The first stop. Cindy had two of Zoë’s pictures hanging on her bedroom wall — and a name that would lead to the next chapter. This is how these things begin: at a funeral, with a borrowed frame.
I saw Cindy at a funeral for a mutual friend. She knew my parents when they first immigrated to California from England and had worked with my dad for decades. After telling her about my journey to find Zoë’s pictures, I learned she had a couple in her possession. Cindy was nice enough to let me borrow them for a few weeks and get them scanned.
I always liked Cindy. She was a tall confident woman who got to her station in life by being direct and assertive. In the early ’80s, Cindy commissioned my mom to draw a picture of birds with the specific request that it include grasshoppers and spiders. She paid $500 for the Three Parakeets. Cindy would describe how pained Zoë was to take any money from her.
A few months after the Three Parakeets was finished, Cindy received a gift from Zoë in the mail. It was a drawing of a bobcat with a note that said:
For Cindy a kindred spirit With lots of love from Zoë x….
While Cindy told me this story, she got close to the Three Parakeets hanging on her bedroom wall and touched one side of the frame. I sensed that Cindy had a lot to say about that time of her life – a lot to say about a version of Zoë that she hadn’t thought about for a long time. I wanted to know, I wanted to be there. In this place that she was remembering about herself, about Zoë. But I felt out of place, and I didn’t want to pry. I thought I was just there to pick up a picture.
Still looking at the hanging spiders in the picture, she told me about her ex-husband Jack who she knew to have four of Zoë’s pictures. I could tell Cindy had, and would always love Jack. Even as she described him as an anti-social and incredibly difficult person, I got the sense that Cindy loved that part about him, and that she cared for him. She softly went on to highlight just what a strong relationship Zoë and Jack shared around their mutual love for birds.
Cindy’s ex-husband. A self-described recluse. A man who handed over four of Zoë’s pictures and told Luke he was the only person on Earth who should have them — forty-five seconds into their first conversation.
Cindy had warned me that Jack was a little eccentric and a bit of a recluse. And I got that sense during our phone conversation. Before the introductions were done he interrupted me to explain that he would not be able to see me in person but he’d arrange for me to pick up his four pictures from Cindy. He told me that I was the only person on this planet who should have them and it was non-negotiable.
This was forty-five seconds into my relationship with Jack and I again wondered if I was intruding. But he calmed my concerns when I asked him about birds. He excitedly told me how he and Zoë had hiked for days to help a condor’s nest from falling off a tree. He even more emphatically recounted their numerous bird watching adventures in far away places. It’s easy to see these themes in the pictures he gave me. I felt honored that he and Zoë shared their memories with me.
I thought of Cindy outlining the Three Parakeets with her finger, and I wondered if there was more to the connection Zoë and Jack shared — more than just birds.
An ornithologist with the right home for a woodpecker. But the story of this particular picture turned out to belong not to Pat — it belonged to Luke’s parents, hidden in plain sight for decades inside a Tom Robbins novel.
An unexpected result of collecting these pictures is figuring out what to do with them. Where they could go to continue their story? It seemed unfair to me that I would be the only one to have them, so I decided that each piece of art would have a guardian. A guardian that would understand the true significance of the picture.
I discovered that my good friend Pat is an ornithologist and can pick out a bird call from 300 paces, as well as determine the bird’s sex. I’d known him for 15 years, yet I never knew of his fascinating connection with feathered animals.
One of Zoë’s pictures Jack had given me was a woodpecker, so it only seemed right it should reside with another birder. I drove to Pat’s house in Redding and delivered the Woodpecker.
On the way home, I stopped at my dad’s house. He knew I was going up there, and he knew I was working hard to frame the Woodpecker and deliver it to Pat. While I told him about my trip, he interrupted and asked me if I knew where the Woodpecker came from. I had no idea. He revealed that it comes from the cover of the book Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. He told me that he and Zoë would pass this book back and forth with suggestions to open it to chapter five where the other would find a joint and a particularly raunchy sex scene, or handwritten notes next to a lengthy discussion about birth control from an anarchist male’s perspective.
The Woodpecker picture is an everlasting memento of the courtship between my dad and Zoë. As my dad told me the story of this picture, again I found myself awkwardly between two people and a memory that only they would ever share. His story faded into an audible smile, and for a moment it seemed he was back in that room with Zoë, bantering with his future mate about the idiosyncrasies of the female anatomy, hoping to impress her with his wit.
Two chapters, one folder. Crystal opened a print of a butterfly and began to cry. Then she took Luke upstairs to show him why. Vanessa is the reason Luke chose that particular picture to give away in the first place.
Crystal
On my way to Pat’s house to deliver the Woodpecker, I stopped for a night at the Harris household in Folsom, California. I got to know the Harris family when I crashed the memorial of their recently deceased grandmother and shared a number of teary-eyed drinks with their family.
Crystal was my good friend’s mom. Crystal and I connected at the memorial, at which she would half-joke that she was my mother in northern California. When I arrived, I immediately presented a print of the Butterfly to her as a thank you for the lodging. When she opened it up and looked at it, she began to cry and let the unfurled picture roll back up. Not sure how to react, I eventually put my arm around her. I thought that maybe butterflies had murdered their dog or represented some other horrible tragedy. But then she grabbed my hand, and with no words and only a few muted sobs, she led me upstairs. She only let my hand go to open a bedroom door. Inside was a bedroom full of butterflies and butterfly-related things. As I picked up small figurines and marveled at hanging strings of multi-colored butterflies, she explained to me how Grandma Dee always came to her in the form of a butterfly, even before she passed away. She told me that when she saw the picture of the Butterfly, she could instantly feel Grandma Dee. She opened up to me and shared why she needed that Butterfly, right then, at that point in her life. This art became the bridge that helped her cross an emotional river that she was unwilling to do on her own.
Vanessa
There are at least three original Butterflies, each very different. Each clearly showing Zoë’s practiced and improved art skills. In my opinion, the Butterfly was an homage to her disease, Lupus. A symptom of Lupus is getting red or dark cheeks that resemble the shape of a butterfly.
I broke up with Vanessa in Austria. She had just arrived from an 18-hour journey and had lost her luggage which would arrive in two days. I sat her down on the single bed that we were supposed to share for the rest of the week and said I could never have a life with her because she had Lupus.
Vanessa and I had a beautiful relationship that I never allowed myself to appreciate. To me, we were just a caterpillar, and I failed to see just how wonderful we could be.
I felt so guilty with my choice, I insisted that she take the original Butterfly. Vanessa absolutely loved butterflies and had them everywhere in her life.
A gift made for one person, repurposed for another, thirty-seven years later. Zoë’s obsession with Pointillism shows in every careful mark — a Mother’s Day card quietly transformed into a birthday gift with one letter changed.
My aunt explained to me that Zoë was obsessed with Pointillism and took a lot of inspiration from Seurat and Van Gogh. Zoë would employ this technique regularly in birthday cards and love notes as can be seen in this Mother’s Day gift Zoë gave to her mother.
Thirty-seven years later, in an effort to continue this picture’s legacy, I digitally replaced all the Y’s in the lyrics with I’s and gave it as a birthday gift for my friend Luci.
A frisbee golf course. A total solar eclipse. A mentor going through a divorce. And a drawing of a cactus and an owl that somehow said exactly what needed to be said, at precisely the right moment.
From Jeff’s house in Washington, I headed south via train to Portland to see my friend and mentor, Charlie. He guided me through my highschool years and was a heavy influence in the way I live my life today. He and I have lived parallel lives. I in Chile, he in Turkey. We both found life and love and attempted to bring it back to the United States.
He and I planned to play frisbee golf during a total eclipse, and I wanted to give him a print of the Cactus and Owl in the middle of it. While the sun faded, and the world embraced a weird temporary darkness, he revealed he had recently divorced.
I’d always seen this picture to represent a broken home. I don’t know why I had it in my hand that day, but it seemed fitting to give to Charlie right then.
I was lucky to catch Charlie during a time of his life where he was changing and evolving. During these times, we have the unique opportunity to look back and consider a version of ourselves that once was, and use that to build and look forward towards a version we want… a version we need.
In 1976, Zoë heard that a friend was stranded and struggling in the Appalachian Mountains. She drove there. She spent a week drawing. At the end of the week, she brought Kathleen home.
In 1976, Zoë was living in the Florida Keys. She got word that a friend of hers had moved to the Appalachian Mountains to find life and love, but instead found isolation and a horrible man. Zoë decided to head north and spend a week with Kathleen, hoping to convince her to leave and come back with her to Florida.
Kathleen contacted me and described that week while Zoë drew the Goldminer. She said Zoë would explain in great detail the densities of the lead in each of her pencils and how it would translate to a different shade of gray. Zoë sat at a big empty cable spool turned on its side while she drew on top of it, her face very close to the paper as she made her pencil marks. Kathleen depicted a scene with Zoë drawing at the front door, a cool breeze blowing her hair, and an orange sky in the background, fading into the rolling hillsides swept with tall grass.
Kathleen mentioned that the reflection in the gold pan was added only at the very end, after a long period of Zoë staring at the piece in silence. I can’t help but think that Zoë felt she needed something more… something more compelling to convince Kathleen to come back to Florida. To show Kathleen that there is no gold to be found in a bed of thorns.
At the end of the week, Kathleen went back with Zoë to Florida.
A wedding gift that its recipient couldn’t bear to look at. Hidden behind another picture in the same frame for decades — until Batman’s daughter found it and reached out to send it back.
My dad worked with Batman (David). He made a name for himself fixing things while hanging upside down above stages at rock shows. He and my dad were good friends; Zoë and his wife, Diane, were better friends. Zoë had given them this picture as a wedding present.
Maybe Batman thought it was a reminder of a failed marriage, or maybe it was the eagle eye staring at him, judging. Whatever his reason, he found it to be too much to look at and stored it behind another picture, inside the same frame, never to be seen.
Amy, Batman’s daughter, found it and reached out to me, offering to return it, to which I said yes. After decades of Amy and I not communicating, we were reunited through this art.
The longest chapter, and the most complicated visit. Cheri and Scott. Tequila and snow. Dark confessions and beautiful memories, told without filter by people who had always lived without one.
A few months later, I drove from Eden, Utah to Whitefish, Montana to deliver a print of the Dandelion Wasp to Cheri. Cheri’s dad was a pilot who lived in San Francisco during the ‘70s and ‘80s. The pilots would leave their children with other pilots’ families as a means of relaxation and/or accommodating work travel. Both having pilots for fathers, Cheri and Zoë would enjoy free or very cheap travel and became regular travelling companions and life long friends.
On the way to Whitefish, I stayed in a cabin surrounded by nothing but snow-covered wilderness for a 20-mile radius. I wanted to see how it felt to be that one light when you look down at night from an airplane as you fly over an otherwise black landscape.
It reminded me of a story about Zoë and her friend Lyn, who pulled over on the side of the road to look at a rainbow over a cornfield. With giggles and arms waving, Zoë ran towards the rainbow like a child in a fairytale.
My snowfield was her rainbow.
I didn’t know much about Cheri other than I was to be careful around her. I was told that she was a trigger for Zoë and that Cheri was a loose cannon.
Cheri lived with her husband Scott in a two-story house on a large lot caked in snow.
While Cheri was showing me the digital art she’d been creating on her computer, mostly as a distraction to keep her mind off her recently deceased father, Scott came in to announce that his grandson had been diagnosed with autism. Cheri was too engulfed in her work on the computer to give an appropriate reaction, or any reaction really.
Later, as a thank you for their hospitality, I gave them three large bottles of tequila left over from the party in Eden I came from. I would later find out that her husband Scott had been hospitalized for drinking copious amounts of tequila. I didn’t know what to do. Should I have taken the bottles back? Dumped them out? I ended up leaving them there and hoping it wouldn’t start a problem.
One morning, Scott and I went for a snowy walk around the neighborhood where we found ourselves in a serious heart-to-heart conversation despite only knowing each other for all of three hours. Me confessing my failing marriage, and he about his wife and regrettable decisions in life. Maybe that’s what made it easier – telling your deepest darkest secrets to a complete stranger. It was refreshing.
I asked Cheri about Zoë. She had many beautiful stories of her and Zoë traveling the world together and how close she had been with Zoë’s family. But she also had some very dark stories. She would describe herself walking into Zoë’s art room and seeing Zoë leaning over a bucket, cutting her forearms and letting the blood drip into it. I knew Zoë did this but had never seen it for myself. I’d only seen the aftermath, of white bandaged arms and slanted looks from neighbors.
On a trip to get a new router for Cheri and Scott, Cheri told me that she thought my dad killed my mom. I stared at the routers in front of me with a straight face just like I did when Scott announced his grandson was autistic. I eventually thanked her for her candor. In hindsight, I understand her theories. According to Cheri, Zoë was always worried about some girl named Barbrö, who was Dick’s brother’s ex-wife. Shortly after Zoë passing away, Dick married Barbrö.
I didn’t have the words to describe a lifetime of hardship and sacrifice my dad had dedicated to Zoë, but I knew Cheri’s allegation not to be true.
I found a note at the bottom of Zoë’s jewelry box. In typewriter font, it said:
I love you Zoë I want you to get better
I don’t care how long that takes I will do anything I can to help this happen I will never leave you I will make whatever changes to myself to make all the above happen Never give up but have patience But most important of all, I love you Zoë
(see you soon, Dicki Bird)
When I unfolded the note, a bloodstained razor fell out of it. Until then, everything about my mother and her thoughts seemed intangible and potentially a figment of my imagination. But picking up that razor made it all feel very real. I had visions of my mom digging it into her forearm while she read the note, maybe crying. I had visions of my dad struggling to know what to do, how to help, and this note being just one of the many ways he tried.
Before I left, I showed Scott and Cheri some slides I had scanned from Zoe’s travels to California. The slides showed Scott and Cheri with Zoë during their high school years doing high school things. Despite the psychological intensity of the last few days, these pictures brought a big calm to it all. As they viewed the pictures, I could feel them breathing life back into what was and what still could be.
Although filled with antics, I really enjoyed my time with Cheri and Scott. Their unedited and vigorous approach to life, love, and tragedy… was refreshing, and reminded me of myself.
