Post #118 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Women’s Memoirs is pleased to present the Grand winner of this month’s Labor Day contest. Our congratulations to Patiana.
LABOR DAY MEMOIR CONTEST
FINDING THE RIVER
by Patiana McMahon
On the Labor Day before my last year of college, my friend Tom and I planned to bicycle 20 miles or so from the house I shared with two housemates in White Plains to the Croton River to swim. We had been looking forward to finding the river ever since another friend told us about it. Despite the clear, blue morning sky, Tom seemed reluctant to go.
“Damn, I forgot my sneakers. It’s gonna be hard to ride in these work boots,” he lamented. “And it’s supposed to rain this afternoon,” he added, clearly wanting to postpone the trip.
It was difficult, if not impossible, to sway me when I had my mind made up. Tom’s excuses, as reasonable as they were, failed to quell my desire. I pleaded. He acquiesced, as I knew he would, and we were off.
Pedaling past the Valhalla dam, through Hawthorne, we then entered the affluent hamlet of Sleepy Hollow with its manicured lawns and houses set far apart from one another. Almost in Croton, I felt nauseous from the heat and exertion and asked Tom if we could stop for awhile. We pulled off of Grace Lane onto a shady trail that led us to our destination, Glendale Road, which our map indicated ran parallel to the Croton River.
Long swathes of light raked through the trees in the yards of the homes lining the street. The river was visible below the houses on the western side of the road. But like a dangled carrot, access to it eluded us. We rode further. At a hairpin turn, a narrow unmarked lane turned towards the water.
“I think this is it,” I told Tom, eager to get wet. He looked at me skeptically, but sharing my exasperation, agreed to try it. Midway down, in front of a small, red house, with large glass windows overlooking the river, stood a man about our age who was working on his bicycle. Looking out, brilliant sparkles, like tiny flames, glinted off the water’s surface in a frenzied dance.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“We’re trying to find the public access to the river,” Tom explained.
“This is a private driveway,” the man who resembled the musician, Jackson Browne, told us. “But I can tell you how to find the aqueduct that leads to the swimming area.”
As soon as we were back on the road, Tom and I exclaimed almost simultaneously “Isn’t that a nice house.” As we deliberated over whether the dirt path we had previously passed was the aqueduct, the young man who had directed us rode up alongside us. His collarbone looked strong inside the V-neck of his shirt.
“C’mon, I’ll show you where you need to go,” he said. So we followed, Tom behind him and me in the rear.
“You’ve got a great house,” I heard Tom say.
“Thanks, yeah, it’s pretty quiet,” he said. ”Where do you live?”
He seemed impressed when we told him that we had bicycled from White Plains. Then he mentioned that he and his fellow housemate had a room for rent, in case we knew of anyone who might be interested. Tom, knowing that I yearned to move away from the noisy street I lived on as soon as I got my first car, suggested I change places with him, so I could inquire. The room for rent was described as an artist’s garret, topmost in the three story house, overlooking the river.
“Whoever moves in must like cats because we have two,” the man added.
We asked if we could stop by and see the room after our swim.
Plunging into the river from a boulder which jutted out like a penninsula was well worth the long bike ride on a hot, humid day. A great blue heron squawked and flew above us as we swam.
When we returned to the red house to see the room for rent, we exchanged introductions; the man we had met was named Noel. His housemate was Randy. The room’s eaved ceilings, red carpeting and wallpaper rendered it womb like. Its main window faced the river, as described.
I liked it immediately and felt comfortable with Noel and Randy. I told them I would think about it. On the ride back home, my mind returned to the possibility again and again. I had never lived in such a woodsy setting or been so near to a swimmable river before. As we approached the Valhalla dam again, lightning zippered through sky, which turned murky and let loose a torrent of rain, just as Tom had predicted.
After deliberating about the distance from school and sharing a home with two men instead of a man and a woman, which I was presently doing, I decided to move in.
When I was not in school or working, I found myself spending time with Noel who seemed delighted to show me around. I was pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree at the state college in Purchase, the same degree that Noel had attained a few years prior at the prestigious Cooper Union in New York City. Noel’s artwork decorated his room; an exquisitely rendered pen and ink drawing of his cat, Vincent, a series of owls in flight for a national magazine, watercolors
of landscapes and portraits of friends.
We discovered that in addition to our shared love of art, we enjoyed the outdoors. We hiked together at Breakneck Mountain and along the Croton Reservoir. He was as sure footed as a deer while crossing wide streams and could manage to do so without getting his feet wet. Noel’s footsteps were easy to discern from Randy’s due to their swift deliberateness as they ascended the spiral staircase in the center of the house.
Noel became my muse fuse and willingly assisted me with taking photos that I dreamed up. When I brought in a bare chested black and white portrait of him to class, several classmates assumed he was a dancer. To complement a handmade book of quotes I was making, Noel showed me several painting styles including wet washes and Jackson Pollock like drip paint techniques.
On an unseasonably hot and humid October afternoon, after playing tennis together, I became flushed and uncomfortably hot. I asked Noel if he wanted to take a dip in the river to cool off. It was almost dark when he unlocked one of the canoes that were kept by the water’s edge. We paddled to the area where it’s deep enough to swim. I peeled off my clammy clothes and jumped in. Sweat hissed off of me as if I were a hot frying pan suddenly immersed in cold sink water. Noel jumped in after me.
Often we stayed up late talking. When winter arrived, I cross country skied for the first time and Noel taught me how to downhill ski; his favorite sport. Noel differed vastly from my previous boyfriend, Harvey, who had broken up with me a year prior after a three year relationship. He had complained about the inevitable subsiding of passion that marks the passing of the initial phase of a love affair; claiming that I had become too much like family. A family, I should explain, that consisted of an invalid father, a mother who was a psychologist and a binge drinker and a sister he didn’t speak to.
Noel’s description of his childhood with two parents who loved and cared for him dearly, was the least traumatic upbringing I had ever heard of. His parents lived just a few miles away from him.
While Harvey could be critical and once told me that he didn’t think he could ever be truly happy, Noel was harmonious and complimentary. In his eyes, my freckles, which I hated as a child, were more beautiful than plain skin and reminded him of a bird’s speckled egg.
Under a full moon, one snowy night at Croton Point Park, we made love under a pine tree. We also made love on his water bed, or in a hammock he had strung up in a shed by the waterfront or anywhere else that seemed comfortable when the spirit moved us.
After Noel and I had been living together for two years, a female friend asked me to share her home and I agreed. Noel and I had lived together before we dated. I wanted assurance that our togetherness could withstand the lack of convenience that sharing a house affords. I accepted a few invitations from other men while I lived away from Noel but none matched his caliber nor came close to the degree of compatibility that we shared.
On one of our annual sojourns to the summer house his family owned in Rhode Island, after making love under a blanket tent on the deck, we bicycled to a wildlife sanctuary. Noel stopped to have a drink of water. Beside a grove of flowering mountain laurel he said, “We should get married.” as if he were stating his preference for dinner.
“O.K.” I replied.
And so we did… in his parent’s back yard on a sultry, October afternoon.
It has occurred to me that if I had conceded to Tom’s request to postpone our Labor Day bike trip, if we had left White Plains an hour before or after our actual departure time, if we had not ventured down the private driveway in Croton, Noel and I might not have met. And therefore, would not be celebrating our union with another bike ride on what we consider to be our “real” anniversary, this year marking our 20th, Labor Day.
