fullness

I am full...
full of a lovely lunch from the cafe at the Roger Smith Hotel in Midtown... Full of one of the best pastisse I've been served in the United States... full of rich memories from the past two days with Bob, Irene, Carole and Katherine and Brennan, the last two new friends met through Bob last night. Carole, Bob and I had a wonderful meal with them at an Indian restaurant at 100 2nd Ave between 5th and 6th after a day spent wandering through various arts districts with Irene.

Irene and i met up at the Whitney earlier in the day... whose galleries we discovered are closed on Tuesdays(!) This is particularly unfortunate since Irene left NYC today to begin her journey home. MOMA was closed- as well as many, many galleries... all preparing for the art fairs and eeking out any business to be had during this economic downturn.

It seems that everyone on the train is coughing. People are bugging me for the extra seat next to me. I have made sacrifices during the past two days and feel I deserve this extra seat. I just happen to be sitting next to the cafe car and within easy reach of the entrance. That
was a mistake I won't make again when I need quiet and what privacy can be had in a hurling tube of metal. I pay more for a train excursion... so I think one deserves to have the space one needs as long as there are plenty of other places to sit. My preference is to protect this boundary and my health since the cost of the fare is more than double what I paid for the chinatown bus.

After Irene and I made our way to the Drawing Center in SOHO to see the best show of all ( emerging draw-ers) we crossed over to their Project Space and then to Deitch Projects and finally Artists Space. Carole met us there and we considered staying for a wine and cheese book signing... but they weren't comfortable. We left and found a cafe and spent an hour recovering from our day and discussing human rights in Dubai and China. Irene has seen it all since Valentines... virtually a worldwind trip. It'll take her a long while to digest everything she put on her plate for this excursion. I wish she could digest it here but alas, even she has go home once and awhile.

Home again, home again jiggedy jig. I've missed blogging and have spent many a sleepless night surfing through the words of many a friend and acquaintanced... I just haven't been able to clear my head with all that has come to pass since Valentines. Spring is here. I am better. My parents are well enough and my brother is hisself. All we can do is move forward and remember the love we shared before.

words of comfort

Our electricity went out last night along with 43,000 others in our part of the world due to high winds and a utility company that has yet to accept the needs and demands of the 21st C... but that isn't what this post is about. The slipshod routine we've been living during the past few weeks was shattered and as a consequence we spent way too much money sitting at a bar with wifi and while out of my regular loop I misplaced my mobile.

Before we lost our daylight during the last few hours of standard time I spent some time talking to my Dad. He read me a letter my sister sent him maybe a year ago and it just sent me spinning because it was a beautiful letter which expressed my sister's desire to get her life together and for us all, as a family, to be in one place at one time. It was a dream my sister and I shared but as unlikely as Ralph Nader winning the presidential election. Our lives are very different. Spending time with my family is intense... time with us would make the straightest person I know want to drink or take drugs. I don't know why it is so hard... perhaps it is because we are a humorless bunch... or because we rarely medicated ourselves in each other's company??? I've beaten myself up about this and felt depressed about it for more years than I can remember. Finally it became clear that, well, it isn't just us or the people who inspired Faulkner... a dear friend of mine who lives across the country telephoned on Saturday and we spent some time catching up. We grew up together although our families are very different. She is a therapist now and asked me if being with my family had given me any comfort when I went home. When I confessed that no, they hadn't and how it depressed me she went on to talk about how people turn on each other during times of stress and loss. I couldn't believe it to be true but she is a wise woman who has experienced it herself. I have to admit it helped me a bit... putting it in a different perspective.

wordiness

Many times over the past few weeks I've started sentences and been unable to finish them... particularly if I am talking. I've also reread a few things I've written and wondered if the same person who started these sentences was the same person who finished them...

Friends have said that there are no words.... but in my heart there is one thing I KNOW... words are as powerful and real as images... as the atoms we breath and are made of. The can be tonic, salve and toxin. They can change the way those same atoms resonate and respond to their environment. It is the closest thing to magic I know. Then there is the language barrier... or worse, the closed mind. Economy and simplicity can still win over these constraits with a few well chosen and thoughtful words, syllables of truth when all else fails. I do believe this is a truth that is self-evident... when I have faith in little else.

my baby sister

The southern version of "the lupners" during
the late 1960's at the Bolivar County Fairgrounds.

We were a goofy group of kids. We fought ferociously with each other but would defend the other with our last breath. My younger brother and sister arrived eleven months apart during 1962: my brother born a rigid Capricorn and my sister a generous, socially engaging Sag.

My parents did their best raising three very different children. My brother and I were taught to be very independent and my baby sister hung on to those apron strings like a life line. She grew up to be a beautiful woman who married twice and raised three children until her girls went to live with their father about ten years ago.

Mr. dd and I received a telephone call around midnight on Valentine's Day. We looked at each other with alarm. Now that we are grown and married it is rare that we receive drunken phone calls from friends who need to hear a friendly voice... I don't remember who answered the phone but it was my father on the line. He, my mom, my sister and her two daughters were on holiday in Florida. My sister left the hotel around 8:30pm to buy some tums from the store across highway 98. My mother heard brakes squeal and she knew. She ran outside to see my little sister lying in middle of the highway. The car that hit her never bothered to stop. The police are still searching for this felon and the three other drivers that hit her each stopped and tried to help. She died instantly and never knew what hit her.

I will miss her always but then I have missed her my entire adult life, really. Our paths were far apart but I made a point of seeing her whenever I traveled south. She had a great passion for life, friends and family. I'll miss my father asking me "have you spoken to your sister?" I'll miss her smoker's laugh... her persistence of memory... her ability to recall details that I lost along the way a long time ago. She was 45. She was so strong. I thought she might outlive us all.