On a recent Saturday, I joined a minor yet devout pilgrimage to make contact with a late American icon. Taking a morning train from New York City to Hudson, I walked up the hill from the station and down Warren Street to the Stair Galleries auction house. Inside, I traced my finger over an oak and walnut desk, hesitantly, as if my touch might soil something. I caught my reflection in a series of mirrors. I stared at sofas and hardcover books as I would fine art. In the course of a day, I paid a double homage to the singular writer by spending an afternoon with her belongings, and by leaving New York and returning again.
