night, I shot a perfect score in the “sitting” competition. I could shoot a man through the heart at twenty paces, but I couldn’t get a date for a dance.
I played basketball, but we had to play by “girl’s rules,” which was frustrating. The ball could only be dribbled twice and then you had to pass it. No body contact was allowed. To play all out like the boys was not possible. Many years later I went to see the professional women’s team—the New York Liberty—play at Madison Square Garden. I wept to see them playing at full throttle, unashamed of their competitiveness, without apology. Their grace, strength, and agility were so moving to me.
I also played tennis, with a racket my father had bought at a used sporting goods shop for twenty-five cents. It didn’t matter, I loved playing the game. I was named captain of the team. I played a lot of Ping-Pong with my cousins, and in the winter I skied and went ice-skating on the ponds around Arlington with my very own hockey stick and puck.
I graduated from Arlington High in 1949 and got some financial aid for college in the form of a work-study grant from Sargent College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was then affiliated with Boston University. I commuted to school each day and worked after class, organizing the costumes and props in the school theater loft. I had declared a major in physical education and planned to earn a bachelor’s degree and become a gym teacher.
Once I got to Sargent, I continued to fence at the Boston Fencing Club and my life began to open up in other ways. I started to make some friends and even began to date a little. I remember one time when I had been out late with a group of new friends and I got home about four o’clock in the morning. I was barely through the front door when my mother lunged from the shadows toward me, her face crazed. Before she could raise a hand to me, I spoke first. I stared right into her eyes and said, “If you hit me, I’ll hit you right back! I am bigger than you now.” This stopped her dead in her tracks. That moment, it turns out, marked a turning point for me. From that time on, my mother never raised a hand against me—she never again tried to rein me in by using physical force. What transpired between us in the middle of the night was profound and significant, yet we never spoke of it again.
This was the first of many steps I took toward autonomy, but I was at an impasse. The gap between what I aspired to be and what I was taught was appropriate, created tremendous turmoil. I came dangerously close to breaking down before I was able to rebuild myself. I had feelings of anxiety, depression, and despair. Yet these years in my twenties helped liberate what is most vital and essential in me as an artist and a person.
I continued to fence. Once I had switched from the French to the Italian foil, I also switched teachers. I started going to MIT to work with Master Vitale, who I had met at the Boston Fencing Club; I would help him maintain the equipment and spar with the younger members of the MIT fencing squad, and in exchange, he gave me three classes a week.
After about a year of working together, he finally registered me for the Junior Division of the New England Fencing Championship. The only requirement was that I would need a regulation fencing uniform.
We had no money for extras, much less money to spend on a fencing outfit. My mother asked me to take her into Boston to a sporting goods store, where she examined the women’s fencing outfit, making detailed drawings. At home, she got out large sheets of newspaper and began to draw a pattern, something she’d learned in her work at the WPA. Two days before registration closed, I found a package on my bed: the jacket and pants of a white fencing outfit. She’d even made a bag for my foils. Though it was not a “regulation” outfit, my mother had done a terrific job of approximating a commercially produced fencing uniform. Without one
I played basketball, but we had to play by “girl’s rules,” which was frustrating. The ball could only be dribbled twice and then you had to pass it. No body contact was allowed. To play all out like the boys was not possible. Many years later I went to see the professional women’s team—the New York Liberty—play at Madison Square Garden. I wept to see them playing at full throttle, unashamed of their competitiveness, without apology. Their grace, strength, and agility were so moving to me.
I also played tennis, with a racket my father had bought at a used sporting goods shop for twenty-five cents. It didn’t matter, I loved playing the game. I was named captain of the team. I played a lot of Ping-Pong with my cousins, and in the winter I skied and went ice-skating on the ponds around Arlington with my very own hockey stick and puck.
I graduated from Arlington High in 1949 and got some financial aid for college in the form of a work-study grant from Sargent College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was then affiliated with Boston University. I commuted to school each day and worked after class, organizing the costumes and props in the school theater loft. I had declared a major in physical education and planned to earn a bachelor’s degree and become a gym teacher.
Once I got to Sargent, I continued to fence at the Boston Fencing Club and my life began to open up in other ways. I started to make some friends and even began to date a little. I remember one time when I had been out late with a group of new friends and I got home about four o’clock in the morning. I was barely through the front door when my mother lunged from the shadows toward me, her face crazed. Before she could raise a hand to me, I spoke first. I stared right into her eyes and said, “If you hit me, I’ll hit you right back! I am bigger than you now.” This stopped her dead in her tracks. That moment, it turns out, marked a turning point for me. From that time on, my mother never raised a hand against me—she never again tried to rein me in by using physical force. What transpired between us in the middle of the night was profound and significant, yet we never spoke of it again.
This was the first of many steps I took toward autonomy, but I was at an impasse. The gap between what I aspired to be and what I was taught was appropriate, created tremendous turmoil. I came dangerously close to breaking down before I was able to rebuild myself. I had feelings of anxiety, depression, and despair. Yet these years in my twenties helped liberate what is most vital and essential in me as an artist and a person.
I continued to fence. Once I had switched from the French to the Italian foil, I also switched teachers. I started going to MIT to work with Master Vitale, who I had met at the Boston Fencing Club; I would help him maintain the equipment and spar with the younger members of the MIT fencing squad, and in exchange, he gave me three classes a week.
After about a year of working together, he finally registered me for the Junior Division of the New England Fencing Championship. The only requirement was that I would need a regulation fencing uniform.
We had no money for extras, much less money to spend on a fencing outfit. My mother asked me to take her into Boston to a sporting goods store, where she examined the women’s fencing outfit, making detailed drawings. At home, she got out large sheets of newspaper and began to draw a pattern, something she’d learned in her work at the WPA. Two days before registration closed, I found a package on my bed: the jacket and pants of a white fencing outfit. She’d even made a bag for my foils. Though it was not a “regulation” outfit, my mother had done a terrific job of approximating a commercially produced fencing uniform. Without one
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