How to Make an American Quilt: A Novel

At first,I thought I ould study art.Art history,to be exact. Then I thought,No,what about physical anthropology?–a point in my life thereafter referred to as My Jane Goodall Period.I tried to imagine my mother,Sarah Bennett-Dodd (called Sally by everyone with the exception of her mother),camping with me in the African bush,drinking strong coffee from our battered tin cups,much in the way that Jane did with Mrs.Goodall.I saw us laid up with match- ing cases of malaria;in mother/daughter safari shorts;our hands weathering in exactly the same fashion. Then,of course,I remembered that I was talking about my mother,Sally,who is most comfortable with modernity and refuses to live in a house that anyone has lived in before,exposing me to a life of tract housing that was curious and awful.Literature was my next love.Until I became loosely acquaintedwith critical theory,which struck me as a kind of intellectualism forits own sake.It always seems that one has to choose literature orcritical theory,that one cannot love both.All of this finally pushedme willingly (I later realized)into history.I began with the discipline of the time line –a holdover fromelementary school –setting all the dates in order,allowing me to fixtime and place.History needs a specific context,if nothing else.Mytime lines gradually grew more and more ornate,with pasted-onphotographs and drawings that I carefully cut from cheap historybooks possessing great illustrations but terrible,unchallengingtext.I was taken with the look of history before I arrived at the"meat "of the matter.But the construction of the time line is bothhorizontal and vertical,both distance and depth.Which,finally,makes it rather unwieldy on paper.What I am saying is that itneeded other dimensions,that history is not a matter of dates,andonly disreputable or unimaginative teachers take the "impartial "date approach,thereby killing all interest in the subject at a veryearly age for many students.(I knew,in a perfect world,I would not be forced to choose asingle course of study,that I would have time for all these interests.I could gather up all my desires and count them out like valentines.)The Victorians caught my eye almost instantly with theirstrange and sometimes ugly ideas about architecture and dress andsocial conventions.Some of it was pure whimsy,like a diorama inwhich ninety-two squirrels were stuffed and mounted,enacting abasement beer-and-poker party,complete with cigars and greenvisors pulled low over their bright eyes;or a house that displayed apainting of cherubs,clad in strips of white linen,flying above theclouds with an identical painting hidden,right next to it,under acurtain in which the same cherubs –babies though they were –arecompletely nude.Or a privileged Texas belle 's curio cabinet thatcontained a human skull and blackened hand.Or still anotheryoung woman (wealthy daughter of a prominent man)who insistedon gliding through the family mansion with a handful of live kittensclinging to the train of her dress.I enrolled in graduate school.Then I lost interest.I cared andthen I didn 't care.I wanted to know as much about the small,odddetails that I discovered here and there when looking into the pastas I did about Lenin 's secret train or England 's Victorian imperial-ism or a flawless neo-Marxist critique of capitalism.There were things that struck me as funny,like the nameBushrod Washington,which belonged to George 's nephew,or theman who painted Mary Freake and her baby,known only as theFreake Limner.And I like that sort of historical gossip;I mean,is ittrue that Catherine the Great died trying to copulate with a horse?And if not,what a strange thing to say about someone.Did ThomasJefferson have a lengthy,fruitful affair with his slave Sally Hem-ings?What does that say about the man who was the architect of thegreat democratic dream?What does it say about us?Did we inheritthe dream or the illicit,unsettling racial relationship?This sort of thing is not considered scholarly or academic or ofconsequence,these small footnotes.And perhaps rightly so.Ofcourse,I loved the important,rigorous historical inquiry as well.What I think I wanted was both things,the silly and the sublime;which adds up to a whole picture,a grudgingly true past.And out ofthat past truth a present reality.You could say I was having trouble linking the two.I wished for history to be vital,alive with the occasional quirkof human nature (a little "seriojovial ");I imagined someone sayingto me, Finn,what ever gave you the idea that history was any sort of liv-ing thing?Really.Isn 't that expectation just the least bit contradictory?Then Sam asked me to marry him.It seemed to me a good idea.Yet it somehow led me back to my educational concern,whichwas how to mesh halves into a whole,only in this case it was how tomake a successful link of unmarried to married,man to woman,themerging of the roads before us.When Heathcliff ran away fromWuthering Heights,he left Cathy wild and sad,howling on themoors,I am Heathcliff,as if their love were so powerful,their soulsso seamlessly mated,that no division existed for them,save the cor-poreal (though I tend to believe they got "together "at least once),which is of little consequence in the presence of the spirit.All of which leaves me wondering,astonished,and a little putoff.How does one accomplish such a fusion of selves?And,if the af-fection is that strong,how does one avoid it,leaving a little room forthe person you once were?The balance of marriage,the delicate,gentle shifting of the polished scales.Let me say that I like Sam tremendously.I love him truly.The other good idea was spending the summer with my grand-mother Hy Dodd and her sister Glady Joe Cleary.Their relationshipwith me is different from that with the other grandchildren;weshare secrets.And I probably talk to them a little more than mycousins or their own children do.I think they have a lot to say and Iam more than willing to hear it.All of it.Whatever strikes them asimportant.To me,they are important.So my days are now spent watching the quilters come and go,lazily eavesdropping on the hum of their conversation and driftingoff into dreams on my great-aunt 's generous porch;thinking aboutmy Sam,my sweetheart.Or lying on my back,in the shade,in AuntGlady 's extravagant garden,removing the ice cubes from my tea,running them across my face,neck,and chest in an effort to cooldown from the heat.I could wander over to the Grasse swimming pool,but it is al-ways so crowded.Sophia Richards says you never know who you 'llmeet there –as if I want to meet anyone.As if I am not already stay-ing in a house that has quite a bit of "foot traffic."The quilters have offered to make a bridal quilt in honor of mymarriage,but I tell them to Please continue with what you are doing asif I never arrived to stay for the summer .Sometimes I say, I can 't thinkabout that now (as if anyone can think clearly in this peppery heat).Ican see this puzzles them,makes them wonder what sort of girl it iswho "cannot think about " her own wedding..This amuses me as well,since,at age twenty-six,I have losttrack of the sort of girl that I am.I used to be a young scholar;Iam now an engaged woman.Not that you cannot be both –even Iunderstand that –yet I cannot fathom who I think I am at this time.