The first time I visited, I had to park across the street in the lot of an abandoned gas station. The lot itself went up a slight hill, and the station's sign would occasionally spin some slow turns whenever the town spirits wanted to have some fun.
She lived in a questionably constructed building on the second floor of this sleepy Revolutionary War town, adjacent to a craft store that was hardly ever open. In the basement sat a four-lane bowling alley and a small bar. It was by appointment only, which really meant the building's landlord had to be there to serve drinks and keep an eye on the action. I didn't get a chance to bowl down there, but seeing the construction of the building, this was probably a good thing. When she moved out of her place, part of the process involved placing a three-foot wide plank over the bowling alley basement stairs, in order to move big furniture out. Needless to say she left the heavy lifting to the moving experts.
The new place was twenty minutes north in a spacious two bedroom above an empty storefront in Fort Edward, New York. The apartment included a massive bookshelf built into the living room wall, which I'm sure was the ultimate selling point. She converted the second bedroom into a little arts and crafts studio, devoted to her scrapbooks and journals and photography, with a sitting space overlooking the Hudson River. The kitchen had carpeting and you had to blow into the stove to ignite the flame, but otherwise than that it was perfect for her.
Our first date was at a coffee shop inside of a bookstore. Her bookstore, really. She worked there, in the back offices, doing client relation things. When she arrived, her face was beet red, butterflies pent up, just as I was. We talked and laughed and drank caffeine at an unnecessary hour, and then headed over to a nearby Denny's. We split some mozzarella sticks and got separate drinks. A few minutes after she took the straw out of the wrapper, and tied the wrapper into a loose knot. From the straw, she dabbed a drop of her soda onto the knot. The wrapper unraveled almost completely.
(standing, third from the left, on tour with a small theater troupe, 2000)
Late last summer, I managed to get home for the first time in what felt like ages (really it had been about five years). Outside of my personal family chaos, I found time to take a drive up to Schuylerville. Some days, I'll take Route 4 up, enjoying partial views of the river on my right. This time, I left from my parent's place right off Route 50, heading north. This route takes me through Saratoga Springs, where, if I could, I would relocate there in a heartbeat. Just a nostalgically attractive, walkable city, close to my parents. There's a Pizza Hut in town, where she and I had lunch a couple times. It also served as our ground zero for a First Night celebration one New Year's Eve. We tried to make the rounds to all the local open business things we could, but it was just so damn cold that night. Every place we went inside, our glasses would fog up and I would have to blow my nose for five minutes. By the time we returned to the restaurant's parking lot, an hour or so walking around mostly outdoors, we decided to just scrap the occasion, get dinner there, and leave.
Schuylerville sits about twelve miles east of this Pizza Hut. The village lists a population of about 1,300, although on most occasions it seemed much smaller than that. The gas station across the street from her old place is now gone, mysteriously spinning sign and all. What would have been her living room windows have designs and colored paper on them, suggesting someone else is bravely choosing to live there, with the creaking floorboards and stairwell and bathroom with sketchy plumbing. One of the breakfast spots we frequented is now closed. The village market, Byron's, is still there. A small liquor store and a Mexican restaurant are about all she wrote alongside Broad Street up there, with a few places along Route 29 coming in, across from the school. A small yet whimsical village, changing ever so slowly. Just up the hill from Broad Street sits the Saratoga Battle Monument, where I park my car nearby and walk the grounds.
My last stop up north is Yaddo Gardens. It is a peaceful place on cooler days, especially when there aren't visitors doing the usual wedding and Instagram things. A semi-circular stone bench sits at the south end of the gardens, and this is where I sit for a few moments. She sat here often, with an open journal and a camera. She found peace here, and that’s why I visit whenever I’m in town. Well across from the bench sits a row of tall firs to the left of the garden's entrance, where gentle breezes get the tips of the firs to sway in unison.
I’ve been struggling to write about Crystal for a long time now. Words on a page won’t quite convey just how much she meant to a good amount of people. A short time after the accident, her parents, one of her sisters, and her brother-in-law moved to Ohio, then shortly to Arkansas, where they reside today. Another sister still lives in the Saratoga Springs area. Both sisters now with children Crystal never had a chance to welcome into this world as a doting, spoiling aunt. I’m grateful to have reconnected with them recently, after going our own ways for a bit.
Crystal was simply just a good, wholesome person, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, maybe if the fly kept zooming around her face while she was watching Jane Eyre. A pastor’s daughter who sang and danced on altars up and down the east coast wherever her father found work. She’d help out with meals in church basements, read to children at work, and loved her some Diet Pepsi. Loved her family, books, and photography as well - and maybe in that order. To all those she touched, our lives unraveled when she passed.
Our time together was just too short, but taught me so much. At Yaddo, there's a sundial, engraved with a short verse by Henry Van Dyke -
Time is too slow for those who wait
Too swift for those who fear
Too long for those who grieve
But for those who love
Time is eternity.
Crystal would have turned 39 this week.