I don't really celebrate holidays, but I love sharing in the holiday traditions of my friends and family. One of these is one friend's family tradition of gifting only things that can be shared, ideally while together for the holiday. This way, everyone gets to enjoy a little bit of everything! Need some new socks? Well, you're in luck because I just got a pack of 12!
With this idea in mind, I wanted to share with you a short excerpt from my book. It is one of my favorite passages because it details one of the many adventures (this one in January, 1934) Maria Chabot and Dorothy Stewart enjoyed during their relationship. They had some very special times and I just can't imagine, at 21 years of age, having an experience like it....If only...
The last year has been very hard. The loss of my person has left me feeling unmoored and dissociated. Writing helps me to reconnect and remember why I started this project in the first place–and that was for my mom. She introduced me to Maria and was behind me every step of the way, until she wasn't. I like to think she and Maria are sitting together somewhere, laughing as they float little whispers of encouragement my way. There is so much research to go through that it makes the going slow but I've just three chapters left to go! You can probably guess what my New Year's resolution will be.
Anyway, I share this little tidbit in thanks of you. I am very lucky to have so much support in this journey and I very much appreciate all that you have given me. The least I can do is share a few words–both mine and Maria's–with you.
Happy holidays and all the best for a beautiful new year.
"Boston proved to be of little interest to Maria. It was just plain cold, punctuated by dinners and lunches with people as frigid and uninteresting as the weather. She was relieved to board a train north, back in solitude with Dorothy, heading on a snowy adventure that would end in Haverford, New Hampshire. Aching for sun, she thought back to the warmth and color and food of Mexico and even that one night in Havana, only three months past, when she and Dorothy “sweated in joy under one of those gay public portals sipping cold pineapple juice and Bacardi”.
The women’s destination was Dartmouth College, where yet another of Dorothy’s friends, José Clemente Orozco, was working on a commission. His mural, The Epic of American Civilization, would ultimately span 24 fresco panels, nearly 3,200 square feet, documenting the deleterious effects of colonialism, war, and industrialization on the human spirit. Unlike his contemporary Rivera, Orozco had been granted full political freedom to paint what he chose and did not shy away from imagery some conservative New Englanders deemed “not nice.” “If that be a criterion of judgement many of the great works of the medieval masters would have to be removed from the Louvre,” Dartmouth’s president, Ernest Hopkins, responded to the complaints.
Orozco had already been at work on the piece for two years when Dorothy and Maria arrived. Dorothy had come to learn more about fresco painting from the Mexican master. While Orozco clambered over scaffolding and Dorothy sketched and took notes, Maria spent time with Orozco’s wife, Margarita, and her three children. She also excelled at the art of people watching, curious about these people with whom all she had in common was age. Maria noted that students passed through the library where Orozco was working without seeming to notice the celebrated artist, or his work. “It is because they have too much art education,” Orozco explained to her.
This statement struck Maria deeply, for here she was, wanting higher education yet being told by someone at the top of his game that there is such a thing as too much of it. Still, she watched the students with great interest, picturing herself among them, carefree and natural, enjoying skiing, hiking and mountain climbing. Maybe someday she would be one of them. Until then, she was grateful for Dorothy’s ever-constant tutelage. At night, Maria would sit in front of a fire in the library, reading Russian literature. When her good eye got tired, Dorothy took over the words. The two began having spirited arguments over various topics, Maria overjoyed to possess knowledge with which to spar. This was a lifestyle that suited her.
Orozco was so close to finishing his wall, and the women so enjoying themselves, that they decided to extend their stay. Dorothy watched the finishing details with interest while Maria noted how easily Orozco seemed to work around his disability. Like her, an injury had left him missing something of his self, his left hand. The fact that he, a painter, could achieve so much with only one hand inspired her to focus more on her writing. Having the use of only one eye was a crutch that she needed to rid herself of.
“It is highly interesting to watch him paint—more interesting to have him tell us some of his technical problems…You can not begin to conceive the actual LABOR that a fresco painter faces: sitting, standing, lying, stooping on scaffolding 20 feet above the floor…he has only one arm and preferring to work alone, is faced with many awkward problems that tax his energy and strength,” she noted, in awe of his accomplishments.
The goodbyes were heartfelt when the mural was finished and the parties headed their separate ways–the Orozcos back to Mexico after ten years living in the States, Maria and Dorothy back to Boston. Intent on enjoying herself to the fullest, Maria gave Boston another chance and was surprised to find herself put happily off-kilter by its artistic extravagance. “We went to a woman’s house who bought a 3-story interior of an Italian villa and had it set up in Boston. It is all-around a patio, filled with beautiful, rare tropical flowers (steam-heated) and fountains. Here I saw my first paintings by Matisse and Giorgione—lots of original Tintorettos and other favorites of mine—sitting in a living room listening to a violinist and piano play Grieg & Beethoven…” she joyfully wrote home.
How she could craft such a life for herself weighed heavily on Maria’s mind as her travels with Dorothy came to an end. Maria was out of money and had been away from home for nearly two years. Her parents needed help with the family business and pleaded with Maria to assist, for she was adept at everything from calculating taxes to cleaning up the books.
She spent the long hours of the train back to San Antonio trying to figure out how she could bring her own life together in the kind of harmony Dorothy, and so many women she knew, had achieved. It would be a complicated chord to construct, but she was now her own woman, ready to be free from the constraints of home and school and society. It was making her art her work that would help to free her. That, and the love of Dorothy, were to be the music she made of her life."
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