|
Linda found an apartment
closer to the hospital, in fact, on the same street and when she told me
there was another one for rent just a little over a block from her I was
ready to move again.
This time we were moving
into a basement apartment. The house was actually an old mansion and had
been renovated to house four different families in apartments. There had
been days of elegance and fine living in this house and some of that still
was showing through, at least in the middle upstairs part. Rich, thick
carpet, spongy to the step and in ultramarine, dark blue suggested those
by-gone days of wealth and prominence. This was on 13th Street.
Steps led down to where we
lived. It was at the top of these steps that was to come as my second
salvation, the one standing close to the Creator who manages all things.
This simply was the salesman who was working at his job.
When Rod and I were living
at Tonkawa and in school there I had sent off for one of the tests art
schools advertise. This one was to the then School of the Famous Artists
at Westport, Connecticut. That had been at least four years before. Our
landlady had told me about this man and described him to me but somehow or
another we missed each other. Several people discouraged me about the
correspondence school, saying it was a rip-off for money and wasn’t at all
a good thing so I just dismissed the matter.
Meeting the salesman face
to face was a bit different than just hearing about him. He wasn’t a young
man and must have been approaching middle age. The man had a charisma
about him that was undefinable. This certainly didn’t come through in a
talkative way. Actually, he was a bit stand offish and almost seemed bored
with what he was seeing. Probably the humble surrounding of the basement
apartment didn’t give him any belief that I could afford their course.
He spoke briefly about his
company and said he would like to show the course to me, but I put him off
and asked him to come back when Rodney was home. He made an appointment
and did come back.
We visited about this and
that, nothing of great importance. I mentioned to him that his accent and
vocal qualities were similar to our Native American people.
“I am one half Mongolian.”
He told me. “My mother was White Russian.” I then understood his
personality. The man ended up leaving his books so I could browse over
them. There was so much about art in them I couldn’t get enough and when
he came back to explain how I was to turn in lessons as I finished them we
purchased the plan for eight hundred dollars. I never talked about it to
anyone because I knew there would be disapprovals from family and friends.
Instead I kept them on a small desk at the corner of the living room and
every extra moment I had was spent working on them. There was anatomy, the
study of light, perspective, color theory, line drawing, painting, old
master’s work, abstract mood symbols, landscape, portrait, drawing of
animals, design, use of multiple media and so much more. My world was
opening up in such a great way I couldn’t believe I was suddenly seeing
things I had never seen before. As I sat waiting for Rhonda from this or
that therapy, I referred to pages I had simply taken from the note book
like books. There was no time for loneliness or depression now. The old
master’s became my friends and it was a bit spooky as I copied their work
to study. It was if they were looking over my shoulder and when I made a
mistake I could almost feel them correcting me. When I told Rodney about
it he looked at me in a strange way so I never spoke about that again.
Later when I saw originals in museums there was such a connection to the
artist sometimes I found it hard to tear myself away from a particular
piece. I remember standing in front of Christina’s World by Wyeth in a
Dallas museum. I knew nothing about the particular painting but couldn’t
wait to research it. When I learned it was a painting of a disabled girl
who was on the ground in a wheatfield I knew then why I was so pulled
toward it.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/W/wyeth/christinas_world.jpg.html
So it was, depression would
never become a threat to me again. Of course, there were times when I was
sad, but never was I brought to the place where it affected me physically
with nausea, weight loss, or black despair.
Linda and I carried the
children back and forth to the hospital and between times we had lunch
while the kids played. Linda had a special soap opera she loved and I
dutifully watched it with her.
Oklahoma City still had
Spring Lake, then. This was a recreational park where there was a large
swimming pool, rides, and other activities. The afternoons after the soaps
the two of us would pack up the kids along with their strollers and off we
would go. Linda was like a little sister to me and even over the years I
have loved her like family. When her husband was home from his traveling
job we four, along with the children would get together on an occasion for
a meal. Linda brightened our life as no one else could have.
Rodney and I were still
attending Bible studies. I met a different group and these were very
pleasant. They were older people who, no doubt, had lived in this area for
some time. One of the Bible studies was held in a house not too far from
me.
The evening was quiet on
this street after the day traffic was finished. The feel of the wide,
well-kept, tree lined, city street had its own reverie. It was like a
sleepy older woman who was resting comfortable in a lounging robe before
she retired. Everything was just as it should have been. To be sure there
would be no calls of peacocks or an old whip-poor-will wistfully whistling
his threat in a minor key, it was after all still a city. The silence of
this broad street was complete except for an occasion slapping of tires on
the pavement as someone rolled along to a night time errand of some sort.
Another house like this one
was close by and it was where the meeting for Bible study was being held.
It had regal Grecian columns on the entry way. The door did not go
directly into the house but was off to one side. Once inside there was a
startling decor with ceilings so tall it might have been a bank or some
other similar building. The heavy furnishings, even though they were dark
and massive, had been dwarfed by the room’s size and height.
There was a prayer, the
welcome and then the question and answer held by a study conductor. The
material was always so interesting. There never was a repetitive subject
and for all my life I wondered how, after studying for so many years this
could be possible. This evening was no different and I was totally
engrossed in some event of another time from an ancient happening of so
far away and long ago.
Like a wisp of hair blowing
across our eyes that is too fine to be of real annoyance was a feeling to
come over me. When I looked up from my Bible book my eyes were caught with
the most burning gaze and I don’t believe ever before or after has such a
thing happened to me. This man was my age but certainly unmarried. He was
handsome with the most striking appearance. Rock Hudson couldn’t have held
a candle to him. He didn’t seem to be bothered that we were in a room with
a fair number of people who were there to study the Bible. It was as if
this man could have shown me his love and desire with his eyes alone.
Trying to keep my mind focused on my study was almost impossible. I was
drawn like a moth to a flame and I couldn’t help myself but to glance up
again to meet his gaze. There couldn’t have been more passion in the
moment than if we were on the floor dancing the tango instead of sedately
sitting in the presence of seasoned Bible students. After the study he was
at my side in an instant as if he couldn’t contain his wanting to
immediately know me. Rodney and Rhonda could have been a shadow he
intended to walk straight through.
“So this is how things
happen.” I was trying to call up all the women of the Bible who so boldly
broke God’s laws, Delilah, Bathshebah, Salome and it wasn’t working.” Upon
learning his name even that spoke of a handsome, glorious, kingly person.
I was actually thankful for Rodney’s guiding me carefully but surely out
the front door. We never spoke of the incident. |
