“There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.”
-Wallace Stegner
Every now and then I stumble upon a sentence so perfect, so sublime that it plants itself in the cobwebs of my memory and crawls around in there, stirring things up.
One such sentence comes from Wallace Stegner’s “Crossing to Safety.” Those 24 words take me directly back to a time in my late 20s when I was living in Hollywood:
Four dogs, 3 cats, and 2 women in a 1 bedroom apartment. Jennifer was my roommate, with (dogs) Bantif, Jenny-the-dog, Colehouse Walker, Johnny, and (cats) Utley, Towtruck and Doorstop.
Paul and David, lived upstairs; James lived in a “cottage” nearby. We drank French roast coffee, Wild Turkey and martinis. We smoked cigarettes like we would live forever.
Why I couldn’t see back then how perfect it was? Did I love it deeply enough?
…That time of working days and misspent nights, where friendship had its home.
(Sending out love to Jennifer, Paul, Delta, and James.)
Kyla Merwin 