In the Beginning

Even before Georgia O’Keeffe passed away and I began to study her, her paintings showed up in my life, particularly back in my traveling days when I stopped at museums any time I was in a city of substance. I knew of her connection to the Texas Panhandle, too. So, I was sad when she passed.

I attended a lecture at the museum in Canyon. A historian spoke who seemed to know everything about Georgia’s time in Texas—-back in the 1910s, when she was the art teacher at the fledgling teachers’ college. The stories were so vivid, it was almost as if the historian had been a passenger whenever one of Georgia’s men friends took her for a drive, or Georgia’s companion when she hiked the canyon.

Afterwards, the dreams started.

Sometimes I am Georgia. Or sometimes (even in the same dream), I am me, but living in the 1910s. The dreams are Georgia’s Texas paintings and her letters sent back east, come to life. And our lives are intertwined.

Fall 1916

The automobile was the loudest yellow thing I had ever seen. It must have given the town a jolt. “Are you ready to go for a ride, Miss O’Keeffe?” Ralph hollered, as the exhaust backfired, the fat tires of the Buick Roadster skidding on the gravel. Ralph was Georgia’s favorite man friend in Canyon.

Before Ralph and his yellow Buick interrupted the afternoon, Georgia and I were sitting on the porch surveying the endless plain that started right there. She told me the Texas Panhandle was more bare and troubled than her family’s Wisconsin farm. But, she said, both required a tough spirit.

“My mother’s spirit was left on that farm, which Father sold for mere money,” she said, her grief palpable. “He moved us from the hard farmlands to the soft civilization of Virginia.” Soft, she said with such contempt. “That began the steady downfall of our family’s fortunes, and killed my mother five months ago—an ignominious ending—the rent unpaid, the cupboards bare, her lungs filled with blood.”

When Ralph arrived, in an instant, she pushed the dark emotions aside. Ralph was the perfect companion to the funny car, the most enormous, brown-faced, blue-eyed old plainsman one could imagine. He had a great shock of white hair, the whites of his eyes appeared very white because his skin was so dark, and he was too strong and live-looking to call old even if his hair was white. He always wore the same black sateen shirt and a tight-fitting cap with a shiny black visor. Black suited Georgia just fine—she almost always dressed in black herself.

She met him because he liked the way she walked the streets with her hands in her pockets. One day, his wife invited Georgia to their house. To me, he was so big he would probably fill a whole room—he wasn’t made for a house, but for the big outdoors.

“He is a nice human man,” Georgia whispered as she sprang up and marched to the car, Dante’s Divine Comedy in hand—she hoped to make a long day and evening of it.

Georgia sat up front next to Ralph. I climbed into the back with my knapsack.

Ralph paid me no mind.

The Buick drove us out past the houses of the town—to what Georgia and I most liked about Texas, other than the canyon. No pavement, no fences, no nothing. Just flat plain and the biggest sky—like the ocean; it was wide, wide land.

With nothing to stop him, Ralph drove ridiculously fast, and we loved it. The Buick labored loud, and the wind filled our ears, strewing our hair to the heavens. Above it all, Georgia laughed—hers was a manly laugh, “I’d rather be here than any place I know.”

Just then, a great wind buffeted the car. A great, dark cloud approached, moving even faster than the car. Ralph jerked to a stop and pulled up the top. He was talking fast the whole time, but Georgia didn’t seem to hear him. She looked ecstatic about her front row seat to the storm that emerged from nowhere.

In what seemed only a minute, the day went from warm and sunny to biting cold, with lightning and blue grayness, fast moving big clouds to terrify; bleakness and aloneness. The fierce wind and cutting rain rocked the car and, for a few delicious moments, enveloped us in blackness. The rain didn’t soak into the ground; it just stood in ponds and ran down the road in rivers—the ground just didn’t know how to treat what it seldom got.

When light returned, we rolled down the windows and basked in the breeze, cooled by the change in the weather, and breathed in the smell of earth and water. Ralph smoked his pipe. Georgia read Dante. I closed my eyes and napped. I awoke to Georgia closing the cover on The Divine Comedy. The book and Ralph seemed to be the same thing almost: he is Georgia’s Beatrice, driving her through the spheres of Paradise in a yellow Buick.

We watched the sun set—such a wonderful sunset, the plains turning a pinkish yellow-orange. And such emptiness, a tremendous emptiness but for the sun setting. The whole sky was full of it—all around—the brightest reflection coming to us down the little river in the road. I could see Georgia painting it in her mind, but a single canvas couldn’t begin to capture it all.

As the sun made its way to the bottom of the sky, Ralph drove back to the edge of town, to the cattle pens. We climbed up on the fence overlooking the empty pens and sat there for a long time watching the colors fill the sky where the sun had disappeared. It was cloudy and—clouds make gorgeous sunsets here—we sat there till some cowboys came up with a few cattle, their lowing putting the night’s emergence to music. While the cowboys were fussing around in the tangle of fences, we all climbed down and got back in the car—in the moonlight, but with red still kissing the sky. The air reeked with a kind of filth that there were no words in our vocabulary for. But it all goes together.

Georgia finally allowed Ralph to turn around and end the day. When he pulled in front of the boarding house, he looked at her seriously. “You’re still intent on spending your weekend in the canyon?”

“I am. Will you still take me?”

“I’ll be here before daybreak.”

***

We were up with the roosters. Georgia filled her leather bag with bread and dried fruit, a letter pad and pen, a sketch book, and some charcoal, and her canteen with water, securing a bedroll to a walking stick with a piece of rope; and she took along her watercolor paint box. We sat on the porch, admiring the morning star as we waited for him. Good old, dependable Ralph; we didn’t wait long.

“That young teacher Annie Mosier is going with you, right, Miss O’Keeffe?”

“She said she would when I ran out of other suspects.”

Annie lived with a family across from the college, only a couple of minutes away. There was only one lamp burning inside. Georgia got out and tapped on the front door, I’m sure not wanting to wake the whole house.

Annie opened the door right away.

“You don’t look dressed for hiking, Annie,” Georgia declared.

“Oh, dear, I’m not feeling so well. But I didn’t want to strand you,” Annie said. “There’s a girl staying with us—a healer. She’s heard all about Georgia O’Keeffe and would very much like to go to the canyon with you.”

She is talking about me (dreams are most strange).

And there I am. A girl with flowing black curls and pearly skin emerging from the hall, carrying a knapsack, and wearing pants and cowboy boots. I march straight up and put out my hand. “Miss O’Keeffe, I’m Diane. I hope it’s alright if I come along.”

She took my hand and absorbed the mystical energy I felt flowing out of every pore.

“You don’t quite seem real, my dear, but . . ..” She stepped back and looked me over. “You look well up to the task of hiking the canyon.”

Georgia gave Annie a hug. “You feel better soon. I’ll take care of your friend.”

We headed back into the dark. As I had the day before, I squeezed myself and my knapsack into the backseat. Ralph turned around, but seemed to look right through me.

Gravel pinged the underside of the car as we roared toward Palo Duro Canyon.

“All the air in the world is here,” Georgia hollered to Ralph. We both closed our eyes to take in the feel of the wind, the untouched feel of the country, and the last moments of night.

Ralph pulled off the road just as faint light began to adorn the horizon above what Georgia called the slit in the Earth, and took Georgia’s gear out of the car and set it on the ground.

“Do stay and watch the sunrise, Ralph,” Georgia said, as she lowered herself to the ground.

“Oh, I see it,” I said. “Are we going down there?”

“After we watch,” Georgia whispered where only I could hear. “Shhh. You can hear it, the light coming.”

Purple, red, orange, then blue filled the spaces between the scattered clouds guarding the horizon above the canyon. The colors were soft like the strings of an orchestra preparing the audience for something bigger. The tip of the sun’s light peeked above the surface, first as low brass, then as bright trumpets. It is so amazing. We continued sitting until brilliance slowly took over the sky and the colors of the orchestra faded away.

Ralph stood and brushed off his pants. “Miss O’Keeffe, I’ll be back here by mid-afternoon tomorrow. Please be careful. I don’t feel quite right leaving you alone.”

“Oh, Ralph, I’m not alone.”

When the Buick had roared away, Georgia rubbed her hands together and spoke, seemingly only to herself, “Are you ready for some adventure?”

“I am,” I answered.

When we had descended about a hundred feet, Georgia stopped and whispered, “Listen.” There was no wind in the gorge; it was just big and still.

We looked around, admiring the white and sand-colored and greenish-gray cliffs marking the beginning of the canyon. On closer examination, there was also lavender and pink and red and blue—made dirty in places by millions of little scrubby cedars, not tall but with thick trunks, gnarled and twisted—sometimes half uprooted—scrubby little old things but still live and bravely green, protruding from shadows very blue. Above them, the skyline was perfectly straight. Georgia looked up, I imagine drawing the line between the blue sky and the canyon in her mind, then the earthy rainbow below it.

We picked our way along sharp, high edges between long, soft earth banks so steep they hid the bottom, making the canyon seem very deep. We encountered less than sure footing—the dirt and rocks crumbled and rolled down and there was nothing to hold on to except the stick we shared. Our fear was palpable, but I felt something protecting us—something I wanted to be very close to. So we just kept moving. Being afraid made it all the finer.

We removed our packs and sat for a rest beneath a big cedar. Only then could we admire the bare ridge rising forever above us. We looked at each other and laughed.

“We did that?” I asked.

“We did.” Georgia said. “There is something so merciless about the canyon—so tremendous.”

“Look there,” I whisper-shouted, pointing at crows flying high above the canyon. Graceful, dancing, black shadows against a now brilliant blue sky, the canyon seeming to dangle and sway beneath them. There was just the quiet and the crows, the sky and the canyon, as we stood small at the bottom of nature’s canvas.

We navigated the canyon until we felt all shaky in the knees and limp all over. We came to the stream, and Georgia removed her black felt hat, black dress, and black shoes, leaving just a plain white chemise. She waded out into the stream, laughing as she splashed in the cold water. I took off my blouse, sat on the ground, pulled off my boots and pants, and followed her in. We let our hair down and bathed in the chilly water, interrupting the quiet with our laughter. We came out and lay in the sand a long time, letting the sun warm us.

Georgia fell asleep but woke up as the sky emitted a queer little whirr above us, caused, we saw, by a great flock of birds rushing by. We watched and listened until it was still again.

“Miss O’Keeffe, I can’t remember when I felt so free.”

Georgia sat up. “It’s the space we have here. The room to be free. I can’t get enough of it. She pulled her sketch book and charcoal out of her bag. We sat quietly for a long time while she drew lines and curves and circles on her paper. Then, she stopped and put her head down.

I moved close and massaged her shoulders. “What hurts you?”

She turned to look at me, appearing now to be the young girl, while I was the one older and wiser.

“I feel these things that come out through my fingers, in these strange shapes I draw, in the colors I see. I think people will just see odd shapes and think my art strange. I don’t know that I can put what I’m feeling on the canvas.”

I kneaded Georgia’s shoulders, my fingers communicating the way that they do. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered. “Everything changed when we left the farm. When my father tried to start businesses. When he lost everything. And my mother was so sick for so long, then died hungry. I ran away from all that. This is the only place I feel peace.”

I understand what she means.

“I see what you feel, even in those simple shapes,” I told her. “You should let yourself go, let it all out.”

Georgia sighed and smiled. “I needed to hear that, Dear. I have been for many years now a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I want to. My art seems to be the only thing I can do that doesn’t concern anybody else but myself—that is nobody’s business but my own.” She looked up at the sky, her face full of regret. “I have wasted so much canvas not being me.”

The moment passed, and Georgia returned to being my guide, me to being the wide-eyed student. As the sun dropped below the horizon above us, we sat, leaning against a cedar and watching the canyon transform into a burning, seething cauldron.

“I see in those colors, all the emotions of my heart,” Georgia said.

“You’re not afraid of them, are you, Miss O’Keeffe? You’re not even afraid that it’s about to be night and we are all alone in this canyon.”

She took my hand. “This is the greatest place to see the nighttime because there is nothing else. There is nothing to be afraid of because there is nothing out there. There’s no place else I’d rather be.”

We lay flat on our backs and watched stars arrive, like Georgia said she had done as a little girl. When I turned my head a little I could see the skyline—still a little color in the west. Peace fell all around us.

We slept sound in the pitch dark and quiet, wrapped in our blankets under the tree. When I awoke, the sun was already peeping above the plain. Georgia sat, looking back and forth between the sky and her sketch book, furiously brushing water color on the page, black and deep red and brilliant orange filling in the shapes drawn the day before.

Sensing my presence, she put down her brush, turned her head, and smiled. “I had a dream. I was frightened walking down into the canyon. I misstepped and was about to fall into the abyss, but I awoke. I’m trying to capture the exhilaration of the fright, followed immediately by knowing that I was alive—really alive.”

I opened my mouth but did not speak. Georgia dabbed her brush in paint and continued.

***

Ralph was waiting when Georgia emerged in the heat of the afternoon. She raised her hand to him. Without a word, he put her things in the Buick. She gazed at the plain stretching away from the canyon—she could see for miles and miles. There was nobody but her and Ralph, nothing but the quiet afternoon; to the west, against the sun, there were cattle in a string, forming a dark embroidery edge to the earth. Georgia rubbed her hands together—they were scratched and dirty. Her face burned and her lips burned more. Oh what a great day, her face said.

They drove in silence, back toward town. A rush of cool wind signaled the extended summer ending, winter coming. Tumbleweeds blew, tearing mad across the plains, big and little ones, far and near, piling up along the distant fences. Dust obscured the horizon—grayish yellow, warm looking sand, rising up to scrub away the blue. Georgia wrapped her arms around her shoulders, laying her head back, content.

Only when houses came into view did Ralph speak. “You’re quite amazing, Miss O’Keeffe. But I’m sure my mother wouldn’t approve of me leaving a woman alone in that canyon overnight.”

She smiled, feeling grateful he had liked the look of her walking with her hands in her pockets. “You’re quite alright. I wasn’t alone.