Old friends....

A postcard (of a work by one of my favourite artists) from two of my oldest and dearest friends last week, sent from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where they were celebrating their 31st Wedding Anniversary! How on earth can it be so long ago? The weather had been glorious in London, and it boded well for a romantic summer wedding followed by a reception on a canal boat - but the day dawned with brooding skies, then the heavens opened and emptied themselves over us (perhaps the weather pixies were envious of so beautiful a bride and so handsome a groom...) It was so dark it felt like midnight when the groom and best man took their places at the altar, their hair slicked down and the shoulders of their suits darkened by the rain. At the fateful moment (was it when the minister declared, 'I now pronounce you husband and wife'?) there was a wonderful Gothic bolt of lightening that lit up the sepulchral gloom of the church. We just needed someone to cry out, 'It's alive! It's aliiiive!'

Richard Diebenkorn,  Figure on a Porch, 1959

We don't see each other very often these days (too many miles and not enough money make it difficult) but there are always people in your life that you know you can just pick up with where you left off. Last time I spoke to L back in May, giggling about things one of us had forgotten, and things we remembered, she said something perfect, along the lines of both of us holding one half of our memories and together making up the whole. Happy Anniversary, you two. Big smushy kisses! E. x