July 10th, 1981
Today has been a completely pleasant day in spite of the suffocation of this heat. Tonight, watching television, I saw a woman walk barefoot across a beautiful green lawn. The image provoked some half-forgotten yearning for cool summer twilight; memories of long ago Springfield summers so different from this godawful sweltering city heat.
Wendy was in town working today. I walked over to the studio at 19th and Fifth Avenue. It was Alen MacWeeney’s studio and it was interesting to meet him finally. Wendy has known him for many years and has spoken of him often. He is a small graceful man, nearly frail, with thick white hair. He was wearing shorts and his legs were thin and unmuscular– smooth and delicate. He has sharp bright blue eyes. The studio was a peaceful white loft flooded with bright afternoon light. When I arrived, Wendy was showing him the slides from her portfolio. They were busy trying to set up a corner of the studio blocked by screens to be dark enough to view the slides. Allan was fidgeting with the projector, saying that the slides looked out of focus. Wendy was fretful and nervous, saying that she thought it was the light. Later she told me how difficult this is for her to show her portfolio, how painful to ask for critical opinion. Her interview at M.I.T. is next Friday and looms on the horizon like a date with Fate. Acceptance into that program would be such a great change for her, a new, positive direction. And the move to Boston would be so perfect for both her and John. Her imagination is brimming with scenes of a new life in Boston, returning to the intellectual soil of academia (fleeing the hair-pulling idiocy of retail advertising), and settling into a satisfying happy world where having a child would not seems such an impossibility. She and John have started to rot in Washington. The city has that peculiar power to suck vitality and joy from its inhabitants. I, too, want Wendy and John to leave DC– I think of DC with disdain and loathing. What passes for intellectuality there is just so much subservience to the bureaucracy. Enough– I am starting to rant about Washington again– as I did for so long. Boston would be such a perfect change. And it all seems to depend upon the outcome of her interview next Friday. It was so wonderful to see her today. I always forget just how totally, how utterly I adore her. I stare at her as she moves across the room– she is not of this world. She is a holy spirit descended from another plane. Sunlight beams about her burgundy hair like a halo. Haloed in the afternoon light. Wendy should have long white wings. I want to be alone with her– but it is only an hour break before a model arrive and they must begin work again. Our communication with each other is largely silent. Robbie, Allan’s assistant (who once visited Wendy and me in Washington) returns to the studio with lunch. We have fresh bread and cheese and fruit, raw green beans in a cream sauce and chicken salad with huge chunks of cold chicken. We discuss mechanization, the sophistication of computers and increasing use of robots in business. The model arrives and I must return to my office. We hug goodbye and send over kisses to each other’s dogs. The door closes. It occurs to me that we are the same spirit curiously inhabiting separate male and female bodies.
Tonight I met Diane at a theater on Broadway for the opening of a new summer type movie “Escape from New York.” Awful film. I got there early, anticipating lines and bought the tickets in advance. Then I wandered around Times Square– enjoying the leisure of not being in a hurry. I went to the theater where Elizabeth Taylor is doing Little Foxes and bought a program for Richard. Tomorrow night I may go to the stage door and try to get autograph for him.
It’s late and I’m sleepy and happy.