The Light of the World: A Memoir

Both artists, both soulful, both woman-worshipping monogamists, both aesthetes, both fixers and makers, both uncensored, both un-pretentious, both similarly self-effacing and similarly dramatic, both creatures of the nest, both passionate cooks and eaters.

friendship in marriage is its own thing: friendship in a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, or a cappuccino every Sunday morning. Friendship in buying undershirts and underpants. Friendship in picking up a prescription or rescuing the towed car. Friendship in waiting for the phone call after the mammogram. Friendship in toast buttered just so. Friends

Perhaps tragedies are only tragedies in the presence of love, which confers meaning to loss. Loss is not felt in the absence of love.

Art replaces the light that is lost when the day fades, the moment passes, the evanescent extraordinary makes its quicksilver. Art tries to capture that which we know leaves us, as we move in and out of each other’s lives, as we all must eventually leave this earth. Great artists know that shadow, work always against the dying light, but always kno

What a profound mystery it is to me, the vibrancy of presence, the realness of it, and then, gone.

how can we be so happy, when we have been through so much? The forest is not denuded. The trees are standing tall.

I think of all the books I will never know about because you will not show them to me. I think of the loss of knowledge, all the things I will never know because you are not here to tell me.

Painting was the miracle, the final act of defiance through which I exorcised the pain and reclaimed my sense of place, my moral compass, and my love for life.”

“Bless him for loving you when you needed it, for healing you, and for preparing you for me.”