Bare bones
I guess a diary can provide a skeleton of events that one can later flesh out with the emotions that were there, without having to record them at the time; though I wonder if the shape that my memory will make will in anyway resemble the body of my life as I lived it? And so to collect together some bare bones.
Before drunk, I spent a weekend in Oxforshire, when I meant to spend it in Devon; both in covetable country houses (provided you don't have to maintain them). Breaking down on the fast lane of the M5, in rush hour, in the rain, with a 1 month old baby, was not exactly the Friday night desired, but disasters merely turn into adventures in the right company. The added time with Jane and Charles (H's parents) was especially valuable, as neither of them are currently in the best of health, and both are sources of amazing knowledge and anecdotes from their extensive travels through South America and Asia.
Jane tells great tales in the manner in which only one who was once a Great Beauty can. Over dinner the provenance of family portraits were discussed: young ladies with babies that appeared as gifts from nowhere; and her great uncle Beau (the beauty), who lost one family fortune, with his horses shod in silver shoes that were nonchalantly left scattered across fields with the comment "plenty more where that came from". There were not. When she first headed off, immaculately groomed, for married life with Charles, he commented, "Those aren't the shoes that a wife of mine will be wearing where we're going." And when he saw her white luggage from Harrods, a wedding gift from an old aunt, he told her to send it back and change it for something more practical, "they'll be stolen before they ruined, and they'll attract the wrong sort of attention." I don't think she missed such things, and I imagine there were always enough occasions for dressing up.
Spending time with H reminds me of what an incredible and intelligent woman she is, in her low key way. I look forward to spending more time with her and her family in Bangladesh at Christmas.
Last week was a series of social events that seemed to weave one into the other: Cat's private view, Jasper & Simeons' private view, Saskia's design launch, and alcohol fuelled social as the weft. When I arrived at Exhibition22, there were swarms of police outside, but inside the only buzzing was the crowd. Apparently, there was a sniper out the back: everyone was quite indifferent to it. The back window was crazy paved, with a bullet hole, which everyone seemed to think was another art piece. I later met a Japanese woman who'd been shot in the arm, but the bullets were only ball-bearings, so she came back to the party despite the developing bruise. There was some interesting art at this show. I especially liked bed/whirlpool piece: a child sized bed, covered with an old, pink, candlewick bedspread in which there was a vertical slit in the centre, and under which was a whirlpool of dark water. While it seemed to induce vaginal thoughts in the heads of most of the viewers, it was inspired by the artist's experience as a child of sharing his bed with his bedwetting brother. To me it had a distinct taste of the tawdry, amplified by its housing in a small room off the main hall, its bareness not dissimilar to that of an old psychiatric hospital. There was other good stuff: Jasper's painting is developing well, though I preferred the vibrancy of his 30 footer; and the little white men were quite fixating.
Friday was too much.
I paid for it Saturday.
Sunday I went to see "Motorcycle diaries" with S. I really enjoyed it, though at times it was a little over sentimental in its portrayal of the youthful Che Guevara as a universally fine character without any flaws. It was filled with charming moments and music that made me smile, despite its overall tragic presentation of South America being viciously stolen from its people. It also contained some beautifully framed shots that sparkled out of the overall, 1950 feeling of the subdued colour. S told me about her Friday: somehow she ended up at Dennis Hopper's birthday party, and was invited out by some big film financier. Unfortunately, he looked like Woody Allen.
These bones seem to be big. My life must be more a lumbering dinosaur than a delicate, bird of paradise.