Remembering Nancy Caldwell
at the George Sand statue
on her favorite holiday, Thanksgiving,
and then on her birthday.
Nancy Caldwell’s friends and colleagues gathered to honor her
by the George Sand statue in the Jardin du Luxembourg on Nov. 22, 2018,
which was Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving was both Nancy’s favorite holiday and the day she died a year earlier.
Her dear friend, Virginia Soukup, chose the location for Nancy’s Parisian memorial
because Nancy began her walks around the park
(during which she’d pay homage to all the statues)
at the portrait of the woman she was writing about at the end of her life.
Everyone sang Josephine Baker's "J`ai Deux Amours",
before sharing memories of their friend.
Then Virginia and another of Nancy’s colleagues, James Gerard,
concluded the outdoor portion of the gathering by turning
Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “How many sailors to sail a ship” into a rousing duet.
The poem reminds me of how Nancy’s eyes mirrored our tossed seas
and why all our hearts have sunk like anchors.
We miss you so much, my love.
Nancy & Duncan Caldwell with a skull of Bubalus antiquus
Nancy Caldwell at one of Mandakini's & Vijay's Fancies!
This is for you, my love, on your birthday
Dec. 2, 2018
- and every birthday as long as I live.
Dunancy, as the poet, Ted Joans, called us, on the deck of our home, a houseboat-barge called the Klaidonis, in Paris around 1979.
The above article, "The Boat People", which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle on May 27, 1979, described Nancy & Duncan Caldwell's life on the barge they rented in the heart of Paris - the Klaidonis.
Nancy Caldwell in one of the libraries she loved - the Bibliothèque of the Paris Hotel de Ville, where she was doing research for the true detective story she was writing when she died.
The book, which I hope to complete, would have been packed with portraits of extraordinary individuals who could have given George Sand the wampum bracelet in the Musée de la Vie Romantique, where I took the picture below of my love. In Nancy's hands, the quest to find out how Sand got the bracelet was on the point of becoming a fascinating description of connections between America and France during the 19th century.
Nancy Caldwell taking a nap on a Tunisian kilim in our rue Rochechouart apartment in Paris around 1980.
Nancy & Duncan Caldwell in the hull of the houseboat we rented in Paris. The painting of passengers in a metro car was a preparatory sketch for a bigger painting by our friend, Peters Day.
Nancy sleeping with our baby son on her breast & an antique Tunisian kilim on the wall. Paris, late 1981.
Nancy Caldwell hugging Olivia and Sebastian on Lobo and Maité Britos's barge on the Yonne near Auxerre, France.
Nancy Caldwell with baby Olivia while visiting prehistoric and Medieval sites in the Dordogne.
