Reeling

Does any other 61-year-old art historian get hopped up on martinis and dance alone to Donna Summer until, a sweaty mess, he drops at 2, 3, 4, or 5 a.m.?  (Donna and Duccio: a marriage made in heaven!)  ... but how Arabella would have loved to be joining me!  In my mind, she is.  She is still my partner in every dance.  I can still hear her coming into the living room at 2 or 3 a.m., finding me ecstatic over one composer or another (Faure, Medtner, Bonnie Raitt... it makes no difference), and saying, "Rob, you really are quite impossible, but I give up.  Go fix me a Manhattan."  ... and then we would party until all hours, and we would laugh.  How we loved to laugh... and what a laugh she had.  It made the angels sing!  She is teaching angels to laugh now.  ---  What a legacy she left me.  What a legacy she is to me.  She still directs the beating of my heart.  She insists that my heart go on beating, even when it seems too much for me to bear, as it has this past week.  ---  What am I doing, broadcasting these stirrings to the world?  I haven't a clue, my dears.  More magical thinking, I suppose... the confusion of ephemera for substance.... the gift of virtual social networking.