Your Mom's Birthday

Today is your Mom’s birthday, little sweetheart. I have it circled on the calendar and I think it’s very likely that I am more excited about it than she.

I love your parents, little sweetheart. They are so very dear to me. And I think doubly so because when I do things for them it reminds me of the joy I had in doing little things for you. Cooking for you or surprising you with a gift. Maybe noticing how some little something caught your eye and making a note of it so I could get it and give it to you right away.

There’s a beautiful catalogue that your Mom has gotten for years and that I saw early on when I was visiting them quite a while ago. I got myself on their mailing list and I often look for things there I think she might like. It’s a kind of vintage Victorian sundries catalogue filled with little antiquities and beautiful prints here all the girls look like you as if you’d just stepped out of the late 1800’s.

I got her what looks to be a pretty painting of a kind of angel/siren keeping watch on a distant shore, a lute by her side. And it’s also lighted - it has a little lamp behind the canvas. I also got her a DVD of that movie I told you about, that documentary about Peter Bogdanovich. And I found a beautiful card, a New Yorker cover that’s an illustration of a girl whose red tresses are a kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies. It’s magical and so very much looks like you. So does the angel, of course. I wrote her a long letter, too and put it inside. And there’s a lovely company I found called Bake Me A Wish, that makes and delivered birthday cakes via UPS overnight packed in dry ice to keep them fresh. If I’m not in California to make your parents a cake on their birthday, I always send one - chocolate for your dad, vanilla bean, like this one, for your mom.

I’m going to give her call in an hour or so after I know she’s around and sing her Happy Birthday.

All these things make me feel so very close to you, my love. You are Goodness itself and when I act in kindness and love I feel your presence double fold. All redounds to you. With all my love forever. 

Your Heart, Darling. Your Heart.

Little sweetheart, I watched a documentary a few nights ago, just on a whim, and I was so moved by it, I've watched it again twice more. It's called "One Day Since Yesterday" and is about the filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.

I'm so dumbfounded that I didn't know more about him. I only thought of him as the guy who directed "The Last Picture Show" and maybe another film or two in the 70's. But he has had a much bigger and more storied impact than that, an enormous body of work and been a huge influence on many of our favorite contemporary directors including Wes Anderson who simply reveres him.

But perhaps more crucially -  and, indeed, the larger point of the film - he suffered great and tragic loss. The love of his life was taken from him, senselessly. I knew strands of this story. Even knew the tragic story of the woman (Dorothy Stratton)'s passing. But I hadn't put it all together. I didn't know about the two of them together and what they meant to one another.

There's an exchange about a third of the way through the film that has struck me so deeply that I've watched it repeatedly and even transcribed it. I'm posting here below. It's a friend, his assistant, and then Bogdanovich himself talking about her, about the two of them, about the tremendous healing presence she was in his life.

It sounds exactly like the gift you gave to me. How you called me your treasure and told me how you longed and aimed to heal me and grow my heart and how you would always always keep our love safely. "I promise! I promise!",  you whispered to me as you curled up in my lap holding me close with all your might, kissing away my tears. Doesn't this, too, sound like you and I, my little sweetheart?

“I think one of the reasons that there was so much power behind their love is that she answered everything that was missing. Everything that had been hurt. Every part of him that was insecure. It infused him with energy and joy. It made this very serious… sometimes very serious… man be giggly and warm effusive. So, she had a really great, warm spot in his life.”

“Well, I was in love with her in a way that I never had been before or since. It just seemed like we had wings. Ya know? Every little thing had power. I mean, we just sat and watched some kids play baseball. Or walking through the park or going to the carousel. And… When I would get upset… in a meeting or something or she would hear me start to raise my voice, she’d come over and whisper in my ear, “Your heart, darling. Your heart.” (pause, laughing lightly with love and awe and the weight of great loss) It never failed to knock me out. And I’d say, “Yeah, you’re right”. (pause, remembering) “Your heart, darling. Your heart…”