Eulogies & Tributes to Nancy Caldwell

My words for Nancy at the Gay Head Cliffs on July 10th

and August 25th, 2018.

I don’t want to do this, my love: I don’t want to do this because it feels like a betrayal, and I never want to say goodbye.

So I’ll talk to you as if you were standing here dressed in beauty. Dressed in the gifts we chose and even designed together for your birthdays and on the anniversary of our meeting in Shakespeare and Company in 1975:

-the kashmir shawl you wore as if it were a hug,
-and the gingko earrings that made you feel alive as they dangled against your neck, re-affirming your existence.

Oh, how I wish I could go on re-affirming your existence forever, Nancy.

One of the ways I’d do it is with words – those “words” you pleaded for when you asked me why I loved you specifically - as opposed to any other woman. You’d sometimes bridle when I said “generic” things (as you called them) like “I love you” and “You’re my precious”, and would insist that I explain why, since there were moments when you couldn’t find much that was lovable about yourself. All you wanted was a few “words”, as you put it, but I was so thick that I thought my reasons for cherishing you were self-evident, or that they only needed to be stated once.

The ironic thing is that my mind has been swarming with words for you ever since you died in my arms last Thanksgiving. I’ve been stumbling around in disbelief, screaming and murmuring endless words. So I should be able to say why I admired you so much by now - you’d think!

In fact, I should be able to describe you better than anyone else who ever knew you. After all, I can feel the animus and flavor of your being almost as vividly as my own. Sometimes, you even seem to be just beyond my fingertips, just beyond my vision as I turn to catch a glimpse of you riding beside me in the car down the corridor of maples on Middle Road or even lying beside me. But I was just too close to describe you without my efforts feeling piecemeal and random.

Just as I’ve spent much of my life so close to you that I could hear your heartbeats and breathing, I was too close to your eyes not to be absorbed by the sentience of the life closest to my own - dazzled in the headlights, as it were. I was way too close to your brilliance – yes, brilliance, although you never thought of yourself that way. I got to see you develop as a writer and researcher, who moved from compelling articles about torturous negotiations through the ages to your magnum opus, which would have been a true detective story linking this island to the Paris of George Sand.

And I saw how you rose into the ranks of the most prominent experts on international negotiation – how you won positions in many of the highest educational institutions in France and clients around the world - after you’d mastered everything from cultural anthropology to game theory on your own, and learned to apply their lessons with finesse. So, yes – you were brilliant.

But the brilliance that most affected people wasn’t so much intellectual as personal and moral. It grew out of your faith that we can all expand our hearts enough to actually relish each other’s differences. I was so proud of the way you applied your learning, critical thinking, and listening skills to giving people, who were prone to seeing each other as adversaries, the tools to live and work in friendship, including when you answered the call of duty, and provided free consulting to non-profits from as far away as Cambodia and Rwanda.

Instead of seeing anyone in terms of stereotypes, you always tried to view each person as a specific individual, and had the wisdom, skills and conviction to persuade many of us to do the same. In other words, I was so close that I knew your love embraced us all, although it was often tough love, since you saw through many of our pretenses and delusions.

And then there were the moments you dazzled me personally – not just with your beauty and open-eyed devotion, but with an uncanny ability to articulate the inner workings of a novel, or of a film you’d discovered while I was caving, and then taken me to see when I got home, still caked in mud.

And, finally, there was your capacity for bliss. It was so thrilling to witness your exultation as you beheld the sky’s cobalt depth at nightfall (although the infinitude of the stars afterwards frightened you). It was thrilling to share your delight in the caromphing of frogs and hooting of owls as breezes wafted through our bedroom. And it was thrilling to snuggle beside you as warblers heralded the effulgence of dawn and you sat up, composing haikus of gratitude.

Sometimes, when the sun rose, you even asked me to accompany you to Squibnocket or Menemsha, where I’d stand guard - or rather in wondrous witness as you entered the velour embrace of the sea. As many of you know, Nancy felt like she was truly in her element as she swam blissfully almost every dawn and dusk from May through October – fanning through her own spiritual dimension, which she thought of as a friend. And that’s what you’ve become for me, my love – my own spiritual dimension; the element that mediates my entire world.

But to be honest, I’m only partly submerged in your grace now. I know that’s a harsh thing to say in a eulogy – but it’s true because of my resignation, regrets, and anger. After all these months, I’m resigned to not seeing you again. But my resignation isn’t entirely elegiac or wise. I’ve cried you a river, but neither of us have been able to cross it. We’re defeated.

So of course I’m angry. Angry that someone so sentient, appreciative, and generous should die when she was about to produce her most important work, but also angry for other reasons:

-First, because I couldn’t save you in the end, although I literally fought my way at one point into a scanner room, in an effort to stop the staff from putting you into the tunnel without rehydrating you, only to be overruled by a decision-maker, who called it a “regrettable decision” after your kidneys failed that night.
-And, secondly, because I had to watch you die as our country toppled into the grip of a swaggering xenophobe hell-bent on undoing everything you stood for - a man who robbed you of hope that we Americans were gradually becoming more generous and inclusive. So, yes, I hold that braggart who Putin managed to install in our presidency through electoral manipulation and dysfunction personally responsible for polluting the end of your life.

And yet you will always be a reminder of everything we should strive for as custodians of each other and this fragile planet. I’m wrapped in your brilliance, my love, as you continue to protect me with your flashing beams of indignation and compassion, and guide me across the seas ahead. You’ll always be my red queen like this lighthouse, standing before me in radiant beauty.

…

Thank you for coming to celebrate our Nancy, who loved so many things, including dogwoods, which I’ve been planting in her garden, where you’re all invited to come celebrate her life.

My love, I’m so proud of you.

The second gathering.

…

Olivia Caldwell’s words for her Mom at the cliffs on July 10, 2018.

My mother was fascinated by the concept of identity. She constantly sought to improve herself by delving into questions of identity with curiosity, openness, and kindness, and passionately believed that such an approach towards others required continuous exercise like muscles that need to be used - both to grow, and stay, strong. She shared her thoughts with many of us, and, in the process, changed my view on love, culture, and ourselves.

A few stories of how she exercised such reflexes stand out, and I’d like to share them with you. Two on culture and two on love.

First, on culture:

Growing up in Paris, we went to the movies a lot. My mother made a deal with my brother, Sebastian, and me. We were allowed to see one American blockbuster in exchange for one film from Iran (or some other obscure culture to us). Although we found this scheme annoying at the time, I now recognize its amazing benefits. She refused to let us sink into a Western world-view or take it for granted, and opened our minds to foreign cultures and ideas on a weekly basis. I cannot thank her enough for this gift.

The second cultural story involves the year my mother dedicated to expanding and deepening her religious tolerance. Her numerous books on the topic still surround us. She once signed up for a workshop open to Muslims, Jews and Christians as a Jewish woman, even though she didn’t practice the religion. She had a great time, met extraordinary people, and had some constructive conversations. She really thought she’d achieved something, when, on the last day, she was out for drinks with the participants, and a Muslim woman confessed that she didn’t actually practice her “religion”. It turned out that no one in the workshop was religious, but everyone had sought something in common – to exercise their muscles for appreciating each other as individuals informed by various cultures and religions.

Now, a couple of stories about love:

When I was a child I asked my mother: “Mom, who’s your best friend?” Her reaction confused me. She got very angry and refused to talk to me. As I started tediously going through the list of all her girlfriends, she grew angrier and angrier, until she snapped: “It’s your father of course!”

I didn’t understand the importance of her statement at the time. Now that I’m married, I remember her words vividly, and know she’d found true love, and was helping me to recognize it when my turn came. I cannot thank her enough for this gift.

Decades later, I ran into my parents at Boston airport. My dad was not wearing shoes (probably due to poison ivy or some other itch) and I was mortified, since I travelled frequently and thought someone in the airport might recognize me. I asked Nancy to please do something! She turned to me and said: your father has been the most wonderful husband in the entire world, what kind of wife would I be to be bothered by him being a bit eccentric? She didn’t care at all, because she understood and cherished the important aspects of a relationship. I’ll always try to apply her philosophy to mine.

Nancy made me who I am today. She shaped my view of the world. She gave me the ability to know, recognize and savor true love, as well as to be open to the unknown and seek to understand other cultures. She taught me to flex my muscles and seek to create a more tolerant, open, and kind world for all.

Thank you mommy.

Olivia Caldwell’s words for her Mom at the cliffs on August 25, 2018.

I’m sad I can’t attend the memorial today. I’m at the other end of the world in Papua New Guinea. I came for work but I also took the time to go into the highlands and visit some of the country’s tribal villages, where I experienced overwhelming cultural diversity and generosity. I was invited by the Asaro Mudmen to attend a national sing sing where hundreds of tribes from across the nation came to celebrate their history, ancestry and local traditions. It was euphoric.

Yet as I find myself in new and exciting places, I often reach for my phone to call my mother. Her love of diversity and openness to all cultures and religions is what inspired me to seek a career in international development and travel the world. No matter the time difference, we would always chat during my trips. She encouraged me to travel and not fear the world but embrace its many people. Without her teachings I don’t believe I would be in Papua New Guinea today.

As I reach for the phone to call her, it sinks in - she is gone. I tear up as I ask myself how can I share all the wonderful experiences of my last few weeks with her? How will I share all my experiences to come with her? Though I can’t imagine navigating my own future motherhood without my own mother, I try to remember her teachings. I want to pass them on to my children and let her wisdom live on through our actions and experiences.

Nancy devoted her life to unlocking our humanity by creating bridges across cultures. She was fascinated by cultural and religious diversity. But she went beyond that, she sought to understand people themselves and honor our individual diversity. She did this by truly listening, asking questions, avoiding judgement and engaging, always reaching out beyond her comfort zone, to broaden her own horizon.

I believe that she sought to pass on this endless curiosity to me. Many mothers teach their daughters to avoid dangerous countries but Nancy encouraged me to seize every opportunity instead. She wasn’t afraid of the world. She taught me to embrace it.

I often try to imagine her as a young woman, arriving in Paris, meeting Duncan at Shakespeare and Company and starting a life in a new country. Raising a family in a new city. Navigating French bureaucracies and Duncan’s idiosyncrasies. I believe that she loved Paris not simply for its well-known romantic aspects, but also for the diversity of cultures and experiences the city has to offer. Both my mom and my dad share this endless appetite and curiosity to learn about the world, to preserve its heritage and pass it on to future generations.

Her unique outlook on the world forever lives in me and I hope it lives in all of you too. Her teachings are forever engrained in me and I bring them to every country I visit, trying to apply her unique lens to our world. I plan on passing them on to my own children and, hopefully, enable her unique thoughts to influence generations to come.

I cannot thank her enough for this amazing gift! Thank you mommy.

Love

Olivia

…

Peters Day painted this portrait of us in his chambre de bonne near Metro Iena in 1977 or ’78.

Jennifer Botzojorns words for Nancy at the cliffs. July 7, 2018

Our layover at Charles De Gaulle began at 5 am, so we found ourselves on the Rue Rambuteau, calling up, toward Nancy and Duncan’s apartment, on New Year’s morning.

She opened the window, “Come in, come in, welcome.” Smiling. Radiant.

They had been up all night. Nancy poured tea, gently brushed the hair from her eyes, ever curious of our journey, stepping into our lives, reaching for wisdom.

“Most Americans,” she said, “Their conversations are like ping-pong tournaments -- back and forth, back and forth…..the flow of the American conversation.”

Then she was silent.

Her conversations were not like this. They were grounded in the fabric of our connections to each other. It was with Nancy and Duncan that our daughter Uli stayed, between her semesters in Amman and London.

Nancy and Duncan. Duncan and Nancy. Together they danced through life, moving between and among each other

“We met,” she told me once, “In a bookstore. Of philosophers and literature we began to talk, and the conversations kept going and going. Never ending.”

It was several years later when Uli spent three months traipsing with Duncan across the French countryside, uncovering implements, climbing in caves, searching for clues to past lives.

And Nancy -- she and Uli would frequent the cinema and talk for hours, over tea, about the nature of us as creatures who inhabit this planet.

These were not ping-pong conversations.

Nancy. Conversation.

Nancy and Duncan.

One rainy day before a long prospecting trek, Uli and Duncan stepped into a grocery to buy mud boots and came out with an olive tree.

“Nancy would love an olive tree,” Duncan said.

The four foot potted thing was stuffed in the car. The two of them raced in the rain for the train, then the metro, down Rue Rambuteau and up the flights of stairs.

Nancy looked at the lush plant, wet Duncan.

Breathing gently, smiling, “Where are we going to put that?” she said.

A simple question.

And so she went.

With corporations or emerging nations.

To every corner of the planet.

Welcoming olive trees into the world, wondering what crowded space they could occupy?

Each time our family arrived at State Road in Aquinnah, there was Nancy at the door. Floral skirt, yellow scoop neck top, large bold beads, gentle sandals.

“Come in, Come in, and how are you?”

How blessed was Nancy, and how blessed we were to be part of her life. Never the quick ping-pong of a conversation.

Whenever we talked, In the middle of a summer day or late into the night, Nancy was deeply searching. For the places to put all-that-arrives-on-our threshold. Thoughts. Ideas. People.

A place for all of our olive trees.

…

Nancy Caldwell

A Memory Pome

December 2, 2017

Revised August 25, 2018

By Dan Burstein

“The evening before, in the open-air Ethiopian restaurant, a waitress came to our small round table with the ritual brass beaker and basin so we could wash our hands before dinner.

As I stroked the soap, my mother’s Tree of Life ring slid off my finger and jingled into the bull’s eye of the brass basin. The metal on metal chime reverberated from the dip in the tray into the night sky.

The next day, enveloped by a pastoral scene, D. and I walked, marveling at the surrounding necklace of distant hills, each rise domed with its own bouquet of greenery sheltering a circular church. In the foreground, umbrella trees, conical grass huts and rotund haystacks dotted the landscape.”

…From an email from Nancy recounting her 60th birthday travels in Africa

As anyone can see from the above lines

Nancy was

Among other wonderful

Characteristics and qualities

A Poet and Storyteller

I once heard Arlo Guthrie say

At a concert not all that long ago

Here in Martha’s Vineyard

In the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs:

“If you are fishing in the

River of Great Songwriting

You never want to be downstream from

Bob Dylan

Because Bob is going to catch all the best fish…”

In similar fashion

You don’t want to be downstream from

Duncan Caldwell in the

River of Great Storytelling

Unless of course you have the

Charm

Insight

Grace

Wit

Of Nancy Caldwell

Who knew just when to interrupt

To move the hungry guests to the dinner table

Or in from chilling of the evening on the porch and

Who had stories of her own

That plumbed the depths of

Human experience and emotion

I have met extremely few people

(If any)

In my life who know more about the human past

Than Duncan

I have met extremely few people

(If any)

In my life who understood more about the human present

Than Nancy

One of my most vivid memories of Nancy is a

Sunday evening in 2005

Julie, David, and I drove back with Duncan

From touring the

Temples of human art in the

Dordogne and the Périgord

This trip included not only breathtaking cave art but

Some very fine dining as one might imagine

In that part of the world

Arriving late at night

Chez Caldwell on the Rue Rambuteau

Not far from where Descartes used to hold his

Regular Mercredi salons

Nancy invited us in for a typical

Sunday night dinner of a vast plate of

Fresh from the market

Cheeses and a

Wonderful salad of her own composition

The cheeses included Mimolette

Nancy informing us that it was de Gaulle’s favorite

(He of the famous quote:

“How can you govern a country which has

246 varieties of cheese?”)

We have been eating Mimolette ever since

When you can get it in this country which is

Sometimes harder than importing

Products from North Korea

Nancy was a humanist in the best sense of that word

She understood

People

Cultures

Interactions

Differences

Beliefs

Ways of thinking

Ways of seeing

She tried to bring people together

She taught negotiation theory and practice

Diversity and Multiculturalism

Braved the dangers of Rwanda and

Other truly hard places to

Practice what she preached

Except that she never preached

She Understood and Taught

Advised and Guided

I know a bit about Columbus and the world of the

Late fifteenth century peopled by his peers like

Bosch and Leonardo

Who I have spent a lot of time thinking about

But Nancy taught me many things I didn’t know about that era

Nancy was fascinated with George Sand and an intriguing

Sliver of history she had uncovered

She was writing a book

Interconnecting Paris and Martha’s Vineyard

Through a bit of wampum jewelry in the

George Sand Museum

Or what is known more beautifully in French as the

Musée de la Vie Romantique

Julie, Nancy, and I spent a spectacular September afternoon

Just two years ago on our deck in Menemsha

Talking over Nancy’s many ideas about George Sand and

How to combine a personal journey through history with the

Actual details and facts of Amantine Dupin’s life

Nancy was a source of great book and film recommendations

Not the ones on bestseller lists

But cultural works of real interest and emotional depth

She was a person of seriousness and substance

But she loved to laugh

Her bright eyes

Twinkled even more whenever she was about to

Invoke one of her witticisms or when she was

Appreciating one of yours

She was a great gift-giver

Good books and great home cooked meals

She was also a wonderful recipient of gifts

Like the turquoise necklace that matched

(But of course could never match)

Her beautiful eyes

She wore this to many recent celebrations and for

Good luck to medical appointments in her

Brave battles with the

Wildly unfair terminal cancer that

Duncan, her doctor, and she fought so hard to stave off

So the world could have another chance to

See her, know her, and spend time in her wonderful company

(I am so grateful she made it smiling through pain and difficulties

To my birthday dinner at the Chilmark Tavern just 12 weeks ago)

One of the challenges of the aging process

Is that the number of great friends you meet tends to narrow

We met Duncan and Nancy in our fifties and count them among

The most incredible people in our lives

Having only thirteen years with Nancy as a friend makes

Her loss especially painful

When I say Nancy’s memory will live on

It is not a platitude or just something one says

Julie, David, and I fully hope and expect

To be gathered somewhere 25 or 30 years from now

On December 2nd

In Paris or the Périgord

In Martha’s Vineyard or the Metropolitan Museum

Or the Musée de la Vie Romantique

In the Chauvet Cave or the Olduvai Gorge

With Duncan and many of you who love Nancy

Telling our stories of her

Continuing to be enlightened by her spirit

Trying to be better people because of

Who she was and what her too short life

Meant to us

Happy Birthday Nancy, now and forever…

With love from Dan, Julie, and David

…

Eleanor Hubbard’s eulogy for her friend on August 25, 2018

As everyone here knows Nancy Caldwell imagined a future world in which creativity took the place of aggression. She adored art and artists, but what truly animated Nancy was not so much the product but the process, the making; the tools that took a human onto the creative path. The activity she ardently coaxed forward in all who knew her was the How rather than the What.

Nancy was a gift as a friend and she was also a gift-giving friend. Those fortunate enough to linger in her realm were destined to be surprised at unexpected times with the most unexpected presents. She LOVED this form of communication and seemed to be a pro at the labyrinthian French postal system. Nancy was one who sent packages!

From a treasury of experience I would like to mention two such gifts, a cow bell, exhibit A, and three pieces of chalk, Exhibit B.

These are to be explained, but first some background.

We first met the Caldwells at one of Anita and Fred Hotchkiss’s eclectic and imaginative gatherings in Vineyard Haven. I had been involved in the rescue and relocation of a West Tisbury ox and had just returned from showing 30 paintings of this particularly fortunate creature in Marfa, Texas. Nancy, who was my dinner partner that night, seemed fascinated by every detail around José, the ox, both before and after embarking on his modeling career.

Fascinated, that is until her head dropped and she fell asleep! I berated myself for being terminally boring until our hostess whispered that Nancy always fell asleep in the nine to nine-thirty range, dinner party or not. Sure enough, in the course of further rendezvouses I discovered this was true; she reliably nodded off sometime after 9.

It also became apparent that Nancy had been listening to the story of the ox after all, because in mid-February, long after she and Duncan had departed for both Paris and who knows how many other parts of the world, a large box arrived addressed to me, with ‘ATTENTION JOSÉ’ written in capital letters. It contained Exhibit A, a hefty Ethiopian cow bell. The enclosed card read, “Perhaps José will sense a friend in Africa”.

When thanking her for this gift, I confessed that José wanted no part of the exotic bell and vigorously shook off all attempts to add an Ethiopian element.

Nancy’s unassailable response was:

“He’s still tribal, just keep trying!” José’s rejection of the bell continued so vigorously that instead of continuing to string it around the 2,500 lb. recalcitrant ox, I wore it to the opening of my next show in New York. Nancy LOVED that!

As for Exhibit B, the 3 pieces of ‘chalk’ had a much different reception. My first stop in Paris has always been at Deyrolle the taxidermy shop where colorful insects are the magnet. That I often use them as painting models intrigued Nancy since she particularly enjoyed discussing sources and origins of inspiration. And, as everyone who met her soon learned, Nancy BELIEVED in inspiration.

During one such discussion I mentioned that inspiration aside, I had never been able to convey the brilliant colors in a beetle’s shell. While I promptly forgot that conversation, Nancy did not.

Seven months later a tiny package arrived: three pieces of beautiful colored chalk - known to artists as pastels. These intense sticks of nearly pure pigment from La Maison du Pastel were precisely what I’d been searching for to bring my insect series to life. Just steps from the Caldwell’s Paris apartment Nancy had discovered Isabelle Roché, creator of the world’s widest and most luminous range of color in this medium. With that discovery, my wildly expensive pastel addiction began. When confessing to Nancy that recovery was 100% hopeless she couldn’t have been more amused, laughing in her unique unforgettably-Nancy-chuckling way! We’ve all known that sparkling blue-eye-crinkling chuckle.

Gifts come from two types of giver. There is the gift the giver wants for him or herself, such as the snow blower a husband might long for, but lavishes on his wife - the wife who simultaneously dreams of a week in Aruba; and there is the gift the giver would never want for him or herself, the gift tuned specifically to one recipient and one recipient only. Nancy was this latter type of giver. She had both the intuitive power of seeing who YOU were and where your particular interests lay, but, what’s more, Nancy had the curiosity to energetically pursue what made you, and you alone, tick. The presents she gave were far from anything she ever could use or would want, but to the surprised recipient they were a source of absolute delight, an integral part of that phenomenon of wonder, which – of course - was Nancy Caldwell herself.

Annelise, Nancy, and Haesook.

…

Chris Caldwell’s words for Nancy. August 25, 2018

When I take stock of all that is missing from my life sans Nancy, it’s a fairly exhaustive list of Blessings and Inspirations, and honestly I can’t come up with even one irritation! It isn’t that she was perfect, she was just perfectly Nancy. And it was/is always my pleasure to emulate my dear Sister-in-law, my friend. You can’t go wrong being moral, inquisitive and empathetic.

Love to all, Chris

…

After dinner at the Connetable on the rue des Archives with our friends Eleanor Hubbard and Geoffrey White in 2012. Eleanor and I had been caving and Nancy was clearly happy and replete after a rich meal and conversation. She’s wearing her magic coat, which I got in exchange for an indigo hunter’s tunic from Cameroon to celebrate my love’s birthday and the anniversary of our meeting.

Here’s Nancy’s email to the coat’s maker, our dear friend Catherine Legrand:

Fri, Dec 23, 2011

My Magical Coat

I have a magical coat. It was conjured through a sorcerering switch with indigo.

Golden trim, flared skirt, and swirl have converted me into the Goddess of the rue de Temple.

In the Hôtel de Ville, attending the conference “Décolonisons Les Imaginaires”,

my magical coat sparked a moment of panic in my heart :

Starting to leave my coat in the municipal vestiaire, I had a vision from Gogol’s The Overcoat when Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin entrusted his newly gained and beloved coat to a cloakroom hook, only to find it, or rather, I should say, not to find it, ever again.

Fast forward to Addis Ababa. We are invited to an evening reception at the French embassy. Starting with a Cinderella scare, having no elegant dress to wear, my magical coat floats me through the receiving line and toward the champagne and best lemon tartelettes of my life.

Thank you Catherine, and Duncan, and also Yves.

Êtes-vous ici pendant les fêtes? Nous aimerions vous inviter...

Bisous,

Nancy

In remembrance of Nancy Caldwell

by Jennifer Caldwell

Wise Owl

When it came to watching the stars

You sat quietest,

Even in the midst of our feathers, often flapping

How we squandered the silence,

Ignored the better knowing