Eire, pt 9

One last picture from Ireland, little sweetheart. On one of our hikes we found a stone circle and stepped inside it. Thought to be magical and sacred, it seems a perfect place to remember - knowing that you (and we) are forever and that we will find one another again. 

Stone Circle

On that long hike, little sweetheart, we came across a stone circle. Stepping inside it together felt very special and I could feel its ancient blessing upon us. Thank god for you! Literally! 

New Year's Eve

It’s New Year’s Eve, little sweetheart. 

It was never much of holiday for me. Maybe when I was a little boy or something because we got to stay up until midnight - or least try to, I think I often fell asleep before it got that late. But as an adult it never meant much. 

And you and I never did New Year’s together, somehow. Part of it I think was because I was usually with my mom at Christmas until the year she passed away and then at Christmas that year, although I was with you in California, I had to come back to NYC to start rehearsals for something that week before Jan 1. It wasn’t terrible because you were coming to New York right after to be with me. 

I never had much of holiday on New Year’s Eve but I did spend several of the last few with your mom and dad since I was with them for Christmas and didn’t come back to New York until after Jan 1. A few years ago, I started making beef stroganoff each year on New Year’s Eve. Your dad, especially, liked that - even though he was often on call at the hospital that night - so it’s become a tradition. 

I’m on my own this year but I decided to make it, with chicken, instead. It came it pretty good. And I added what I think might become another tradition. 

Remember I told you about that amazing Portuguese movie I saw earlier this year, “The Strange Case of Angelica”? I decided to watch that. It’s the story of a young woman who tragically passes away. In the middle of the night, her wealthy family sends someone into town to find a photographer to take a last picture of her. He’s kind of unusual, a bit shy and no one quite knows what to make of him. He’s very earnest and sweet and when he looks through the lens, she opens her eyes and smiles at him. Only he can see her as she comes to life. 

And she keeps coming to him after that throughout the movie. Coming to his window one night in a beautiful sequence and taking him flying over the city through the night sky. In the end, (oops - spoiler alert!), after he’s hurt in an accident, she comes to him and takes him away with her. 

It’s incredibly beautiful, shot amazingly, like a series of paintings, almost. And, of course, it touches me because of its profound message of faith. 

A new tradition, right, little sweetheart? You so liked beginning them together with me. So, here’s another new at the beginning of a new year. 

With all my love forever.

Ireland Day 5

Little sweetheart, one day on our travels we found an ancient stone circle. It was actually a kind of double one, almost a circle within the circle itself. 

It seemed to us both a holy and magical place and we stood there together, arms around one another breathing in the solemn moment, conjoined. 

You captured this a moment later, kissing me and telling me that you loved me. 

Just looking at it now reminds me how very blessed I am. My angel. My love.

Kissed in Dreams

 You were in any dreams last night, little sweetheart!

I didn't remember it all, and it was one of those that is swirling and changes locations and times and characters, but there you were - with me. And the best part was this wonderful moment together.

We were in front of a mirror, pulled close together on our way somewhere back into the atmosphere of the dream, and you kissed me deeply and told me how very much you loved me.

Oh my goodness! Thank you! I needed so very much to have you visit and comfort me. It always makes me feel better, and that I’m on the right track. Thank you thank you thank you.

How You Forever Linger

Have I mentioned this before, little sweetheart? Sometimes when I’m just going about my day, I will sense you. It’s happened with something that I think I hear or think I see but also sometimes I suddenly sense your scent.

I’ve described it before as cotton candy and the best birthday cake anyone ever made for you. There’s something lovely and sweet about it and it calls you to my mind in an instant. It happens in all kinds of different circumstances. I might be on the street or in a store even passing through the hallway. Invariably, no one is around, it can’t be attributed to some simply passing by whose scent somehow resembles you own.

It’s a magical thing. And my heart soars each time it happens because I know you are near me.

With all my love forever.

One on the Aisle

I'm feeling anxious, tonight, little sweetheart. I'm traveling tomorrow. I suppose I always am a little (and that you'd be quick to tell me) before I go. But I think it's even more keen tonight because I haven't been away in some time. Not since the accident. Not since the hospital. Not since I was supposed to go in May but was so badly injured that I couldn't fly. Tomorrow I'll be on a plane, though. In an aisle seat instead of my usual window because that's what the doctor instructed.

Something about travel makes me sad, too, because I remember how it always meant that by journey's end I would be again in your arms. I think I'm feeling all of these things tonight. The sadness and longing for you. The anxiety about disrupting this tiny pocket of comfort and routine - how small my life has become in your absence.

Please be with me, little sweetheart. Please help and guide me. Let me know, as you often do, in the most unexpected, surprising ways that you are near. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. How I love you! And always always will.

At The Shrine

On our last day in Ireland, little sweetheart, we drove back down the coast to Cork. En route we stopped at this beautiful little place, it's actually a National Park and Landmark - Gougane Barra.

The source of river Lee begins there and there is a forest in its surroundings. St Finbar was said to have set up a monastery there in the 6th century. And there are wonderful caves and a beautiful church there, as well.

I remembering setting off that day and Kris mentioning the stop but you didn't quite know what it was. You were slightly annoyed, you told me later, because you thought he was just going to a bank or something!

I don't know how that got mis-communicated but the moment you saw the place, you were enchanted. There is also a beautiful little hotel there and you very much wanted to return - just you and I. It's also a popular wedding spot and I very much wished that one day it would be our own, my little sweetheart, my love.

Inside the shrine, I'm not too sure they're keen on people taking pictures, but I had just lit a candle for you and as you stood there, I couldn't resist.

It's a very resonant and treasured image for me now. My treasure at the shrine. On our last day in Ireland.

That we know of yet... because time is not what we think it is, is it, little sweetheart? And when I finally join you I'll know that, won't I? We can go anywhere and be there and other places too together and forever.

Thank you, my little sweetheart. Please be close to me today. I need you always.

Mermaid Landing

One day on an epic walk, little sweetheart, we found ourselves all the way down by Bantry Bay.

Coming to the water's edge, you saw a flight of stone stairs that led to a little kind of dock. All in black with your pretty red hair down, flowing and luminous, you stood there for a moment and I snapped this picture. Like a landing spot for mermaids.

I think this was one of your favorites. Mine, too, little sweetheart. Mine, too.

Looking Back

Kilcrohane is at the edge of the middle of three peninsulas at the top of County Cork on the western coast of Ireland, little sweetheart, and one day we decided to go for a walk all the way out to the very end, to the lighthouse.

It’s quite a long walk there and the trail is not very well marked. We actually got lost coming back and I got very panicked because it’s rugged out there and the sun was about to set. I kept running ahead a bit to see if I could find our way back and at one point I stopped to see how far back you were. When I did, I saw a sign, only facing that way, only visible from this angle, turned back to look at you, that pointed us to the middle path that led back to the main trail. Looking back for you is how we found the way home. Gah.

But all that later excitement aside, including that happy ending, we had a wonderful day climbing and taking in the sweeping vistas of the mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.

When we got to the little lighthouse there was a short red railing all the way around with a sign that said “Danger, do not cross!”. So, of course, the first thing you did was to cross!

That’s where the first of these pictures was taken. There are two more I’ll get to in a minute. This one was also the picture we used for the back cover of Of Love and Loss.

My beauty, my treasure. Love you forever. 

Light Eternal

Little sweetheart, yesterday as I was writing about you, writing about our first trip to London together, I suddenly smelled wax and a faint puff of smoke and I knew that the candle before your picture, two rooms away, had just burned out and you were telling me it was time to go light a new one.

I love how thoroughly I felt your presence in that moment and others - memory flooding forward with thoughts of you and all senses doubtless heightened because of that, perception deepening.

Please let me know you’re near, my little sweetheart. Please don’t go too far away. And please take me to you the moment heaven will allow.

With all my love forever.

Mixed

Little sweetheart, sometimes I don't tell you about things that upset and worry me. At least not here. Sometimes when I lay in bed talking to you, I will. I actually feel much better when I do or after I do, so maybe it's not altogether a terrible idea to say something here and now.

There was such a mix of good and bad things yesterday, little sweetheart, that I'm confused and, as always, need your help. A wonderful thing happened in the afternoon and a rather disturbing thing last night.

The weather keeps fluctuating wildly from the arctic and miserable to the warm and lovely. Yesterday was the latter. I had a lot of work to do in the morning and early afternoon but I already knew the forecast and that the nice weather was going to turn overnight, so I was determined to get in a run before it got too late. I've been laid up a couple of times for extended periods last month with the flu and then a severe cold, so I haven't been running as much as I'd like. It was a bit overcast but unseasonably warm, so I set out along the river. I like coming across birds during my run. I always think of you when I hear their sweet little songs and usually say "hey, guys" to them as I pass. On my way back along the bit of boardwalk that runs very close to the water's edge and ultimately connects to points of the shared pedestrian and bike path, I came to a clearing. No one was around. No trace of a single person passing by. But in that moment I got the strongest sense of your presence because your scent - that sweet smell of you that is like cotton candy or birthday cake - came flooding forward. I'll sometimes get a whiff of it like this, turning onto an empty aisle in the grocery store or passing a stretch of sidewalk. Sometimes someone may be passing, so it's possible they share a soap or shampoo or fragrance similar, but other times like this, there isn't anyone remotely nearby and all I can think is that somehow you are. You're making your presence known to comfort and encourage and guide me. It fills me with love and gratitude and joy. It made my whole day so much lighter. So much so that I hate to even mention the darker thing that happened later that night.

I love when you come to me in dreams, little sweetheart. I pray for your visits and am so heartened by them. But sometimes disturbing things happen. Often you comfort me or things are simply as they were and I am grateful and relieved and returned to your side where I belong. But other times, you don't seem to know me or remember and it fills me with anxiety and fear.

This was one of those kind of dreams but even worse. You were simply indifferent. I felt crushed and so alone. And I wondered if I was doing something in my waking hours that had upset you, that was wrong, that you were angry with me.

Please help and guide me, my darling girl. Please forgive me when I do wrong and point me back in the right direction. Please don't give up on me. I need you so. Help me and please remember and love me. I need you. I hope you can hear me. I know you can. Just help me to know the right way forward so that I honor and do as you will. I love you with all my heart and soul.

Please come again and let me know your mind and wishes. And take me to you the moment heaven will allow. With all my love forever... xM

In the Air

Little sweetheart, it’s late Friday night. I’ve just walked all the way home from W104th Street. After sub zero temperatures and the crazy “Arctic Bomb” or whatever that canceled flights and dumped a foot of snow, just a week later it’s nearly 60f here. A light rain is falling. I’m wearing those boots you like to see me in. And the black leather jacket you gave me for Christmas. And the blue Skye tee shirt you gave me. Your handwriting is tattooed on each forearm. I carry you with me.

It’s an unseasonably warm January night, almost like spring. And as I walk I have the strongest feeling of time travel. Of being with you in San Francisco. Maybe it has to do with striding these hills in a mist wearing these very boots that reminds me of just popping round the corner while you stay warm at home in your jammies and I grab a treat for us or maybe even full take out from Crepevine.

In the early days, I used to write here that I could feel things like this, little details, kinesthetically, like a phantom limb. I have that sensation tonight, little sweetheart. Something in the feel of my boots on the pavement, the mist in the air, the night around me, your spirit with me and transporting.

Maybe it’s the San Franciscan-like weather. Maybe it’s that I spent the evening talking about you.

My friend from Taize, the older lady who lost her husband just a few years ago, invited me over to meet her son (both her late husband and her son are musicians, drummers) and see their amazing apartment, big as a small house, right in Manhattan. Very Upper West Side. The kind of place you could get back in the 70’s before the neighborhood became more affluent and fashionable. We had pizza and I saw their music room and Barbara and I talked about things, about you.

You are so very much on my mind tonight, little sweetheart, and near me in the long walk home. Your mom told me some stories about you that I need to write down and haven’t yet. There’s so much to do.

But most the important of them is just to listen quietly for your presence and guidance and know that you are with me. That we will be together soon and forever. As I know, somehow, we always have been.

It’s night. And unseasonably warm and magic one. And I feel you near. With all my love.

Resolved

Little sweetheart, it’s New Year’s Eve. I’ve come up here to sit on your bed and write this before returning to talk to your mom and dad as we await midnight (I’m not too sure your dad will make it - he’s been on call at the hospital and barely slept in the last 24 hours.) Earlier tonight, I made beef stroganoff and salad and dessert. We walked outside - it’s incredibly warm and lovely - and the sky was amazing.

The moon is full and luminous and so bright it’s lighting the sky almost as if it were daylight. And it - the moon - is somehow magically floating as if it were in front of the clouds themselves. The clouds look as if they are passing behind the moon, not in front. And behind that, the corona itself, the sky is a bright blue. Truly as if it were day. It’s magic and it feels as if you are near, quite near, nearer than readily imaginable. And tonight, as there was also last night, there is a single unseen bird quietly, sweetly singing his song. A nightingale, perhaps?

It’s a warm and unusual and beautiful night. Full of magic and promise as a new year approaches. And I’ve come up to your room to tell you that I love you. That I’m so very grateful to and for you. And to ask you to please help and guide me. Please lead me the way I’m meant to go in these days I’ve left on earth, on these days - of unknown number to me - until I may join you and be with you forever in The Forever. In this year ahead, help me to best honor and follow you, little sweetheart. Help me to be the man you were molding. And take me to you the very moment heaven will allow. With all my love.

Flying

Little sweetheart, I had the most wonderful dream last night. I was with you. That’s always a wonderful thing. We were outside walking together you in front and I put my arms around you as you led the way. I think you were showing me something. A place you had been, maybe many times, maybe as a child, even. I’m not sure. But as we walked we got to… not a cliff, exactly, but what turned out to be the top of a very steep, very long hill. There was no way to go forward without picking up speed. So much speed that we’d most likely fall over and tumble down the test of it. And we did go faster and faster but instead of falling we began to fly. I just kept my arms around you as we left the ground. And we went a great expanse. We may have touched down once or twice, it was little like jumping as well as like flying, like gravity only lightly effected us, we could soar when we wanted and walk when not. And we did. We soared over the wide expanse of earth beneath us until, we came to a large body of water. Maybe a lake or more like a sea because there was water all the way past the horizon. And we flew together, my arms around you until we touched down on ground again. It was amazing and lovely. And you were a little surprised, you said, that I was so quiet. Not more excited. Isn’t that funny, little sweetheart? So like you. But I was! I was very excited, just marveling. And I told you so. I told that more than anything I just was so happy. So happy to be with you. And that I wanted to always. Always be with you. Yes. Forever. With all my love…

Summerlight

Little sweetheart, one of the most comforting things in my sadness is to have all the many wonderful pictures of you here all around me, covering nearly every space of wall and desk and mantel. It’s such a comfort to have my eye fall upon you wherever I might turn my gaze. And sometimes, often magically, a light will fall upon one of them, upon you, when the sun finds its way through the blinds or through some sliver in the clouds.

The other day came just such a moment.

High up almost directly at eye level to the right when I sit here at my desk are several photos of you perched atop the tower of sound equipment. Among those are the mini-poster collage of photos of you from the Of Love and Loss album, the back cover photo from BPXmas of you in your winter coat and hat on the roof, a photo of you leaning against the fridge in the kitchen and a note to myself (something you said to guide me) taped it the bottom of its frame, a lovely full face picture of you with your pretty red hair down and framing your face again with a note taped to the bottom (“It is she Love has destined for you!”) that I saw once walking home past Lincoln Center when the opera was being broadcast outside with subtitles and in the middle a lovely picture of you I took while we rode a London bus together.

Late yesterday afternoon as the sun began to move from east to west over the building, the light pinpointed its way through the blinds illuminating this photo from behind and casting the most incredible light framing your face through the picture.

It was, as I say, a back light, but it raised your features and your eyes making you glow. This magic light hit nothing else - only you and from behind and perfectly making you the sole focus of the room.

In moments like these I know there are so many things beyond my mortal comprehension and I know you are doing your best to let me know you are near me, far nearer than I can imagine. Thank you, my angel. May I do in all things my best to honor and hear you. I love you with all my heart and soul and pray so very fervently to be what you want and desire of me. Please take me to you the moment that heaven will allow. Oh, my bright, wonderful angel!

Yours

In Golden Gate Park near the windmill on a beautiful day seven years ago, little sweetheart. You wanted to go for a walk so we headed out from your apartment in the Inner Sunset, wending our way along, jumping a fence or two, because: You, very much taking our time until you had to pee and then finding a porta-loo outside a construction site, that you braved while I stood guard, before venturing back into the wilds. Later, we paused here in these beautiful gardens, sitting on the lawn. I took a few pictures of you and then, as ever, you snatched the phone out of my hands and shot this little video. I'm the one cooing absurdly, love-drunk, off camera. Afterwards we continued to the ocean and went to a nice little place overlooking the beach for dinner. A little trio was playing and when they struck up "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" I held your hand across the table and cried and cried. The sun set as we sat there and when we got up to leave it was dark and had begun to rain. We ducked under an awning near the visitor's center and called a cab, getting out at 9th, so we could could grab a movie from Le Video, and walked between the raindrops together the rest of the way home. We dried off, got in our pj's and curled up together, one of your favorite things, you had told me - watching a story at the end of the day with your partner. My heart swelled with pride to be called yours. A wonderful, magical day with you, little sweetheart. Yours, yes, my darling girl. Yours forever.

Secret Dream

Little sweetheart, I had a dream last night/this morning part of which is a recurring one.

Also, it was one of those dreams where when you’re with someone, the person is really almost two different people in the same person. That happened twice in the dream. In the beginning of what I remember, I was in a car with some combination of JFK and your brother Jesse. I'd just come from having talked with your dad who was excited and overjoyed about a trip we were, all of us together, about to go on with Jesse, himself.

Back in the car, I’m with Jesse/JFK. And he’s telling me some secret something that he’s also written down in its entirety in a sealed letter he gives to me. After he tells me, we’re sitting at a traffic light. He says bye for now and gets out.

When the light changes, I’m in the drivers seat (I think I may have been the entire time but I’m not sure) but it’s pushed all the way up and I can’t see or feel what I’m doing. This is the part of the dream I now recognize as recurrent - behind the wheel of a car I don’t know how or cannot control, having forgotten how to drive or simply impaired in trying to do so. But I try anyway - take a leap of faith and somehow get things straightened out, maneuvering through the danger and traffic. I get there.

“There” turns out to be someplace beautiful, ceremonial, official - The White House? - where I try it give the letter to someone, again a combination of persons in one person. Something like both Jackie Kennedy and your mom. She’s a little more like your mom than Jackie but still… She’s wary about taking the letter. It’s for me, she says. But you - in the very best part of the dream that I can still feel the most vividly and the most tactilely, the feeling lingers - you are there behind me with your hands on my shoulders, pushed up close, your body against mine, your cheek to my my cheek, your breath in my ear, encouraging me.

I tell your mom/Jackie what’s in the letter. You are urging me on. It is important and resonant to us all. We all need to know the letter’s contents. It’s for each and all of us. A secret we need to know and hold dear. It’s good news and explains everything.

Naturally - much like the Arthur Miller dream where he put his arm around me and told me he had three things to tell me about playwrighting - when I woke, I couldn’t remember the message, the content.

But, perhaps that’s not important. What is, I think, was how happy your dad was. I think he already knew. And that you were there so palpably that I can still feel your hands on my shoulder. I know exactly what your touch feels like and this was it.

It’s the best dream I’ve had in ages, solely for that. Thank you, little sweetheart. Always be with me. I suspect you already are. Closer than I can imagine.

Psychic Readng

I’ve had this CD-R for a while, little sweetheart. It’s sorta a long story. Years ago, I think maybe around the time Curt died, Paige (remember Paige?) told me about a psychic she’d gone to after her father died. I can’t remember how she knew about him. She kinda had a connection into that world of people through all that Buddhist and soul-searching spiritual stuff she was always on about. I think someone must’ve told her about this guy. Glenn Dove is his name.

Anyway, she wrote down his number and name for me on post-it. It was the tiniest post-it every. Like 1/4 the size of a normal one. I don’t know why. For the longest time it was stuck to one of those wooden storage boxes of mine in the kitchen. I didn’t really imagine going but I kept it anyway. All this is like about exactly one year before you and I met. A few years later, when my mom died, I did actually think about going, but I couldn’t find the little post-it. Sometime along the way I’d either taken it down or it just got lost or something. It had been a while. I couldn’t find it and Paige and I had had a falling out by then, remember? So, I couldn’t exactly call and ask.

I didn’t think about it for too long anyway. But sometime after your own tragic passing the little post-it just turned up, appeared somehow, I found it. I called the number and it was an answering machine. You were just supposed to leave a message. Later they called me back and made an appointment for me. It was crazy because the appointment was about three months or more later. When the time finally came around, I couldn’t go. Something had come up and I was out west with your folks. It may have been around the time we did the play in Seattle.

Anyway, I had to reschedule for even farther away, but the day finally came and I took the train out there - he’s on Long Island. I remember it was a very rainy day. I had to fill out a little sheet, just a couple of questions, like my birthday. That might’ve been about it. He had that on a clipboard when I went into meet with him. I sat across from him, me on the couch, him in a chair, kinda like therapy, now that I think about it. He sorta sat there doing this thing with the clipboard, like moving his hand around on it, sorta like if you were to imagine how you move a computer-mouse around trying to find the spot on the screen that you want to highlight. Kinda a circular motion as if clearing the page. Ya know what I mean? It’s hard to describe. As he did that, he’d talk to me, telling me who was trying to talk to him and what they had to say. He’d also ask me questions that I think I wasn’t supposed to answer. Like just let them land not help him too much. But right away he said things that had a lot of resonance.

He talked about my dad being there. And he knew that both my mom and dad had “gone over” as he put it. About everyone being worried about me. That I was “taking things”. And I was. I was drinking then and not infrequently taking sleeping pills. I’d wake up sometimes on the floor with things knocked over - a mic stand or that book podium of my grandfather’s - in the studio come morning. Like I just fell off the couch or - who knows? - even tried to stand up and just keeled over.

But without mentioning you specifically, he seemed to have a lot of resonant details. He talked about California. About having a connection there. About someone close to me having “gone over” suddenly, unexpectedly, early. He said it was unusual and sad for someone as young as I to have had so much loss in their life. And, most, incredibly, from the very start of the session he said he was getting something about the person’s head. That they were holding their head with their hands, as if something had been wrong with their head, maybe they had been confused or injured or both. It was so like your accident, my little sweetheart, as if he was talking about that. And he stressed that what that person (you, it would seem) wanted to say was that you were alright now. You were fine. Just very worried about me. And that you wanted me to know - that everyone there trying to talk through him now - that you were alright and only worried about me. That I needed to not take things (like drugs and alcohol) and that I must do my work. He went on about that for some time, too. He didn’t know that I was an artist. He didn’t know if what you and the others were saying was about me and a business of mine or something. Just that I had things I was meant to do, my own work, and that it would be a shame, so sad, if I didn’t do it. That I must. That that was why I was still here.

He told me other things too. The session was mostly him doing this kind of listening and trying to tell me what he was hearing simultaneously but at the end he told me a few more general things. He said something about life and death that I had never heard put quite this way. He said that the people that mean the most to us in this life are always with us through eternity. That life is an illusion like a play. That right now I was onstage playing the role of “Michael” and that when I left the stage - and I mustn’t just walk off or leave before my part was done or jump my cues - that I would find those important people backstage in the dressing room. That we would be, as always, together. Like a troupe, sometimes you would be my lover, sometimes my sister, maybe I would be a girl and you a boy. Like that. But, just as Danya said, that I wouldn’t find you if I took my own life.

At the end of the session, he gave me a CD-R. I think I was meant to bring one on my own. That had been an instruction when Paige first gave me the post-it - that you bring a blank cassette to the session and that they record it for you so you can listen later. By this time, he was using digital instead of analogue, so it was a CD-R.

And that’s why I’m writing all of this today, little sweetheart. I didn’t listen to for the first time until tonight. Almost like the post-it itself, I put it away and wasn’t quite sure where it was. I found it a little while ago and uploaded it into iTunes just to make sure I had it saved in case I misplaced the CD-R again but tonight I actually put the CD-R into my latop and listened. There’s more than just what I remembered. I'm glad I listened. And it brought me close to you. I can’t wait to tell you more about that. But just one thing I didn't remember and only did now hearing the CD-R is that the day I was there was exactly 23 months since your accident. The CD-R didn’t have any labeling until now, when I just wrote that on it. Picture below.

Please be with me today, won’t you little sweetheart? Keep me close and under your guidance. I love thinking about you and talking to you. He said something about that too that I had forgotten! Much more later. Love you 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…”