For Cliff W. (because your favourite word is in here)
Going into my kitchen is impossible without bringing Simon Gerard with me. Simon was a master chef, exquisite painter, teacher, raconteur, musician, carpenter and someone I consider as having been a dear friend. I met him through another childhood friend, Maud McKenna-Sugg when I was in my early 20's. At the time Simon was living in 'The Pink House" which was on his grandfather Cushman Haagensen's property. That little house was the cutest thing you ever saw. It had four rooms and each room was a step or two down from the next room. Cushman and his wife Alice lived in 'The Big House" only feet away.
What struck me about Simon's family then, as it does now, is how absolutely talented they all were. A high value was not simply placed on education, but something about their rearing allowed for each of his family members to be fully respected whatever their chosen pursuits were. This was especially enviable to me because though education was prized in my family, there was a constant disappointment if you chose a pursuit that differed from my parents notions of what you should be doing. The Gerard family thrived on exploration. I hold them up as the pinnacle of what can be learned, achieved and mastered in a life and within the family unit, unfettered, unlike my family, by rivalries or estrangement. This may seem an odd observation but they all kept a physical distance from one another that I loved. I can only describe what I saw as them seemingly giving each other physical and emotional space to be who they were. I perceived the space as a form of respect. In my family there is this notion that being related means you spend a lifetime of being snarky and un-supporting of one another. Simon lived with his siblings but everyone, when speaking to one another, always did so at a distance. Simon often described it as 'cold' and maybe it was but from my perspective I saw respect and not a whiff of parents conveying ownership of their children. I felt safe in that family.
Doing things well did not just come to one family member, they all did oodles of things well. Cushman was a surgeon and he single handedly built his own second home out in Provincetown for family vacations. The other curiosity, so very different from my family, is how often they collaborated on projects together. Alice Haagensen and her collaboration with her daughter Alice on the history of Palisades. Simon building elaborate playhouses for his nieces and nephews with his father, Sam. His sister Annie and Simon becoming exquisite chefs, learning from one another. They reminded me of The Bloomsbury Group. Their education was not simply about becoming educated but rather their taking that knowledge and doing something remarkable with it. Contributing, making lives better for self and others. Better in the sense of savoury and detailed; rich, and endlessly fascinating, memorable, and filled with laughter. I truly hate to use the word eccentric to describe them because somehow, in their case, this seems an insulting word because part of its definition includes 'strangeness' and they were never strange from my perspective. None of them were alike yet they orbited around each other in perfect sync. The entire family lived within walking distance of one another, yet I never once witnessed intrusions from other family members. They were all off busy with their own projects. Simon and his siblings all referred to their parents by their first names: Alice and Sam. Only his grandparents was referred to as 'grandfather' and 'grandmother' to my recollection.
Simon was a third generation resident of Sneden's Landing, a small hamlet in Rockland County, N.Y. which has a long history which was meticulously documented by his grandmother Alice Haagensen with a follow up done by his mother Alice Gerard. His father Sam was a noted oceanographer. His uncle, W. Lee Savage was a mentor to him and guided him in his earliest attempts at painting. I only mention these connections to illustrate how seeped with creativity the family was and how exposed Simon was to independent thinking.
When visiting Simon in the early days, The Pink House days, we often were invited to cocktails with Cushman and his wife Alice, his grandparents. Cocktails were always sherry with crackers and cheese set out on the terrace overlooking The Hudson and Tarrytown across the river. The view was spectacular. Cushman and Alice's home was wonderful. My favourite room was the library which was lined with bookshelves and one bookcase actually was a secret door leading to a gardening room that had a sink in it specifically to wash ones hands free of dirt if one had been doing outside work. That room was accessible from the outside of the house too. The entire house was filled with nooks and crannies and fun little places to discover. There was even a chapel in the house I seem to recall. Nowadays the house is crawling with peacocks which emit the endless sounds of strangulation as the house is now owned by someone with different sensibilities.
It was over sherry one evening that my breasts became the topic of conversation. This may seem an odd thing to discuss over cocktails but Cushman was a breast specialist. It had already been revealed to me the famous story of how Alice, Cushman's wife, had famously lifted her shirt at a cocktail party to reveal that she too had had a mastectomy stating "See, it's no big deal". So I neither felt embarrassed or strange when Cushman said to me: Let's go examine yours. I had commented that over the years I had had numerous doctors become alarmed when I would get a chest x-ray. I was always informed that further testing was needed because it looked as though I always had a mass of some kind. Up I got, following Cushman into his examining room, while Simon and Alice continued with sherry and crackers. Cushman, at the time, had the longest survival rate of women with breast cancer and he saw patients out of his home as well as at Columbia Presbyterian. One of the things I most remember about the examination was how completely (and I mean completely) different his examination was. He powdered his hands and my breast chest area. He examined me while I was on my back, on my side and when instructed to bend over at the waist with my breasts dangling. The powdering allowed him to glide over my skin feeling the subtleties of my breast tissue in a way that I had never had my breasts examined before or since. Cushman was also able to explain to me, and perhaps I was most grateful for this information, why my armpits looked the way they did. All my life I had had strangers point out my armpits asking me what was wrong. I didn't know but after my examination Cushman explained that I had dense fibrocystic breasts tissue and that my armpit weirdness was referred to as Axillary Breast Tissue. Seated back at the table over cocktails he further stated that my kind of breast wasn't prone to breast cancer and that should I ever get breast cancer to just have "the damned thing off". That it was nonsense the way women felt about their breasts being a defining factor of their worthiness and that if the breast was a problem, get rid of it. Honestly? I took that as the end of the conversation about my breasts. He taught me more in that hour than I had ever understood about my own body up till then, and sitting there with Alice, his wife, conveying to me that the lack of a breast had absolutely no impact upon her husband thinking her wonderful, really inspired something wonderful in me about what it really meant to be a woman. I truly admired Alice and I feel lucky to have known her. She was warm, funny, always cheerful and smart as a whip. She died at the ripe old age of 105! She was one of a kind.
It was while Simon was living in The Pink House that he asked me to pose for him so that he could paint my portrait. I was delighted. Over one weekend Simon draped a white sheet over a stone wall Cushman had built and on it I posed, laying down on my side, while Simon took Polaroids of me with close-ups of my hands and feet. It seems hands and feet are the most difficult for an artist to render with any type of authenticity. Months later I arrived at The Pink House and the painting was being mulled over by Simon's brother Tony and another man. The first thing I uttered upon seeing the completed portrait was: Those are not my breasts! Simon explained to me that while he was painting the picture Cushman had come along and made the comment that my areolae were too big. Cushman being the breast expert, Simon adjusted my breasts to suit Cushman's sense of aesthetics. After all, as Simon said, "Grandfather's opinion must be heeded in areas of the breast". It wasn't until years later that I was able to afford to buy the painting and O so very glad I am to have it. The frame came from an old barn on a property Simon had lived on somewhere in Pennsylvania and he had painted me over a pastoral scene of cows. I love the painting and the thing I love to see the most in the painting is the kenilworth ivy that runs along the stone wall that I rest upon. Cushman had built a stone staircase which ran from his house, at the end of Oak Tree Road, down the hill to his daughter's home below. Planted amongst the stonework was kenilworth ivy. Going up the stairs for the first time I remember so vividly being absolutely enchanted by this plant with its small delicate leaves. I was practically giddy with how delightful it looked; like the foliage of the faeries. When Simon set off to paint my portrait I said: For me, can you put some kenilworth ivy in the picture? He did, and it gives me great joy to see it amongst the details of the painting.
I learned an enormous amount from Simon about cooking. He catered many of the parties in The Landing and when the author Toni Morrison was under the weather or writing, he often brought food over for her to eat. Morrison once came to a 'block party' hosted by Simon and he and I had a great time laughing that she seemed to favour my carrot cake the most even though he was the more knowledgeable cook. He was incensed too that Joe Hyde had refused to give him the recipe for his BBQ sauce for the event.
Once, Simon and I brought bottles of champagne, trudging through the snow, over to the Martha Graham home. It had then been tax abandoned simply sitting unexplored and empty. We sat drinking champagne, looking out over The Hudson, snow falling all around, while I listened to Simon regale me with funny stories about the various artists that had lived there over the years. Ms. Graham, whom if I remember correctly, kept tons of chickens in that house which I guess shat all over the place. After hours of laughter we left our bottles and drunkenly trudged back through the woods in knee high snow occasionally helping one another along as we stumbled back to The Pink House. Once I was chased up The Palisades Parkway for miles, straight into Sneden's Landing by some road enraged man hell bent on finding out where I lived. It was only when I passed the ancient 'Private Entry' stone pillar and pulled into Simon's driveway did this man quickly high tail it out of there. The sign was a left-over from Graham days but it did the trick of stopping the unwelcome and nosey who wanted to see what might have been hidden back in this hamlet. I am sure that posting prevented me from getting my ass kicked by a deranged motorist.
There were two yearly events held in The Gerard family: Chinese New Year and Wassailing. Chinese New Year was begun in Cushman's home and continued I am sure up until Simon's passing. In Cushman's home it was a sit-down intimate affair but once Simon had his home built the event became so big that it turned into a buffet type of meal. Simon would cook 15-20 Chinese dishes each more delicious than the other, all exquisitely prepared and authentic and sometimes Annie, his sister, would make fortune cookies that her children would place handwritten fortunes in with nonsensical declarations that came from the minds of creative children.
At Christmas we went around and sang Christmas carols outside the various homes in The Landing which ended at Simon's house where wassail was prepared by Sam's and served to all those coming in from the cold after the singing. Wassail is the most horrid brew imaginable but it was the grandest way to bring in the holidays and I so looked forward to it each year. The woods in Sneden's Landing, all along the Palisades, were gorgeous in the winter. Absolutely stunning. When I imagine snow and winter it is there that I take myself to. Such a beautiful safe, private haven. So lucky am I to have had the company of Simon all the years that I did. I miss him.
It wasn't until I had known Simon for a good 20 years that I finally viewed Silent Snow, Secret Snow.
Before watching the short film Simon had said it was a children's story and then he shoved the VCR tape into the machine and for the next 20 minutes I watched a film that upset me to no end. I was actually in an uproar. I felt the story was about a child in the throes of a psychotic break. I detested seeing Simon in this film. Simon spent much of his adult life depressed and feeling unaccepted and it was almost like this film was a film about his very life at the present time. It was heartbreaking for me to see such a young boy, my friend, depicted years before I even knew him, seemingly gripped by something that he seemed to be gripped by in adulthood. I don't know how anyone could construe this film suitable for children. It's a nightmare. The only thing I enjoy about this film is watching and listening to Simon talk in the film as he talked like that as an adult. The same mouth movement and slight lisp. But save the child that is given that film for a birthday present. Current analysis of the film asserts that the child depicted in the film has Aspergers Syndrome. That makes more sense.
I think about Simon every day. When I am in the kitchen cooking he is always with me. The handwritten recipes he gave me through letters are cherished. I always think about the craft of food as being not only a thing of taste but a thing of beauty to be savored with the eye. I feel him with me everyday and I hear his guidance in all things food.
Simon died in 2008 and honestly, I still can't believe he is gone; he feels so present to me. So still a part of my life. I can hear him laughing and I can hear him rattle on about this and that, forever interesting and interested. He called me Sweetie-Pie and I will never forget an observation he made to me about myself. He said: You aren't much for physical interactions with strangers; you don't go out for this hugging stuff. Once I admitted to this quality he forever forewarned people about this aspect of me by saying: Don't bother giving Moira a hug, she really couldn't care less. And he was right and I was thankful I didn't have to then go through the motions of affection with strangers. That being said I will never forget his hugs; they were big, strong and genuine and I loved being embraced by him. He was difficult but when he wasn't it was like spending time with the best thing you could ever want in a friend.
I miss you Simon.
Going into my kitchen is impossible without bringing Simon Gerard with me. Simon was a master chef, exquisite painter, teacher, raconteur, musician, carpenter and someone I consider as having been a dear friend. I met him through another childhood friend, Maud McKenna-Sugg when I was in my early 20's. At the time Simon was living in 'The Pink House" which was on his grandfather Cushman Haagensen's property. That little house was the cutest thing you ever saw. It had four rooms and each room was a step or two down from the next room. Cushman and his wife Alice lived in 'The Big House" only feet away.
What struck me about Simon's family then, as it does now, is how absolutely talented they all were. A high value was not simply placed on education, but something about their rearing allowed for each of his family members to be fully respected whatever their chosen pursuits were. This was especially enviable to me because though education was prized in my family, there was a constant disappointment if you chose a pursuit that differed from my parents notions of what you should be doing. The Gerard family thrived on exploration. I hold them up as the pinnacle of what can be learned, achieved and mastered in a life and within the family unit, unfettered, unlike my family, by rivalries or estrangement. This may seem an odd observation but they all kept a physical distance from one another that I loved. I can only describe what I saw as them seemingly giving each other physical and emotional space to be who they were. I perceived the space as a form of respect. In my family there is this notion that being related means you spend a lifetime of being snarky and un-supporting of one another. Simon lived with his siblings but everyone, when speaking to one another, always did so at a distance. Simon often described it as 'cold' and maybe it was but from my perspective I saw respect and not a whiff of parents conveying ownership of their children. I felt safe in that family.
Doing things well did not just come to one family member, they all did oodles of things well. Cushman was a surgeon and he single handedly built his own second home out in Provincetown for family vacations. The other curiosity, so very different from my family, is how often they collaborated on projects together. Alice Haagensen and her collaboration with her daughter Alice on the history of Palisades. Simon building elaborate playhouses for his nieces and nephews with his father, Sam. His sister Annie and Simon becoming exquisite chefs, learning from one another. They reminded me of The Bloomsbury Group. Their education was not simply about becoming educated but rather their taking that knowledge and doing something remarkable with it. Contributing, making lives better for self and others. Better in the sense of savoury and detailed; rich, and endlessly fascinating, memorable, and filled with laughter. I truly hate to use the word eccentric to describe them because somehow, in their case, this seems an insulting word because part of its definition includes 'strangeness' and they were never strange from my perspective. None of them were alike yet they orbited around each other in perfect sync. The entire family lived within walking distance of one another, yet I never once witnessed intrusions from other family members. They were all off busy with their own projects. Simon and his siblings all referred to their parents by their first names: Alice and Sam. Only his grandparents was referred to as 'grandfather' and 'grandmother' to my recollection.
Simon was a third generation resident of Sneden's Landing, a small hamlet in Rockland County, N.Y. which has a long history which was meticulously documented by his grandmother Alice Haagensen with a follow up done by his mother Alice Gerard. His father Sam was a noted oceanographer. His uncle, W. Lee Savage was a mentor to him and guided him in his earliest attempts at painting. I only mention these connections to illustrate how seeped with creativity the family was and how exposed Simon was to independent thinking.
When visiting Simon in the early days, The Pink House days, we often were invited to cocktails with Cushman and his wife Alice, his grandparents. Cocktails were always sherry with crackers and cheese set out on the terrace overlooking The Hudson and Tarrytown across the river. The view was spectacular. Cushman and Alice's home was wonderful. My favourite room was the library which was lined with bookshelves and one bookcase actually was a secret door leading to a gardening room that had a sink in it specifically to wash ones hands free of dirt if one had been doing outside work. That room was accessible from the outside of the house too. The entire house was filled with nooks and crannies and fun little places to discover. There was even a chapel in the house I seem to recall. Nowadays the house is crawling with peacocks which emit the endless sounds of strangulation as the house is now owned by someone with different sensibilities.
It was over sherry one evening that my breasts became the topic of conversation. This may seem an odd thing to discuss over cocktails but Cushman was a breast specialist. It had already been revealed to me the famous story of how Alice, Cushman's wife, had famously lifted her shirt at a cocktail party to reveal that she too had had a mastectomy stating "See, it's no big deal". So I neither felt embarrassed or strange when Cushman said to me: Let's go examine yours. I had commented that over the years I had had numerous doctors become alarmed when I would get a chest x-ray. I was always informed that further testing was needed because it looked as though I always had a mass of some kind. Up I got, following Cushman into his examining room, while Simon and Alice continued with sherry and crackers. Cushman, at the time, had the longest survival rate of women with breast cancer and he saw patients out of his home as well as at Columbia Presbyterian. One of the things I most remember about the examination was how completely (and I mean completely) different his examination was. He powdered his hands and my breast chest area. He examined me while I was on my back, on my side and when instructed to bend over at the waist with my breasts dangling. The powdering allowed him to glide over my skin feeling the subtleties of my breast tissue in a way that I had never had my breasts examined before or since. Cushman was also able to explain to me, and perhaps I was most grateful for this information, why my armpits looked the way they did. All my life I had had strangers point out my armpits asking me what was wrong. I didn't know but after my examination Cushman explained that I had dense fibrocystic breasts tissue and that my armpit weirdness was referred to as Axillary Breast Tissue. Seated back at the table over cocktails he further stated that my kind of breast wasn't prone to breast cancer and that should I ever get breast cancer to just have "the damned thing off". That it was nonsense the way women felt about their breasts being a defining factor of their worthiness and that if the breast was a problem, get rid of it. Honestly? I took that as the end of the conversation about my breasts. He taught me more in that hour than I had ever understood about my own body up till then, and sitting there with Alice, his wife, conveying to me that the lack of a breast had absolutely no impact upon her husband thinking her wonderful, really inspired something wonderful in me about what it really meant to be a woman. I truly admired Alice and I feel lucky to have known her. She was warm, funny, always cheerful and smart as a whip. She died at the ripe old age of 105! She was one of a kind.
It was while Simon was living in The Pink House that he asked me to pose for him so that he could paint my portrait. I was delighted. Over one weekend Simon draped a white sheet over a stone wall Cushman had built and on it I posed, laying down on my side, while Simon took Polaroids of me with close-ups of my hands and feet. It seems hands and feet are the most difficult for an artist to render with any type of authenticity. Months later I arrived at The Pink House and the painting was being mulled over by Simon's brother Tony and another man. The first thing I uttered upon seeing the completed portrait was: Those are not my breasts! Simon explained to me that while he was painting the picture Cushman had come along and made the comment that my areolae were too big. Cushman being the breast expert, Simon adjusted my breasts to suit Cushman's sense of aesthetics. After all, as Simon said, "Grandfather's opinion must be heeded in areas of the breast". It wasn't until years later that I was able to afford to buy the painting and O so very glad I am to have it. The frame came from an old barn on a property Simon had lived on somewhere in Pennsylvania and he had painted me over a pastoral scene of cows. I love the painting and the thing I love to see the most in the painting is the kenilworth ivy that runs along the stone wall that I rest upon. Cushman had built a stone staircase which ran from his house, at the end of Oak Tree Road, down the hill to his daughter's home below. Planted amongst the stonework was kenilworth ivy. Going up the stairs for the first time I remember so vividly being absolutely enchanted by this plant with its small delicate leaves. I was practically giddy with how delightful it looked; like the foliage of the faeries. When Simon set off to paint my portrait I said: For me, can you put some kenilworth ivy in the picture? He did, and it gives me great joy to see it amongst the details of the painting.
I learned an enormous amount from Simon about cooking. He catered many of the parties in The Landing and when the author Toni Morrison was under the weather or writing, he often brought food over for her to eat. Morrison once came to a 'block party' hosted by Simon and he and I had a great time laughing that she seemed to favour my carrot cake the most even though he was the more knowledgeable cook. He was incensed too that Joe Hyde had refused to give him the recipe for his BBQ sauce for the event.
Once, Simon and I brought bottles of champagne, trudging through the snow, over to the Martha Graham home. It had then been tax abandoned simply sitting unexplored and empty. We sat drinking champagne, looking out over The Hudson, snow falling all around, while I listened to Simon regale me with funny stories about the various artists that had lived there over the years. Ms. Graham, whom if I remember correctly, kept tons of chickens in that house which I guess shat all over the place. After hours of laughter we left our bottles and drunkenly trudged back through the woods in knee high snow occasionally helping one another along as we stumbled back to The Pink House. Once I was chased up The Palisades Parkway for miles, straight into Sneden's Landing by some road enraged man hell bent on finding out where I lived. It was only when I passed the ancient 'Private Entry' stone pillar and pulled into Simon's driveway did this man quickly high tail it out of there. The sign was a left-over from Graham days but it did the trick of stopping the unwelcome and nosey who wanted to see what might have been hidden back in this hamlet. I am sure that posting prevented me from getting my ass kicked by a deranged motorist.
There were two yearly events held in The Gerard family: Chinese New Year and Wassailing. Chinese New Year was begun in Cushman's home and continued I am sure up until Simon's passing. In Cushman's home it was a sit-down intimate affair but once Simon had his home built the event became so big that it turned into a buffet type of meal. Simon would cook 15-20 Chinese dishes each more delicious than the other, all exquisitely prepared and authentic and sometimes Annie, his sister, would make fortune cookies that her children would place handwritten fortunes in with nonsensical declarations that came from the minds of creative children.
At Christmas we went around and sang Christmas carols outside the various homes in The Landing which ended at Simon's house where wassail was prepared by Sam's and served to all those coming in from the cold after the singing. Wassail is the most horrid brew imaginable but it was the grandest way to bring in the holidays and I so looked forward to it each year. The woods in Sneden's Landing, all along the Palisades, were gorgeous in the winter. Absolutely stunning. When I imagine snow and winter it is there that I take myself to. Such a beautiful safe, private haven. So lucky am I to have had the company of Simon all the years that I did. I miss him.
It wasn't until I had known Simon for a good 20 years that I finally viewed Silent Snow, Secret Snow.
Before watching the short film Simon had said it was a children's story and then he shoved the VCR tape into the machine and for the next 20 minutes I watched a film that upset me to no end. I was actually in an uproar. I felt the story was about a child in the throes of a psychotic break. I detested seeing Simon in this film. Simon spent much of his adult life depressed and feeling unaccepted and it was almost like this film was a film about his very life at the present time. It was heartbreaking for me to see such a young boy, my friend, depicted years before I even knew him, seemingly gripped by something that he seemed to be gripped by in adulthood. I don't know how anyone could construe this film suitable for children. It's a nightmare. The only thing I enjoy about this film is watching and listening to Simon talk in the film as he talked like that as an adult. The same mouth movement and slight lisp. But save the child that is given that film for a birthday present. Current analysis of the film asserts that the child depicted in the film has Aspergers Syndrome. That makes more sense.
I think about Simon every day. When I am in the kitchen cooking he is always with me. The handwritten recipes he gave me through letters are cherished. I always think about the craft of food as being not only a thing of taste but a thing of beauty to be savored with the eye. I feel him with me everyday and I hear his guidance in all things food.
Simon died in 2008 and honestly, I still can't believe he is gone; he feels so present to me. So still a part of my life. I can hear him laughing and I can hear him rattle on about this and that, forever interesting and interested. He called me Sweetie-Pie and I will never forget an observation he made to me about myself. He said: You aren't much for physical interactions with strangers; you don't go out for this hugging stuff. Once I admitted to this quality he forever forewarned people about this aspect of me by saying: Don't bother giving Moira a hug, she really couldn't care less. And he was right and I was thankful I didn't have to then go through the motions of affection with strangers. That being said I will never forget his hugs; they were big, strong and genuine and I loved being embraced by him. He was difficult but when he wasn't it was like spending time with the best thing you could ever want in a friend.
I miss you Simon.
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