Love Letter to D

Dear D,

I want to share with you the impact you have had on my life. Too often, teachers in particular, and humans in general work with other humans who then take off into the world, or slip away into the crowd. And while they hope, and wonder, they often never know what gifts they have given, what they’ve contributed to the journey of those fellow travelers–how they have in some way shaped them into better humans.

First and best, I knew you as my teacher at Santa Fe Prep…AP History, I think it was? I won’t lie, I was intimidated by you. Though slight, your tall frame was charged with a sense of purpose and a passion for history–how intrinsically fascinating it is, and how vital its study is to the future. (As Jill Lepore says, “The past is an inheritance, a gift, and a burden. It can’t be shirked. You carry it everywhere. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it.”)

I appreciate your dedication, now more than ever, as I leaf through the past in the form of my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s journals, as I scan through letters my father, a brave and lonely little boy, sent back from East Coast boarding school to the wilds of New Mexico. Most especially, as I carefully unfold my grandfather’s letters, typed on onionskin that was cleanly punctured by every “o,” sent home from the front lines of France during Word War I. I will bring them to you, another day, because they are rich in detail and, quite pleasingly, rather Bolshevik.

At school, I also remember your ginger temper, those soft, lovely Marlene Dietrich eyes flashing sudden fire at the nonsense thrown at you by callow youth.

Did you ever feel it was all pearls before swine? I am sure at some moments you did, but I hope they were few and far between.

One of my favorite quotes is from a Quaker elder, D. Elton Trueblood, who wrote,

‘A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit. “

Among those seeds, beyond any particular historical facts or lessons, was your example as a professional woman. My Mother was indeed a professional (and don’t you forget it!). She was sharply different-- the wives of my Father’s friends were wonderful women, but stay-at-home wives, all.

Your bearing was generally one of fairly nonchalant confidence. Your stride was easy and long, you wore flat shoes, the better to hold one’s own in, to my way of thinking, and you seemed to my young, awkward self, quite comfortable wielding authority. I was intimidated and admiring, and it stuck with me as a model to emulate when I, eventually, wielded authority in the professional realm.

I also observed you at parties and events–tall and slender and elegant in a very understated way– listening carefully, laughing, quick with supporting evidence, a counter-argument, or some trenchant observation.

My parents used to have a fair few parties; dinners, teas, cocktails (never brunch, which was too louche for the Episcopalians they were), and of course Fiesta parties. Mariachis belted out music over the valley, margaritas and sangria flowed freely, and everyon wore their finest: guayaberas, bolos, silver belt buckles, etc., for the men, and broom skirts, concha belts, loads of silver bracelets and heavy squash blossom necklaces for the ladies. Recently, I came across a number of snapshots and they are a reminder of good times–flushed and grinning faces, friends posing squeezed in a hug… everyon feeling the joy of it all.

Those parties, though, were a BOAT LOAD of work. For weeks in advance we were prepping and freezing food, purging books and magazines left and right, sprucing and planting, assembling luminarias and setting up farolitos and parking plans.

The night before one such party, we were languishing in the heat, barefoot and in tank tops and cut off shorts, up to our ears in phyllo and melted butter, won ton skins and shrimp paste. We were flagging, and frayed nerves were starting to show. An astute observer of my mother’s temper, I was waiting for the storm to hit, the storm that I could see brewing over the horizon of her furrowed brow.

A sudden yelp and my mother stabbed her finger out the window, to point at a car being tidily parked. From it, you and your husband emerged, looking merry and very much ready for a soiree. She sputtered and rushed out, my father following at a more sedate pace, to welcome you. And, I thought, to shoo you away again. But no, in you both came, accepted a cocktail, and settled down in your finery for hours of monotonous hors d’oeuvres prep. To this day, spanikopitakia is synonymous with that very evening, terrifically fun but totally unprecedented. I loved sitting there all together, listening to stories and drinking in the simple camaraderie of shared work that felt so right in my soul. “Many hands make light work,’ indeed.

You see, my mother was the engine behind these events, but she was fiercely independent and distrustful of collaboration. Honestly, I think she took great pride in pulling off these massive events while making it appear to guests as somehow effortless, like a little thing she was able to just toss off on the side, in addition to being a doctor. For friends and strangers, patients, and really anyone, she could be so generous. She did quite a lot for the community, but couldn’t quite live in community. That apparent effortlessness always carried a price, as exhaustion and resentment boiled over into an explosion, generally a day--or a few hours--before the grand event.

Your arrival forestalled what would be a shattering explosion, and I was tremendously relieved just for that, but you also left us all buoyed and laughing together. You were, as I think about it now, rather like the cavalry coming over the hill.

Today, living in community, in interdependence, is my greatest core value. Brian and I, too, have all sorts of parties. But I have learned to ask for help: we have potlucks, pasta making parties, “dumpling do’s” and tamaladas, and make food together as a team. I really can draw a straight line from my deep commitment to food co-creation to that evening so many years ago.

And you even came back the next night, in the same party clothes. I watched, at those parties, and I knew the difference between you and many of the other, slightly older women there, who followed their husbands’ leads, circumspectly built on their clearly oft-repeated stories, and seemed even slightly deferential. While, of course, being elegant and witty and charming, in the ways that women were–and still are–taught to be, in order to please/appease the men around them.

I already saw you as a professional, an intellectual authority, a peer to my father. Now I saw you in a different setting, and in some intangible way, you felt akin to my own mother–ready for an intellectual debate, conducted with vigor, courtesy, and good humor. Not particularly tolerant of what has now been dubbed “mansplaining.” It was delightful and noteworthy to me, a model.

As for my parents, David and Anne Davenport, of course I can’t really speak for them. But I can say that my Father respected you as a historian and colleague. He truly enjoyed the affinity with a fellow Yank. I think that you shared with him a certain stoicism, self-effacing humor, a possible penchant for the odd classical allusion, and most definitely, a deep-rooted integrity. He held you in high regard.

For my Mother’s part, I think that she saw you as a respected peer in doing the superhuman work that modern women seem to have to do. She respected your education and erudition. That day our families had lunch so many years ago, she spoke with genuine fondness for you afterward–which, in her later years, was frankly quite rare for anyone.

So here we are, in the hospital, holding hands. I want to be sure you know that you are seen and held in my heart with admiration and affection. I want you to have some sense of the sapling that has grown from the seeds you sowed merely by being your own courageous and mighty self.

With gratitude and love,

Seo