my glamorous life
episodes & recollections
#62 deserted cities of the heart
Last night I found my old photo album. Not only that, I showed its contents to my new girlfriend.
In the old photos, I was young, thin, glamorous, and alcoholic. Not only that, I was inevitably pictured in the company of one lovely woman or another. What they saw in me defies comprehension except as proof of the boundless charity of women.
Studying the dusty Kodachromes, I suddenly understood the now-forgotten poetry of Rod McKuen, whose doggerel reached some kernel of the heart untouched by finer writers.
Art endures, but not much of it. Not even diamonds are forever.
How glorious it is to be old enough to know that you were once young. How terrible, to see that gift stolen from thousands of people in one hideous moment, and to know that the killing has only begun.