as one of the teachers, G. I was talking about my
dissatisfaction with my life and with school. I was getting no closer to having
a man and a child in my life and I said out loud to everyone: “It’s not like
the love of my life is going to walk in this door here.”
Well, strangely enough or not, the following weekend, the
love of my life did walk in through that door. I don’t know if G told Sharon
about my state of mind and the whole thing was engineered but it did happen. We
had been told to prepare for a bunch of extra guests. We were given a “shock”
and a number of men from the Boston group came for the weekend to help with the
construction. They walked in silently one by one on Friday night. Saturday
morning, someone told me that the man who ran the school in Boston was looking for me. I am going to call the man who ran the school in Boston Mr. Manchurian Candidate (Mr. MC for short). Mr. MC wanted to talk to me? I had really no
relationship with him and couldn’t imagine what he wanted me for. When we
finally spoke, he told me that Sharon and he had thought that one of the men in the group and I might be
interested in each other. He told me to try and make friends with him, talk to
him, sit next to him at meals, etc.
I liked him. We seemed to get along well. We had a lot in
common. I thought there might be some possibilities. He asked for my phone
number on Sunday before they left. I was on cloud #9. My friend J said that if
he was interested, he was would probably call me towards the middle of the
week. He called me Monday morning. Wow. We spoke daily after that. He asked if
he could come to NY to visit me the following weekend. He came and we had a
great time. He came again the following weekend. I was caught up in a whirlwind. I was in love.
The second weekend he came to NY, he said to me, out of the
clear blue sky, that he had always wanted to adopt a baby girl!
He had no idea of my struggles with infertility or my
despair over not having a child. He had three boys from a previous marriage
(also to a woman who had been in school.) and I knew that since we lived in different cities, I was going to be the one who had to move. I was in shock.
To make a short story even shorter, a few weeks later we were married. From the day we met until our marriage, seven weeks had passed. I don’t think that if I had not been in school I would have gotten married so quickly. It was another some of those school “things”. I had wanted a small wedding and a party but Sharon insisted that we “elope” as soon as possible and not tell our families. We were married by a Justice of the Peace in my small back yard on 10th Street. It was just the two of us and the two dogs…
To make a short story even shorter, a few weeks later we were married. From the day we met until our marriage, seven weeks had passed. I don’t think that if I had not been in school I would have gotten married so quickly. It was another some of those school “things”. I had wanted a small wedding and a party but Sharon insisted that we “elope” as soon as possible and not tell our families. We were married by a Justice of the Peace in my small back yard on 10th Street. It was just the two of us and the two dogs…
