the last time we met, afterward, i sat at a bar and cried. this time, that
wave of old emotion rises up again, but not as burly. i guess it was 2
years ago? i know i wrote about it here, or at the earlier iteration of
this post-from-phone concoction. this time i was just happy to see her,
and it seemed mutual. this, again, was K’s sister, K who died some years
ago and whose camera i inherited in the most random way. J is glad that i
have that beautiful beast, that old but righteous film SLR camera which
used to belong to her sister, and i am glad that she is glad. the path
that camera took from K to Australia to me was long and crazed, it seems.
but before that there were letters, long hand-written letters from me to
J, in the months after my father died, talking on that and talking on
memories of K., how tears fell onto the pages of those letters as i wrote
them. oh, mercy, it’s all a mash now.
today was nice, though. an hour under rockefeller center, coffee and a
camera, near the skating rink, cluttered today with useless umbrellad
tables, empty of peoples on account of the rain. i checked my 181 and
found a copy of The Sun magazine, and J remarked that she gets that
magazine, too, and that every issue makes her feel sad. i never had that
reaction to The Sun but i can see how it would happen. each issue does
seem to have a poignancy to it. i should actually get back to reading
those little tomes.
