2016.11.26
She was always immensely generous with her money, her love, her time. The result was thousands of friends, a life crammed with lovers, and, at mid-century, an idyllic romance with a man who turned out to be her mental and emotional double. My mother and grandmother, who hoarded and calculated their love, my sisters, who chose their husbands at eighteen and never budged, wound up with less than Hope, who gave everything away. She was a human potlatch. Gifts dropped from her like fruit from a tree. You dared not admire anything in her home or office or on her person for fear she would give it to you. Anything at all: a painting, a first edition, a piece of jewelry. She gave and gave and gave. Things fell out of her pockets. And everything eventually came back. Doubled, usually. Or tripled.
How to Save Your Own Life
The Wit & Wisdom of Isadora Wing
(Amanuensis to the Zeitgeist)
"Have pen, will travel"(to be continued)
- Renounce useless guilt.
- Don't make a cult of suffering.
- Live in the Now (or at least the Soon).
- Always do the things you fear the most; courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.
- Trust all joy.
- If the evil eye fixes you in its gaze, look elsewhere.
- Get ready to be eighty-seven.
Oh man, I wish I could find the song starting at around :38 of this '72 Italian film trailer. (mildly NSFW in parts)