“Stay with me here,” I begged her. This wasn’t normal for me. I wasn’t trying to be manipulative. To myself, I was thinking, “I want this to work. Don’t lose this chance. Make this miracle happen.”
“I have my own plans,” she answered, and off she went.
“Come back, come live with me,” I pleaded with her on the phone when she got to Boston.
Finally, after days of my efforts, “I’m coming back,” she agreed.
“I’m so happy, I don’t know what to do.”
“I trust you. You know exactly what you’re doing,” she said, and that, oh love, was Merlin’s mantra throughout our entire relationship—something she said thousands of times during our relationship. What a gift that was. What more could anyone ask of a partner?
I had been hosting a poker game at my place once a week, and I could make a couple hundred bucks that way. I moved the poker table to my cousin’s apartment next door, where the game continued weekly.
I had no clue who this woman was. I wanted to buy her a welcome present. I bought her a lacy Victorian hand fan, with tortoise-shell decorations—very feminine—thinking it would be to her liking. Later, when I gave it to her, she was too polite to say, “Strike one.” But sometimes I did feel as if I could lose her if I stubbornly kept going in the wrong direction, making poor decisions, not learning, progressing, or absorbing fast enough.
So when she arrived, she informed me, “I’m a writer. I need to make this space a writer’s room.” That meant finding her the right furniture in a now-empty front room.
“I need an armoire.”
The apartment had only one small closet filled with my own rags. She arrived with just a backpack, but she was going to have things sent to her. I took her to a used furniture store, where I expected to take charge and pick something out. Not. The vibes were, “I’ll handle this. Back off.”
She chose a large double-door wardrobe, which she immediately set out to restain. Who knew she could do such a thing? Apartment-dwelling New York City fellows like myself were anything but handy. It wasn’t our strong suit.
“You’ll ruin it,” I told her.
“It will be easy,” she reassured me, and headed out to the hardware store two blocks away.
“You’ll get stain all over the parquet floor,” I complained.
“Just watch me,” she announced, setting up her tools after she returned with everything she needed. A day later, she had done it. She had stained the armoire dark and light, a perfect two-tone, so the doors came alive with details that looked like eyes, the grains contrasting dramatically. The floor was cleaner than when she started. From that first artistic improvement on, it was always that way. The die was cast.
“I need a table,” she told me.
“I’ll take you to a shop I know,” I said, but luckily, by then, I was making progress. I could see my two cents’ worth wasn’t needed.
“I’ll take this one,” she told the shopkeeper. “Thirty-five bucks, delivered.” A good price negotiator, too, I thought.
“Bookshelves,” she told me. Her sister, daughters, relatives, and friends were quickly sending books and papers. I bought her some tall shelves at a drugstore that was going out of business and had them moved into the room Merlin was making her own. I added a rocking chair, an antique trunk, and an old shoe rack to make her feel more at home. All this was happening quickly—in just the first few weeks.
It was a transition I was comfortable with. “How come?” I might have asked myself, but furnishing the room together with Merlin was actually refurbishing my own interior emotional and intellectual self. I was learning intuitively what we could be for each other. Empty room, empty heart. She filled them both. We were together for two months, during which the relationship was blooming. I felt like I was the first male to give birth. When Merlin arrived, a new Lenny was born.
I was cutting back on poker nights, spending my time helping her get her life together in New York. Merlin wasn’t one to watch television, and I, myself, only had an old fifteen-inch TV, which, like a lot of old hippies, I kept hidden. We were still getting a sense of each other’s tastes and habits, so I invited her to play a game.
“Merlin, let’s play Scrabble.” I was good at the game.
“Okay, but first I want to read the rules.”
They were printed on the inside of the box, so I handed her the box cover and she studied them for a while as I made a place for us to play on our bed.
Merlin went first and spelled “Gaia.”
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“It’s a real word,” she reassured me.
It only earned her ten points, so I didn’t challenge it. Had I looked it up, I’d have learned it was the name of an early mother goddess, but proper names aren’t allowed in Scrabble.
After three turns, it became clear that Merlin wasn’t trying to win the game. I was already way ahead when her turn came and she played another word that looked like a name.
“Six,” she said triumphantly.
“But Merlin,” I observed, “the word isn’t even attached to another word.” I let it stand, but I was catching on.
“Ante.” I spelled a poker word worth four points. I wasn’t trying to win either. And I noticed a tiny glint in her eye.
“You don’t have to keep score,” she suggested.
We continued the game in similar fashion, having a lot of laughs. It was much more fun after that—with no pressure at all. And indeed, we ended the game with the strangest words spelled out across the board.
“What was that about?” I asked for clarification. “Why did we play like that?”
“There’ll never be any competition between us. No game playing, no aggression, no keeping score, no winners or losers. Only cooperation.”
A light clicked on for me. I thought it would be my chance to shine, but she refocused me completely using the Scrabble game. It was liberating. I didn’t have to be better than her. Not much later, if not already by then, I knew it would be crazy for me to even try to compete with Merlin.
Everything fit. We were off and running, but it was hard to keep pace with Merlin. She was just smarter, stronger, and more energetic. She certainly had better taste and ideas. Deal me in! “Next stop,” as Merlin herself would often say, “paradise.”
Our lives blended together easily. We’d eat all our meals out at the Vandam Diner across the street except for the twice-weekly pizza slices we shared. Neither of us cooked. I didn’t even have a kitchen. Okay, I had a twenty-inch stove and a small fridge, but both were out in a small, unheated alcove at the back of my two rooms. All I had for food before I met her were a few cans of soup that I kept on top of the fridge. Merlin built shelves over the stove. She borrowed the tools from the lumberyard nearby. They loved her there because she could speak their language.
Gradually, she settled into the life she wanted to lead.
I loved her. I was so happy. She was not a burden of any kind. I didn’t need to make any real adjustments. My days and nights were a delight with Merlin, although there were some challenges.
Merlin told me, “You should meditate.” She did so often.
I tried, but “no can do,” I told her. “I’ve already got an empty head,” I’d say, trying to joke my way out of it. But the truth was, at that time, my mind was always racing.
She, on the other hand, was communicating with her Goddess. Much as she tried to help me all through our years, I could never find that meditative state, but her advice did have an effect on me, helping me to be a better observer. Not coincidently, it seemed like my results at the poker table were also on the upturn. I was earning much more in two nights a week than I made with more frequent sessions before Merlin came to live with me.
It was about two months into our relationship, in December 1976, when Merlin said, “I want you to meet my daughters.” She was sl
owly letting me know about the life she had lived before we met. Her daughters were already establishing their own lives in San Francisco. Jenny, the oldest, was a printer, and later became a teacher and school administrator. Cynthia became a sous chef and a long-time fashion designer in Paris. Both found loving husbands, and each had two children. Merlin was always so delighted when her grandchildren came for a visit.
Did I mention yet that Merlin was ten years my senior? She never looked it. Most observers would have seen me as her older companion. I would have been shocked to know that she was forty-five when we met in Miami Beach. She was in such fabulous condition.
I’m not saying this from a male-chauvinist point of view. I just want to admire how much vitality she had—what strong energy. She was five six and one hundred twenty-two pounds when she moved in. Her stomach was flat, with well-defined abs. Her back was well muscled. Even her arms and grip were strong—the result of carrying a large, heavy backpack during her travels.
She told me more about Jenny and Cynthia to prepare me for our trip. She had married in 1950, at the age of nineteen. The groom was the father of their two daughters, born in 1952 and 1955. The marriage lasted until a divorce in 1964, after which Merlin moved to a farm in East Aurora, near Buffalo, New York. There, she worked in a large barn, sculpting and painting.
“I had to get out of it,” she told me.
“I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t even worried,” she said. She was still Marilyn Stone, not yet Merlin. She was a single mom who would have to make her own way. From what she told me, it seems like she left him to establish a more independent identity than that of a conventionally married woman.
She was already breaking boundaries for women in the arts with her sculpting. In fact, it was her early interest in women’s figures as she studied sculptures in museums that alerted her to the possibility that women were far more important in ancient history than men acknowledged. She was creating new worlds for women.
“Leaving him made a feminist of me,” she declared.
“I have no idea what that means,” I confessed. That was early in the relationship, and she really never spoke about him again. But I know that their separation gave Merlin the chance to pursue her passions. By 1966–67, she was already writing for a women’s newspaper in the Bay Area. (I’ve lost track of the name of it.)
One night, soon after she arrived to stay with me, I turned on a sitcom for a little entertainment. Throughout all our years, she never watched much TV, but I indulged at the time.
“Let’s turn this off,” she said, reaching for the remote while we lay in our bed watching the nightly news.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Didn’t you notice what he just said?” she asked me.
“What?”
“That dumb blonde joke,” she coached me.
“How many blondes does it take to change a lightbulb? I thought it was funny.”
“That’s the trouble with the way men act toward women,” she continued. “Language is important. If you speak ill of people, you treat them badly.”
This was all news to me. It wasn’t something I would have thought about, but I was open to the idea.
“He insulted me,” she said. “Sexist language.”
“I guess I get it,” I said, though I didn’t grasp the importance of this early lesson at that moment. It was a slow process for me, and Merlin became my patient instructor. It wasn’t as if she made a list of forbidden words, but for me there would be no more “babe” or “bitch.” No more blonde jokes, that’s for sure. Certainly no casual references to female parts of the body. Eventually, no sexist, no racist, no hateful words at all. And no references to God as “Our Father,” “He,” or “Him.” From that moment on, I would become more and more aware of how people spoke—a practice we both adopted and promoted for the rest of our days together. Learning to be aware of how people use language even made me a better poker player.
Not long after that, I came back to the apartment and told Merlin about a poker friend of mine whose wife was an editor at Bantam Press. “I told him I would set up a meeting so she could meet you.”
“I can’t do it,” she said.
“Why?” I asked her. “It’s a great opportunity.” Of course, the opportunity was, as much as anything, for me to impress my friend with this cool woman I was hooking up with.
“Don’t you get it?
“Not exactly, Merlin. Don’t you want to help me?”
“You’re just using me to show off.” Bingo! She had already drawn me out. She sensed immediately it was as much about me—probably more—than about her.
“So, you don’t want me to help?”
“Not that way. I need time for myself. I’m writing my book. We’ll do those things when the time is right.”
I started to raise my voice, “I’m not being selfish. This is a good idea.”
“You’re bringing me into something I don’t want to do,” she said calmly. I don’t remember Merlin ever losing her temper with me or raising her voice. Then, and throughout our relationship, she never expressed anger, and still won every disagreement.
I went into the other room, fuming, and there I let myself think a moment. “I’m happy with Merlin. She’s setting up her room. We’re getting along fabulously. She’s busy with her writing project. It’s not that big a deal, this meeting.” I took a deep breath and went back into her room.
“I’m sorry,” I was surprised to hear myself say. Why am I apologizing? I thought. But this required an apology. The better part of me, the part Merlin was tapping into, was already seeing more clearly. I didn’t need to seek status—particularly if it meant trying to push Merlin to do what she didn’t want to do. I knew that I loved her. It occurred to me what it was.
“Merlin, you know what?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry it was me, me, me. I made a mistake.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s over.”
She just let it go, and always did. I actually never found a reason to raise my voice again in all the years of our relationship.
It was fairly early on in our days together that one of Merlin’s friends asked her what kind of fellow she was living with. Merlin laughed and replied, “Well, he protects me, he takes care of me, he makes me laugh, and he brings home the money. I feel comfortable and at home with him. What more could a woman ask for?” she told her friend. I was so happy Merlin felt at home. Actually, I didn’t have much of a résumé and I wasn’t a good wage earner at the time. I wanted to be her benefactor, but mine was an erratic lifestyle. She was the one who became “Lady Luck” for me.
When we went to visit them, her daughters and I hit it off. I liked them. They were easy to get along with. Merlin had done her job well. The first trip to San Francisco, at Christmastime in 1976, was interesting for us as a couple. I was cold, bothered by the stiff wind and dampness. Merlin always had such good energy, sleeping on top of the quilt that I pulled up to my chin. She laughed at my chill. She went to the University of Buffalo, a state school, not just because she was frugal and could save her folks some money, but because she was a “Buffalo Gal” and she loved cold weather.
She took me to Lombard, known as the most crooked street in San Francisco. We rode the cable cars and went to every book and antique store we could find. She knew the city well, explaining that she had lived first in Oakland and then in Berkeley with her daughters, from 1966 to 1972, so she was close enough to really get to know San Francisco. She had a great sense of direction. She loved her maps. Wherever we went, we would buy maps and she would spread them out on her lap. With this remarkable, intrepid woman by my side, I would never be lost.
This was the woman who set out, in 1972, to research her landmark books. She went unaccompanied to Lebanon, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Crete, and other countries. She slept in caves, often hitchhiking or tra
veling by bus to libraries, museums, and archeological sites, gathering bits and scraps of information, most of which had been destroyed or hidden away. She did all this with little money and no direct knowledge of the culture or languages. She was among men whose viewpoints were then, and remain, hostile to women.
Merlin guided us both wherever we needed to go. Her good energy and enthusiasm set the tone for the many trips we took together.
But it didn’t start all that smoothly. I still needed coaching. On one early occasion, I suggested we go to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, where she could enjoy observing their countercultural lifestyle. After a two-hour ride, we pulled into a rest stop. When it was time to get back on the road, she refused.
“I’m not getting in that car with you,” she declared.
“What’s the problem, Merlin?” I asked, totally clueless.
“I told you to slow down. You’re a speeder and you drive recklessly.”
“Why drive slow?” I asked. I was driving the way I always drove, like a racecar driver at the Speedway.
“If you want me to get in the car,” she informed me, “you’ll have to promise not to speed. No weaving. No tailgating.”
Who the fuck are you, the police? I thought, but there was no way I would have said it. I loved her, though she was not yet smitten with me. This was going to take some advanced strategy. Meanwhile, she was walking away.
“Wait up!” I called, catching up to her and touching her elbow. “Okay, Merlin, if that’s all it takes—no speeding, no tailgating, and no basket weaving,” I joked to lighten the moment.
She got in the car. You can bet the ranch I kept my word. A little piece of me was doing a slow burn, but what she said next fixed that fairly quickly.
“Be a careful driver. I’ve got places to go, and so do you.” It was amazing how much her compliments meant to me. From then on, she never missed an opportunity to praise my driving, always reminding me how I made her feel safe and secure.
Between Merlin teaching me better habits and her having extraordinarily good luck, I can’t remember her ever giving me bad advice.
Merlin Stone Remembered Page 6