I now have a postcard of this painting pinned above my desk. (It’s a very good show, and I have a new art love in Seamus Conley.) I saw it with a dear friend who I had not seen in too long. Coming home that evening, I realized that we had been friends for, what? 15, 16 years? Which seems at once impossible and utterly right.
Later that night, he texted me what I was thinking: how when we are together all the lost time between just vanishes, as if it had never been. He used the phrase “without schism,” which made me smile, both because it was true, and because he used the word schism which is just delicious.
He used the word love which made me weep.
I am not sure what I am trying to say, except I woke up this morning and felt I had to say something. I have spent so long sitting alone at this desk, putting out the words; I am so happy (bittersweet, the flavor of true happiness) that I have a friend like him, even if I can only hug him rarely these days. That without such constancy I’m not sure if it would all be worth it.
Dr. G, if you see this: missing you already. But you know that. X