Postcard from the Desert

My good friend Emily went to Arizona to visit her wintering Minnesota parents in Tucson. She was only there for four days, but managed to not only purchase a postcard for me, but to also write a message and address it to me. Okay, so it took her a plane ride home to drop it in the mail; but still.

So Emily has been back for days now, and I just got her postcard. It was a beautiful black and white portrait of Georgia O’Keefe taken in 1956. O’Keefe is advanced in her years in this portrait; her eyes are cast down in the direction of a doorway that provides the only light for the photo, yet is only partially visible to us.

Dressed all in black, she keeps company with the skull of a herd animal that is mounted on the wall above and behind her head. This skull sports a rack of antlers – a full ten points curve elegantly from the top of the head, pointed safely away from the top of O’Keefe’s own skull.

Sitting, her right hand curled around a portion of a large dry gnarled log, she looks just about ready to put her mind to getting up. Or perhaps, she has just sat down.

I contemplated both the photo on the postcard and the message that Emily wrote to me as we sat in the Knotty Pine waiting for appetizers to arrive at our table:

Arriba ya del caballo, hay que aquantar los respingos.

OR

Once mounted on a horse, one must hang on when he bucks.

It feels good when someone sends something to you like this. Emily knows me well enough to know that even though I have never heard this phrase before, that I believe it. I believe that reacting to life requires a good grip – whether it is on a horse, or on one’s own psyche. I also believe that as individuals, people are often stronger than what they know. The trick is to find out just how stalwart you may be.

As far as friends go, Emily has stuck by me as I have by her in the three years that we have known one another. We indulge each other’s idiosyncrasies, and we listen to one another. I feel that knowing her reflects how well I am doing at staying on the bucking horse. Our friendship is a gauge of wellness between the two of us.

And so a thank you must go out to Emily. She thought of me, yet again. She filled my post office box with the elegant visage of another strong woman, a legend in the art world, but a woman just the same. She was thoughtful enough to go to the trouble to find a quote to suit me, she affixed a stamp, and she followed through.

To me, our friendship is a gift that I was lucky to be given.