Thursday, August 26, 2010

Dear Jean,

Each month Vanity Fair Magazine ends their issue with a feature they call Proust Questionnaire, a one page celebrity Q and A found just inside the back cover. This month’s featured celebrity was the agelessly beautiful, talented, delightful, Helen Mirren.

As always the questions were the same and, as usual with many of the famous, infamous and simply notorious interviewed there, I expected the usual banal, trite, not-too-amusing replies. But Helen Mirren always astounds. One of her answers gave me the giggles and then a second answer, put with the first, sent me rolling down memory lane.

Q. “What do you most value in your friends?”
A. “Their ability to open a bottle of wine.”

Q. “If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?”
A. “A well worn sofa.”

How many well worn sofas and chairs, blankets on beaches and other cozy places have dear friend Jean and I settled into with the required bottle of wine? I can not count nor do I want to. Just the memory of those times---the intimacies, the tears, the silliness---is enough to make me happy and sentimental and giggly and even, a little tiny bit sad.

I want to thank you Ms. Mirren for reminding me, again, how much loveliness I’ve enjoyed over the years with my precious friend and a bottle of wine.