Quince and Chowder

I drove my daughter to school this brisk winter morning and passed a house on Gallinas Avenue that displayed a patch of flowering quince in the front yard. For most of the year, quince plants are pretty unremarkable: a low shrub with dense, dark-green foliage. But in the early spring, they are the rockstars of the garden as their joyously red flowers with bright yellow stamens bloom shamelessly on bare stalks. For the first 21 years of my life, quince were off my radar, as were most things having to do with gardens. Until I met Helen Nelson.

In 1977, I was graduated from college and trying to figure out my next steps. I had decided to continue my education at the College of Marin, studying drama, but I also needed to start earning money. I only knew Helen peripherally, as the sister-in-law of my parent's close friends Jean and Ancy Nelson, but she was looking for a gardener (slash) handyman, and I got the call. She lived alone in Mill Valley, in a house with a commanding view of Richardson Bay and her substantial garden. Over the next twenty or so years, I would work in her garden, organize her home and her office, hang and re-hang her artwork numerous times, help her produce a major film documentary on the Consumer Movement, and plan her gala 80th birthday party.

In turn, she would become first my employer, then my mentor and, eventually, one of my closest friends. But this is the story of my first day working at 249 Perry Street.

I arrived early in the morning and Helen showed me around the yard. She pointed out various plants, where she kept the house key hidden (in a jar of bird seed), the tool shed (a disaster) and the "utility area" (another disaster). Then she gave me a list of chores and projects for the day and I made my first attempt to decipher her scrawled handwriting, a task I would become only marginally better at over the coming years.

That first morning, she set me to pulling weeds on what she called "The Mound", which was the long raised flower bed that one saw looking out across the lawn toward the Bay. It was filled with annual flowers, a few perennials, and a broad selection of especially pernicious weeds such as blackberry, crab grass and poison oak. I tackled that for a couple of hours and then moved on to a larger project on the list: removing the climbing fig that was slowly prying apart the eaves of her house.

I made very sure that she wanted me to remove it entirely, and not just trim it. There would be no going back. It was hard work, as the fig clung desperately to the gutters, but I kept at it. My two hours of weeding The Mound had showed only marginal progress and I wanted to complete something showy. Actually, that would become my modus operandi for all of my jobs: to split my efforts between making slow but steady progress on a necessary but un-glamorous task and another task with higher visibility that made my employer feel good about my work.

Anyway, just as Helen returned before lunch, the entire climbing fig lay on the ground below the eaves, from which it had been torn. Something seemed to be tearing at Helen, too. "Wow, you did that fast," was her only comment. I think she had wished we had started by simply pruning the fig, but it was too late. In time, I would learn to anticipate her impulsive desires and occasionally temper them with caution.

As we conferred and laid out the rest of my day, she was suddenly struck, "Oh dear, I don't have any lunch for you!" I told her that was okay; I had a sandwich in the car. She replied that, clearly, that wouldn't do and could I wait a half an hour for her to get something for us? Naturally, I said yes.

I moved on to trimming back the aforementioned quince, which held sway outside the office window. Unfortunately, in addition to being very attractive, it was also very invasive and constantly threatened to take over its neighbors in the side yard. Then I heard Helen announcing her return and for me to wash up for lunch.

Over the years, I have worked for literally dozens of bosses, some considerate, some decidely less so. Never have I worked for one who had the panache of Helen. As we sat at her artisan kitchen table, with its inlay of eight large colorful tiles, she apologized again for the delay and then laid out our meal. Amazingly, she had driven over to The Seven Seas restaurant in Sausalito and returned with cracked crab, clam chowder, and a loaf of fresh Bordenave's French bread. Then she opened up a bottle of chardonnay and we shared the first of hundreds of memorable meals at that table.

From that first day, our relationship was never one of boss and employee. We were friends and we were both helping fill each other's needs: She needed help keeping her yard and home in order, and I needed a steady income.

More important, though, she sought out my creativity and sense of humor, and I eagerly took advantage of having my first true mentor (other than my mother). Over the years, Helen would provide me with countless opportunities to learn and to branch out. She also showed me the true meaning of joie de vivre in everything she did. That, I think, was her greatest gift.

As I often do with close friends that are now gone, I wish that I could drop by her house just one more time, like in the old days. We would sit at her glass patio table beneath the spreading Japanese maple, lunch on some delicious snack that she had managed to whip up out of the mish-mosh of things in her kitchen, and watch the hummingbirds visit the copper birdbath that dripped water into the cement pool below. Perhaps a red fox would pass across the yard on its way to points unknown. She would tell me of her recent adventures and I would tell her what was happening in the theatre. We would drink too much and then take a walk around the garden with her showing me the new arrivals.

I sometimes wonder if those who have passed sense when we are thinking of them. That seems plausible to me; sort of like a phone call from the living, or even a "tweet." If that's so, then I hope you're listening, Helen.