The Portrait

I have spent my life looking at the portrait.

Growing up, I spent a fair number of days on my grandparents’ farm.  Sometimes we went there on vacation and sometimes we lived there, but I got to know that property well over the years.  The portrait was pretty prevalent, there.  There was a large version of the portrait in a wooden frame that hung in the home, but there were little wallet size versions in photo boxes and photo albums, and one on display in a little brass frame.  It couldn’t have been more than two inches tall and one inch across but when I looked at the portrait of my beautiful, elegant, graceful Mama at the age of eighteen, in the shiny gilt frame, I was hypnotized.  Seeing how much I loved the portrait, my Grandmother Marjorie asked me if I would like to have it.  My pre-teen heart lept and I said yes and, from that day, the portrait was always with me.  It traveled to every new home and new bedroom that I would have, and, as an adult, it traveled with me when I was out of state working.  It was such a simple thing, this studio portrait in a tiny shiny frame, and yet it brought me such comfort, so much peace, and a great deal of joy.

I once asked Marjorie why there existed this glamorous piece of art that resembled one of the movie star portraits I had seen in the books she showed me (for Marjorie did her due diligence in raising her artistic, sentimental, reactionary, extremist gay grandson by teaching me about Hurrell, Garbo, Dietrich, Stanwyck, and Crawford).  In answer to my question about the portrait, Marjorie told me that My Mommy had entered into a beauty contest sponsored by Liberace, and the prize was a photo shoot with a well-known and well-respected photographer.  At the time, as a child, I thought that was so exciting and romantic… as an adult, I wondered why because My Mam was never interested in being an actress or a beauty queen.  She did not have the patience for the industry.  She did not have the interest in the craft of acting.  She did not have the tolerance for the beauty queen lifestyle.  Still, Mama did love nice clothing and she did enjoy being pretty, and I remember her telling me that, in her teens, she didn’t really have a specific interest or goal in life, that she only ever did what she wanted to do, whatever that might be in the moment.  So, there she was, photographed at eighteen, courtesy of Liberace and a Hollywood glamor photographer.

And I had a mini-version of the photo, framed, to take with me anywhere I wanted.  

The portrait was as much a part of my life as breathing.

In 1996 I was in California, working on The Sweater Book.  I didn’t see the point in being on the West Coast without seeing my Grandmother, so I took a weekend off and drove from Los Angeles to Fresno to visit her.  She was living with her other daughter and her family.  At this point Marjorie was in a frail state, both physically and mentally, and because it was easier for her than sleeping on a bed, she slept on an air mattress on the floor.  On our first day of visiting, my Grandmother asked me to, please, take her to the farm the next day, and I saw no reason why I shouldn’t grant her request.  So, the next day, we squeezed Marjorie into the tiny red sportscar I was driving (after all, I hadn’t known this request would be made) and drove the forty-five minutes to the farm that had been her homestead for a few decades, but that had, long, been abandoned.  The house where I had played as a child was decrepit, almost decayed, practically falling down.  The yards were in disarray and overgrown, the farm had lost all its allure and countryfied charm.  It was Northern California’s version of Grey Gardens.  

Once inside of the travesty that had been Marjorie and Ben’s home, it was clear that various critters were living inside of the detritus and debris.  We had to step over and around and create pathways through the house.  When we had, successfully, made a trail to Marjorie’s bedroom, she had me dig through closets and drawers and under piles of clothing and other household items that make a home a firetrap, until we came upon that which she sought: her mementos from Hollywood.  There were oversized envelopes filled with negatives, there were rolls of paper upon which were her sketches of costumes, there were swatches of material, and rolls of rhinestones and sequins.  

“Here,” she said.  “Take these.  If they’re here when I die, they will throw them away.”

I set the treasures to one side.

Then we sought out similar envelopes filled with old family photos, and she put them in my hands, insistently.  What followed next was My Mother’s High School senior portrait, which she directed me to take, frame and all, from the shelf in the living room where it had sat for my entire life.  And, finally, Marjorie pointed to the enormous portrait hanging on the wall.

“Take that down and take it with you.”

“Mama’s portrait?  I can’t take that.”

“You will take it.  It belongs with you.”

“It’s so big, how will I get it home to New York?”

“As carefully as you can.”

Later that day, all of Marjorie’s private memories safe in my red roadster, I held her hands in mine and looked into her eyes.

“I’m tired.  I’m ready to go.  I’m done.”

She looked tired.  She looked ready to go.  She looked done.

It was the closest I have ever been to looking at a person on their deathbed, so asked Grandmother if I might make a photo of her.

It was the last time I saw or spoke to Marjorie.

I carried that enormous framed photo in my lap on the plane back to New York, where it was promptly hung on what would evolve into the Wall of Juana.

Some weeks later, I opened up the envelopes of family photos to see about putting them into albums.  I had no idea.  There were additional photos from the Liberace shoot.   There was a cardboard triptych with three photos I had never, before, seen, of Juana, My Mother, in all her youthful glamor and beauty - they were sensational.  Naturally, they could never rival the portrait that had been my favorite photo for decades past, but their display on our home was essential.  For years, the triptych stood on a bookcase, but when Mama went into the Memory Care Facility, I brought the display down where people could see it, completing the presentation with a statue I gave Mama on Mother’s Day, of a mother and child, that was returned to me when she moved into the Memory Care Facility, and a small box of her favorite dusting powder, White Shoulders, a box that I, regularly, open and smell.

The portrait doesn’t just keep Juana present in our home, it preserves the memory, the life, and the wishes of Juana’s lifelong best friend, her mother Marjorie.