My Sacred Places: Walt Whitman's House in Camden, New Jersey

Writing my dissertation about the poetry of Walt Whitman coincided with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship games in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As I played clarinet in the Indiana University Pep Band and had nine years of seniority in the famed Marching Hundred, I was entitled to a trip to the City of Brotherly Love. I planned to visit Whitman’s house in nearby Camden, New Jersey, on the day in between the first and second matches.

On March 30, 1981, my trumpet-playing friend Ken and I took the subway to Camden and found Whitman’s house. There, we met Eleanor Ray, the caretaker and docent. As my dissertation was nearly finished, I had enough knowledge about Whitman to verify that Eleanor knew her stuff! To this day, I think of her as one of the foremost experts on Whitman. She had grown up in Camden, had seen a want ad listing the caretaker job, had applied, and had been chosen. Eleanor told us she felt she was under obligation to learn as much about Whitman as she could. She definitely fulfilled her promise!

My Friend Ken Walking Away from the Walt Whitman House

(Painted Light Gray) in Camden, New Jersey, in 1981

We slowly toured the small shotgun house. Many of Whitman’s belongings were on view; seeing Whitman’s effects made me feel that he was peering over my shoulder. I thought I might glance at his rocking chair and catch him rocking!

The great biographer Justin Kaplan had published his life of Whitman the previous year. Eleanor told us she and Kaplan had lengthy conversations about the poet. As Kaplan was most interested in examining Whitman’s environments to discern the ways in which Whitman constructed a public persona consistent with the high aims of his literary art, Kaplan had come to a significant location when he visited Camden, Whitman’s final home (the only house he ever owned) and his burial place. While we stood in Whitman’s front room, I sensed that I was standing where many famous writers, past and present, had stood.

After our tour, Eleanor, Ken, and I lingered on the sidewalk in front of Whitman’s house. A drizzling mist was falling, and the sky was leaden. I had the notion to step up on the block that Whitman used to step up into his buggy. No sooner was I atop the slab than lines from Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” flashed into the forefront of my mind. Whitman had written the poem in honor of slain President Abraham Lincoln. Suddenly, Eleanor asked, “Do you feel that change in the atmosphere? Something bad is happening somewhere.” I admitted I had the disquieting sensation that an evil act was occurring. Feeling vulnerable, I quickly dismounted from the stone. Eleanor explained that, ever since she had worked at the Whitman house, her extrasensory perception had been in harmony with the poet’s psyche. On that occasion, she seemed almost a reincarnation of the author of Leaves of Grass.

Ken and I journeyed back to our hotel in Philly. We had plenty of time to don our pep band uniforms. We were surprised to find our fellow band members glued to the television sets in their rooms. “Haven’t you heard?” they asked. “Someone just tried to assassinate President Reagan.” The TV reporters solemnly repeated the facts about the assassination attempt, which had occurred precisely when Eleanor had said, “Something bad is happening somewhere.” Most fortunately, President Reagan survived and reportedly felt he should be especially mindful of his actions because a Merciful Providence had spared him.

The band boarded the bus for the Spectrum. The NCAA had decided to delay the game. Everyone waited, including then sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, who engaged in friendly conversation with band members. The crowd quietly awaited news of President Ronald Reagan’s condition. Eventually, the voice over the loudspeakers announced that the President was recovering and that he had urged the NCAA to start the games, saying he would rather be in Philadelphia. I had been in the Spectrum when IU won the NCAA championship in 1976, and I was there in 1981 when, late at night, the Hoosiers beat Dean Smith’s North Carolina Tar Heels 63 to 50.           

Why I Plant Cosmos

My first six blog postings were about my friend Mary, and she introduced me to cosmos. I had rented a house, and behind it, the ground sloped down steeply to a creek. “We can plant flowers!” Mary exclaimed with the joy of a gardener who had been forced to spend too many years in apartments. Mary was eager to touch the earth again, and she felt starved for cosmos. “They’re so pretty in a vase,” Mary assured me. So, that spring, Mary brought to my rented house a couple of packets of cosmos seeds.

Judging from the name, I was expecting maybe bright orange flowers like fiery orbs in outer space. I may have been thinking of sunflowers. Little did I know how delicate the stems and petals would be!

A Constellation of Cosmos in My Garden

First, I had to discern the difference between a fledgling cosmos and a weed. I regret to say I probably plucked many of the cosmos seedlings from the soil because I thought they were some other plant that nature had sown and that was not wanted in that location.

   

Eventually, though, I had a good stand of cosmos. Before they bloomed, I was mystified. I could not see what Mary saw in them. Their thin leaves were too thin to be called “leaves,” in my opinion; they looked more like an herb to decorate an entrée. Then pale buttons began to form at the ends of the stems.

One day, I awoke to flowers. Is “gossamer” overused? I hope not, as I want to describe the petals as gossamer. Near the cheerful yellow center, the petals were a hot pink, but the pink cooled toward the petals’ outer ends. Depending on the hour of the day, the angle of the sun, or the presence of clouds, the blooms bore a subtle shade of pale lavender. At other times, they acquired a coral tone.

Mary could not have been more pleased. Out came her scissors, and she began cutting the long stems. I was alarmed. Finally, I said, “Shouldn’t we leave some to enjoy in the garden?” Mary laughed and said, “They’ll keep adding stems all summer.” For the record, I will attest that she cut only enough for a single vase on that first day.

Once Mary had arranged the flowers—which is to say, once she had confined the stems to the vase and had let the flowers arrange themselves—I thought they were ballerinas. They performed with a grand plié and an equally grand jeté! (My cousin Jill, who really was a ballerina, would be proud of my terms!)

Some of the cosmos drooped, others reached up. Some bobbed in the breeze wandering through the kitchen window. Others stood still. They filled their stage with grace. I fully understood why Mary had been so impatient to grow cosmos in my garden. Throughout the season, the plants produced plenty of flowers for Mary’s apartment and my house, too.

Cosmos Like Annual Ballerinas

Ever since Mary helped me appreciate cosmos, I have grown them. Yes, I believe that I have had at least a few cosmos in the flower gardens of every house I have owned. Two years ago, I planted hosts of them within an assortment of flowers forming a border around my vegetable garden, and the elegant blooms danced in vases around my home all summer long. I have come to associate cosmos with the joys of gardening.    

My Friend the Medium, Installment 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

Ever since Mary’s death, I’ve toyed with the fanciful notion that she was called to heaven during a severe lightning storm because the powerful energy made for a smoother passage for her soul. I like to think that the light of her being rode on a lightning beam into the clouds and beyond.

All of us who knew Mary were devastated. We cried incessantly. Dabbing our eyes with tissues, we said to one another, “Mary wouldn’t want us to cry. She would want us to laugh.” Although she was 70 years of age, she had seemed many years younger. Everyone missed her youthfulness, her joy, her wisdom, her friendship, and her love.

Mary’s brother, who was an engineer, summed up his sister’s talent. “She had an extraordinary gift,” he said. I like his wording. Her gift was indeed rare because she brought tremendous reassurance and happiness to so many people!

My Photograph of Early Spring

Within three days after Mary passed, one of her closest friends opened his front door to find a butterfly hovering there. It alighted on his shoulder. An Irish tradition transplanted in America through immigration holds that souls of recently passed loved ones can appear as butterflies to inspire and guide those living.

One day, I had nothing better to do, so, for a few seconds, while half asleep, I pretended to type what Mary would dictate if she could be standing and talking nearby me: “How opportunity comes is mysterious, but it surely does come when you are ready. Be in good spirits! Joy is everywhere in trees changing colors and birds at the feeder! Write what you hear being written, or else you will have directionless books. Be ready! Have faith!” I immediately felt I was wasting time. The expressions did not sound exactly like Mary, and I did not regard them as profound.

Only a few days after typing those words, I received a letter from one of Mary’s friends in Omaha. She wrote, “So tell me, have you heard from Mary? For some reason, I feel you have. Mary used to say she would not speak in parables if she could break that barrier [death]—she would communicate clearly, no games! Is this happening now? Has it happened to you? Have you tried for it, or has it simply come to you?”

The friend’s letter persuaded me to save my typing for future reference.

Over the ensuing decades, I experienced perhaps a dozen occasions when, for no more than a few seconds, I felt as if Mary were trying to communicate with me. Such fleeting occurrences took place when it seemed as if she were the farthest thought from my mind. I always concluded that my subconscious mind was still seeking to compensate for the loss of a dear friend.

All the same, I have turned again and again to the sentences that I typed on that day when I was pretending to take dictation. I have wished that my often cynical temperament would permit me to follow the advice. I am frequently pessimistic, and I customarily gripe that I lack opportunity. Finding joy everywhere is a challenge for the defeatist that I have become. “Write what you hear being written, or else you will have directionless books.” I have pondered the meaning of that guideline, and I have taken the suggestion to listen carefully to what I have to say before stringing words together in sentences. I have followed the counsel to write what I hear, and I have developed as a writer with sixteen books to my name and over two hundred articles.      

Now I am nearing the age that Mary was when I met her. Perhaps illogically, her ideas have helped reaffirm my more traditional expectations set in motion by my parents, who regularly attended a Methodist church. Mary had always believed I would become an author. Did she assist me? Yes, she undoubtedly did. During the part of her life that I was privileged to share, she taught me to observe people accurately and to hear their stories fully. Grateful for the lessons, I have passed these gifts forward to students in my writing classes at the university.