Keith McCullar and I very much enjoy what we do. No question about it, even on a day that is, shall we say, less than remunerative, we are surrounded by beautiful objects and plopped down in the middle of that extraordinary venue that is San Francisco’s Jackson Square.
But you know all that. What you don’t know, and, for the most part, can’t know, are the extraordinary people we’ve had the opportunity to meet through the operation of our galleries. Every hour of every day brings the expectation of yet another wonderful gallery visitor paying us the extreme compliment of, just possibly, wanting to trade with us. One such was the Reverend Peter Gomes, the Harvard divine who sadly passed away a couple of months ago. Although mightily out of the closet for 20 years, he bristled when he heard himself described as a gay minister. His gayness was but one of many elements that defined him, and his outing of himself was in the same spirit of liberation that, a generation earlier, impelled the unassuming person of Rosa Parks to decline to ride in the back of the bus. Nevertheless, June is Gay Pride Month and PBS has just aired a new documentary ‘Out in America’ containing, sadly, Gomes’ last interview. Consequently, Reverend Gomes is much on my mind, so herewith a few recollections.
Not a particularly large person, but once Peter had something to say, which he did fairly early on in his visit, his voice was, in a word, commanding. To say that it was affected is inaccurate- ‘inflected’ might be nearer the mark, as everything was said with precision, and with a cadence and decibel level that, even in conversation, one might assume that his remarks were, out of habit, more usually addressed to a larger audience. As his particular choice amongst our stock at the time was a pair of Regency era portraits of an Anglican clergyman and his wife, of course he told us fairly extensively of his background and interests. I wish I could recount some particular bon mot, but can’t- what I can say is that the way he said whatever it was was mellifluously impressive. What does occur to me is that Peter’s voice and manner of expression accorded with his deportment and manner of dress. A tweed jacket with a pocket square, a French blue shirt and gray trousers- but these were all probably signature features, with my memory possibly in this regard enhanced by seeing many, many subsequent images of Peter on TV similarly dressed.
Keith recalls him as kindly and pastoral, and it must be remembered that Peter served a congregation to the end of his life. But our overarching sense even in our brief association was of a man with what Wayne Dyer terms ‘big dharma’- a larger than life person with concomitantly larger than usual responsibilities to fulfill. That Peter was aware of this, too, is abundantly clear in his final words in ‘Out in America’. ‘I am doing’, he said, ‘what God has called me to do, and I think I’m doing it reasonably well.’
We thought so, too.