Far Away and Back, But Different

Yesterday, at the home of a writer friend (the real writer sort, Pulitzer worthy, you see, you wait, he is) and his librarian wife and their very beautiful child, the conversation kept changing hue. So that it was horses, cooking, politics, the science of information, rigor mortis, first-grade art, the search/find/rescue of a 1965 silver Globetrotter. A tour, even, of the silver Globetrotter, which belongs to the neighbors, who are also collectors of lampshades, collectors of color, collectors of records, both the big ones and the 45s. They own a jukebox; you should see. They own a basement that reminded me of my mother's mother's.

It was all happy knock, yesterday—step to the right and the talk is of a bone-marrow meal; step back and stoop, and you are racing a dark-haired boy's cars across a polished wooden floor; just keep standing there and someone will say, But how do you know Jay?

There is an art to gathering the people in your life. To making your home their home for the afternoon. While upstairs a giant of a manuscript waits for the midnight Mahler, the feverish imagination, the talent that feeds equally on life and solitude.