On friendship and age

There are people who say "boy that was fun, I'll remember to do it again", and there are others who say "yeah that was fun, but I bet there's something even better around the next corner". I belong to the first group, with regular habits and long-established locations. There is a café in Venice that I've been going to since 1977; there is a diner south of the Waldorf Astoria where I have breakfast whenever I'm in New York, which I discovered in 1982.

I was reminded of this at Famous Sculptor's birthday party last night, held after hours in Hedgehog's gallery where a show of his recent work is hanging. A large and happy crowd had gathered, with many children underfoot (me feeling like a particularly unwieldy dinosaur amid the little hairy mammals). It was a very homogenous crowd, all architects and artists, all regulars of the gallery, many of them collectors of FS's work, almost all wearing black from head to toe (meetings of this group usually look like happy funerals). I knew all of them by sight and most of them personally.

FS and I couldn't pin down when we first met, it was at least fourteen years ago. There were others present whom I have known for twenty years and longer. Motion makes for an interesting life, travelling the world and seeing new things and meeting new people, but stillness also has its pleasures. Chief among these is the sense of shared history with people whom you have known for a long time. For the benefit of younger readers: It feels good to look at people and say, "I've known them for twenty years," and to recall the places, events and other lives which have been woven into that thread. Try to organize your life so that this will be possible.

Thus endeth the lesson.