I am soon to turn thirty-two, and am in the midst of that annual reckoning, not to mention that I moved and things are different now. It's an expression of a longer trend in my life. In that past year, I've relaxed, and I've let some things go. Even in my soul-searching, West Coast-based, itinerant ashram-hopping period (Summer 2008), I was a stickler about many things: I can forgive anything but bad manners. My standards are not of this realm, and I've found that holding people to the same level of effort, elegance and empathy that I expect for myself has failed as a strategy for happiness. People are who they are, and they do what they want to do. I'm more discerning about who surrounds me.
Yesterday, my mother, sister and I went to the Jewish Museum for the Cone Sisters exhibition, one of the most charming and well-done shows I've seen in years, and then to the Cooper-Hewitt, where we popped by the Van Cleef & Arpels show (I'd seen many things there, and more, last year, but some objects - see above, image from Sotheby's- were new to me), and it delighted me to remark, with exaggerated exasperation, on how it was just as crowded as the show of Elizabeth Taylor's Bulgari jewels in Paris, before we rounded out the day at Cafe Sabarsky (where I once saw Anne Slater, and return to, hopefully, evermore).
Last night, everyone's favorite venture capitalist emailed me, in his always refreshingly forthright manner: What do you want for your birthday? Now, you must remember, this is a man who is apt to say, in Hermes, "See anything you like?" and mean it, so old me reflexively acted on habit, searching for the precise answers (with colors, styles, and sizes) that used to roll so quickly off my tongue. It wasn't there this time, and so I replied: Ever since I saw Daisy Fellowes' diamond cuffs (!) with emerald tassels (!) today, I can't think of anything else, so... the exquisite pleasure of having you in my life for another year'll do just fine. And, wouldn't you know, I meant it.
I've said it before: you are a treasure, oh lux lotus!!!
Posted by: Anne | May 31, 2011 at 10:58 AM
And that post is why I find you so worth knowing and appreciate your grace so very much. (And I loved that show too!)
Posted by: MJ | June 01, 2011 at 04:20 AM