dream to get back to the classroom someday, she says. And she will, she says.
My own changes seem comparatively simple, partly because I leave out the agony of my divorce. I tell her only about my joys: the hours with my daughter (I show her my wallet photos). Looking at Vermeer. And my own love of teaching, which I canât foresee leaving. Ever. This is something we share.
Itâs late. Hours must have passed. She offers me a firm, goodnight hugâa moment, a genuine moment of warmth.
After she retires, I take a long, luxurious bath in the claw-foot tub. I float, I drift, my legs stretched out in the almost-scalding water. What an odd song, I think. This evening, this meeting, had not been what Iâd hoped for, not what I would have chosen for myself, but it was lovely in its own gentle way.
Next morning, Anne has an early meeting with contractors. At 7:45, I draw the door shut behind me. After I pull out onto the street, I stop at a Kwik-Mart, just down the hill. While the car is filling up, I grab a large, bad coffee, with an Otis Spunkmeyer blueberry muffin. Thus armed, I drive five hours back across the state.
The broad-crowned pines become a solid wall as the road levels out on the coastal plain.
When I get home, thereâs an email from Anne. How much she had enjoyed our night, hearing about my daughter, talking about art. Next time, it will be her turn, she promises, to make the drive.
I write back, It was my pleasure . Then I sketch out my schedule over the next few weeks for her. I tell how amazing she is, how much I want to see her again. Thatâs what I say.
But no one makes the drive, and she never writes again.
W ASHINGTON , D. C.
[ December ]
1. The Studio
Iâm walking through the peculiarly cold, damp air of Washington, D. C., on a rainy winter morning, December 26. My car is parked a few blocks from the Mall. Christmas had quietly passed, my holiday ending when I dropped Sophia off at her momâs new townhouse, promptly at two on Christmas afternoon. A pall of sentimental wood smoke hung on the gray air. This year, the new, younger husband, Hans, answered the door and let Sophia in. His smile was raw and cautious, and he didnât know whether to try to shake my hand. I half-raised my own hand, as if to wave, then backed away.
These are miserable moments. Anyone can see that he is a better match for Sara than I ever was. Itâs the aftermath of the divorce, with little relief in the feeling of defeat.
Iâve driven seven hours to see Woman Holding a Balance .
Iâve been to Washington before. In fact I was born here, in 1956, when my dad was teaching for a year at Georgetown, and Iâve been back many times. No matter: in the same way a painting becomes something else when you come to it in need, so cities can come alive for us and reveal their hidden worlds. But not this one, not today.
Now that Iâm middle-aged, I think sometimes of Donald Justiceâs poem âMen at Forty.â It begins:
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
âThe doors to rooms they will not be / Coming back to,â I think, as I walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I linger, for a moment, in front of the United States Navy Memorial. Itâs a plaza surrounded with an arrangement of flagpoles and patriotic, heroic bas-reliefs. I imagine it mightâve held more interest for me in an earlier life. Maybe when I was eighteen or nineteen, and in the Navy myself. Maybe not.
I turn toward the domed National Gallery on the Mall, and cross the street. The Cabinet Galleries within offer a permanent exhibition containing the four Vermeers, part of a Dutch suite that opened in 1995. The space was built expressly for the intimate Dutch and Flemish âcabinet paintings.â The term refers to small paintings, often actually kept in cabinets, such as Pieter de Hoochâs A Dutch Courtyard, Paulus Potterâs A Farrierâs
My own changes seem comparatively simple, partly because I leave out the agony of my divorce. I tell her only about my joys: the hours with my daughter (I show her my wallet photos). Looking at Vermeer. And my own love of teaching, which I canât foresee leaving. Ever. This is something we share.
Itâs late. Hours must have passed. She offers me a firm, goodnight hugâa moment, a genuine moment of warmth.
After she retires, I take a long, luxurious bath in the claw-foot tub. I float, I drift, my legs stretched out in the almost-scalding water. What an odd song, I think. This evening, this meeting, had not been what Iâd hoped for, not what I would have chosen for myself, but it was lovely in its own gentle way.
Next morning, Anne has an early meeting with contractors. At 7:45, I draw the door shut behind me. After I pull out onto the street, I stop at a Kwik-Mart, just down the hill. While the car is filling up, I grab a large, bad coffee, with an Otis Spunkmeyer blueberry muffin. Thus armed, I drive five hours back across the state.
The broad-crowned pines become a solid wall as the road levels out on the coastal plain.
When I get home, thereâs an email from Anne. How much she had enjoyed our night, hearing about my daughter, talking about art. Next time, it will be her turn, she promises, to make the drive.
I write back, It was my pleasure . Then I sketch out my schedule over the next few weeks for her. I tell how amazing she is, how much I want to see her again. Thatâs what I say.
But no one makes the drive, and she never writes again.
W ASHINGTON , D. C.
[ December ]
1. The Studio
Iâm walking through the peculiarly cold, damp air of Washington, D. C., on a rainy winter morning, December 26. My car is parked a few blocks from the Mall. Christmas had quietly passed, my holiday ending when I dropped Sophia off at her momâs new townhouse, promptly at two on Christmas afternoon. A pall of sentimental wood smoke hung on the gray air. This year, the new, younger husband, Hans, answered the door and let Sophia in. His smile was raw and cautious, and he didnât know whether to try to shake my hand. I half-raised my own hand, as if to wave, then backed away.
These are miserable moments. Anyone can see that he is a better match for Sara than I ever was. Itâs the aftermath of the divorce, with little relief in the feeling of defeat.
Iâve driven seven hours to see Woman Holding a Balance .
Iâve been to Washington before. In fact I was born here, in 1956, when my dad was teaching for a year at Georgetown, and Iâve been back many times. No matter: in the same way a painting becomes something else when you come to it in need, so cities can come alive for us and reveal their hidden worlds. But not this one, not today.
Now that Iâm middle-aged, I think sometimes of Donald Justiceâs poem âMen at Forty.â It begins:
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
âThe doors to rooms they will not be / Coming back to,â I think, as I walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I linger, for a moment, in front of the United States Navy Memorial. Itâs a plaza surrounded with an arrangement of flagpoles and patriotic, heroic bas-reliefs. I imagine it mightâve held more interest for me in an earlier life. Maybe when I was eighteen or nineteen, and in the Navy myself. Maybe not.
I turn toward the domed National Gallery on the Mall, and cross the street. The Cabinet Galleries within offer a permanent exhibition containing the four Vermeers, part of a Dutch suite that opened in 1995. The space was built expressly for the intimate Dutch and Flemish âcabinet paintings.â The term refers to small paintings, often actually kept in cabinets, such as Pieter de Hoochâs A Dutch Courtyard, Paulus Potterâs A Farrierâs
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