WEBVTT

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"One day, I saw them.

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Our dream horses.

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And on that day, I pulled
over to the side of the road

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and cried.

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There they were.

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Appaloosas and roans and bays.

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And I thought I saw, squinting
into the last bit of sunlight,

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a gray.

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All the horses moved
together, a makeshift herd.

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Maybe they'd heard my car,
or maybe it was a chill.

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The first winter breeze, almost
imperceptible on a summer day.

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So many years later, and now
here they were in front of me.

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The horses trembled,
shifted, and then

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became calm and
separated out again.

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12 or 20 of them.

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More than enough for the
Alison and Kate Horse Training

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Company.

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She saved me.

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That's the first thing you
should know about Kate.

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It was the year we
moved to Weston,

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the year my parents
went haywire.

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The year my back started
curving out of control,

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as if it were the
life of the party.

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She was 5' 7", and had long
brown hair bleached by the sun.

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And her father was
an Egyptian emperor.

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Was he for real?

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Real enough for a
small suburban dynasty.

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Real enough to pass on a legacy.

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I think of Kate all the time.

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I think of her like I've got
this little silver Egyptian cat

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in my pocket.

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A little silver talisman
that won't go away.

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I think of her, and
then I think of him too.

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Tut Hamilton, sham
shaman in suburbia.

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I can't forget him any
more than I can forget her.

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The thing is, she saved me that
year, and then it was my turn.

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That's what friendship is,
that's how to make history.

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I was 13 when my
parents and I moved

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to the fancy town of Weston,
from maligned and honorable

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Norwalk, two towns over.

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We were ready for anything.

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Ready for the good things
to start happening.

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And the first thing that
went wrong was the Blue Room.

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Mom wanted her
studio to be blue,

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despite the fact that
most painters prefer

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a room absent of color.

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A blank wall.

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A clean palette.

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She'd had a vision, you see.

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A dream of a blue room.

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My father offered to
paint the room for her,

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but she would choose
the color, of course.

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She and I went to the
paint store together.

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"These men, they're
painting the world.

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Creating color wheels, color
contrasts, color inspirations,

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without any real conception.

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No awareness at all
of what they're doing.

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They could be artists, but no.

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No.

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Instead of using these
glorious choices.

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All the glory, all the
opportunity, Alison,

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they just sit around drinking
coffee out of a thermos,

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and painting houses
tan, tan, and tan again.

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How dreary."

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She continued talking as
we got out of our Corolla--

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it also happened to be tan--

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and walked the short
distance from the parking lot

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to the shopping center.

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I did hope she'd stop, or
at least lower her voice,

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before we got to the store.

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She had a way of causing a
commotion despite her size.

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She was a tiny, fragile
person swathed in scarves,

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and perfumes, and charms.

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Men of uncertain age and weight
looked our way as she came in.

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Scheherazade and the
too tall, too bony,

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too elbowy stock in a
back brace beside her.

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My mother breezed by their
troubling, huntery expressions,

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and we settled in
before the paint chips.

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I just turned 13.

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My back was curved, and my
parents were curved too.

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Bohemians in Connecticut,
the land of plenty.

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Either all the colors looked
good to me, or none of them

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did.

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Somehow it seemed that
this, like everything else,

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could go either way.

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Mom, however, was confident.

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She hummed with
satisfaction picking out

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various small hopeful
cards from the rack.

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Cocking her head,
pursing her lips.

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Rejecting one than the other,
until she came to her blue.

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Today they've gotten
hold of Weston,

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and thrown up these
monstrous, vault homes.

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Decorated with pillars and
neo-this-and-that architectural

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details.

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But in 1975, the lovely
colonials were what stood out.

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The historic touch.

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Some even had plaques near
the doorways saying things

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like "Paul Revere
slept here in 1782"

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or "In 1801, here stood
at Weston's first mill."

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The split levels,
such as ours, built

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in the aesthetically
challenged '60s

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were scattered like tawdry
cousins among these statelier,

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storied homes.

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Still, moving to 12 Ramble
Lane was a big step up for us,

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and my parents had attached
hopes to the house.

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Obvious as the taped
up notes left behind

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by the house's former owners.

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"Use five watt bulb max."

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"Filter hose needs to be
checked two times a year."

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Mom had torn down their notes
impatiently the first day

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we moved in, replacing them
with a sign of her own.

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Purple felt with silver letters,
it hung on the door of her

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soon to be blue room.

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Her first real studio.

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"Artist at work."

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She could turn it to face
in or out, indicating

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whether she was open or closed.

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A novel idea in a mother.

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Dad's office was
in the basement.

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He had another at
the University.

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But most of all, he seemed
keen on a certain green hillock

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in the backyard, where
he could sit cross legged

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and rumble with a
middle aged ohm.

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We were all up now, decked
out in zesty Marimekko.

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And although the first
two weeks in Weston

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passed in a kind of misty,
glorious, disappointment,

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most of all, we felt
lucky to be there.

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In a town of lilacs,
and curving roads,

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and studio doors that shut,
and hillocks, and a barn."

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