Solace of calm waters

Joe Kowal died on Wednesday. He was 74. When you're a month shy of 64, that doesn't seem so old. My cousin Rob died in June; he was 52. My cousin Patty Sue died in January; she was about the same age. This weekend Peg, my best friend from high school, came for a visit from Washington, D.C. to see my new place. We have been friends since 1962 -- 50 years. We knew each other's mother and father so well, and now they are all gone, our mothers not so long ago. We spent a lot of time sitting and watching the calm waters flow by, talking and reflecting.

Joe Kowal was a remarkably talented artist; I worked with him for years, beginning with my first job out of college in 1970. When I wrote a scriptwriting book, I hired him to illustrate it. He came up with some pretty hilarious caricatures of me -- see above and below. I haven't see Joe in years, decades probably, but this week it feels like there's yet another hole in my life.

Below is a quote from the April 2012 issue of Garden Design magazine, from a story titled "Liquid Assets" by Lise Funderburg, that I stenciled on a piece of wood that I have installed on my back deck wall. It says, "The reflective surface of water asks us to reconsider the world around us -- what is up, what is down -- and where we find our place in it."

As I write this, the moon in a cloudless sky is reflected perfectly in the calm water flowing past my window. When I was moving here, and frazzled, the woman who would become my next door neighbor wrote, "The wonderful thing about being on the water is that it makes painful memories fade away rather quickly, at least that is my experience, and hopefully will be yours as well."