I had already had bad bronchitis and probably attacks of asthma — in Worcester I got much worse and developed exzema that almost killed me.* One awful day I was sent home from “first grade” because of my sores — and I imagine my hopeless shyness has dated from then. — In May, 1918, I was taken to live with Aunt Maud; I couldn’t walk and Ronald carried me up the stairs — my aunt burst into tears when she saw me. I had had nurses etc. — but that stretch is still too grim to think of, almost. My grandfather had gone to see my aunt M privately and made the arrangements — he said my grandmother didn’t “know how to take care of her own children”, most of them had died. — My aunt was paid to care for me — but she would have anyway, I imagine, if there’d been no money. She really devoted herself to me for years until I got better — she probably never slept for nights and nights, getting me injections of adrenaline, etc. etc.—
When I couldn’t go to school in Worcester — well, I remember one evening I was sitting under the living room table building blocks and my Grandfather said as if to himself, “I wonder if some little girl would like to take piano lessons”—so Miss Darling came to teach me. I was too small, but loved it — and always took lessons, but never had a good teacher until I got to Walnut Hill.
I began writing poetry at about 8 and when I was 11 or so I remember Aunt Grace giving me some good advice about listening to criticism, not getting one’s feelings hurt, etc. I went to school off and on, but remember chiefly lying in bed wheezing and reading — and my dear aunt Maud going out to buy me more books. When I was 13 I was well enough, summers, to go to camp, and it wasn’t until then, briefly, and then at Walnut Hill, that I met girls who were as clever, or cleverer than I was, and made friends, and began to cheer up a bit.
The last time I was in Boston I went to see an elderly uncle by marriage (his 1st wife, my father’s sister, died the year I was born) and he told me that he had tried to adopt me legally that year in Worcester because he felt so sorry for me — he had three children of his own. He also said “Your mother was the most beautiful skater I ever saw — I fell in love with her, too, when I saw her skate.” These bits of information always surprise me very much, since I know so little — I have a lot of cousins here and there — The next to last Bishop, an aunt, died last year aged 86 or 87—I’m the last actually, of that short and undistinguished line. I never fought with what family I had, never had to “rebel”, etc. — I was always on more or less visiting terms with them, and I feel that has had a profound and not altogether good effect on me — it produces passivity, detachment, etc — on the other hand making one’s friends one’s family, really. But from the age of 18 I have always been independent and gone where I wanted to. My relatives now, I think, chiefly wonder why I don’t write best sellers and earn some money if I’m supposed to be so smart — the phrase is “Too smart for her own good,” I believe …
2. I don’t think my music studies are worth mentioning, really. I took clavichord lessons the first winter in Paris, and the next year I took some more with Kirkpatrick in New York — when I lived at the old Hotel Chelsea for a few months — but I never was any good at it, at all. I always dream of studying some more, also the piano again. The clavichord is here now, in its traveling case, because I’ve at last found someone in Rio who can tune it for me — but I was never a performer — I played piano in public a few times at college and lost my nerve forever. (Two very good old friends of Lota’s and mine are Fizdale & Gold, the two-piano team — if you’ve ever heard them? They are superb. We visit them whenever we can—) So — just say I love music!
3. On my first stay in Paris (and the 2nd one, after about ten months) I knew very few people. I could have, if it hadn’t been for this “shyness”—or whatever is the word now — whatever it is, it had made my life quite different from what perhaps it might have been — I had published a few poems. I remember Sylvia Beach invited me to a party — or parties — Spender was at one, Joyce at another — and I’d get to the door, lose my nerve and run away. (I never did speak to Spender until last year in Brazil.) I had letters to people in London, Life & Letters To-day, etc. and the same thing happened — I took a taxi to the door and didn’t dare go in. (I’m afraid you’ll begin to think I am a hopeless idiot, after this True Confession, but there it is.) Also — I’m a dreadful linguist. I understand French perfectly, (and now Portuguese) and some Spanish, and read them all — but I hate to talk a foreign language — particularly French. (Do have your little girl learn a language or two well — to speak it — it will improve her social life all her life …) In Paris I did meet a lot of famous people, I suppose, — even Picasso for a moment — and many more to look at, a good many painters, etc. — but that doesn’t mean I ever exchanged any words with them except “Enchantée.” G. Stein and Alice B — I was invited to tea, with a friend — and the friend went without me, finally. What an idiot! (Since then — just a year or so ago — I’ve corresponded with Alice B who wanted to come to Brazil, of all places — I discouraged her firmly.) What was going on in Paris then was mostly surrealism, that I remember — André Breton & his gallery; I met Ernst, Giacometti, etc — but — I just looked at them. I spent a lot of time taking walks, also at the Deux Magots and the Flore — quite different then than now—
I have learned to disguise my social terrors quite a lot, and also — always — if I really like someone well enough I don’t get them — Marianne, for example — the one “celebrity” I have ever deliberately tried to meet in my life. —
I met Loren in 1939, I think, in N.Y. — I’d seen a few of her paintings and liked them. We became friends immediately and she & her husband, Lloyd Frankenberg, stayed with me for two winters in Key West. John Dewey bought a painting she did that first winter. He bought it in N.Y. — but he used to go to KW winters then, too, — I had stared at him and his daughter as I ate the 50¢ fish dinner in a little restaurant, but never met them (the daughter who has since been a friend for 24 years — to whom the poem Cold Spring is dedicated). When Loren came back to KW we all went to call.
I met Neruda quite by accident in a hotel in Merida — I had no idea who he was when he invited me to go off to Chichen Itza with him and his wife.
Randall was in NY the winter of 1946, I think it was — he invited me to dinner to meet Cal.
Calder is