Be a man
On Coping #153
I have lunch with my friend
your friend
our friend.
.
He is ten years older than us,
His children now young adults.
.
The sight in one of his eyes is deteriorating.
But he helps me see more clearly.
.
He has championed and encouraged my writing
this writing
since the start.
.
And I consider that high praise from an elite artist whose work has an unparalleled influence on my own.
.
In particular a piece of work I came to know intimately
about holding ourselves together
in the wake of disaster.
.
But as much as I might be inspired by and okay yes for sure at times flatteringly I hope imitate his work
and despite all he has taught me about artistry
it is this man’s fatherhood that I have learned most from.
.
On this day
over chicken caesar wraps
he tells me of his children’s journeys into work and relationships.
He tells me of their courage in the face of the challenge.
He tells me of his own place at the heart of his family.
.
And as ever
he emanates love.
.
Listening to him speak
I realise he was one of the first professionals I encountered
who brought parenthood into the conversation.
More than that
for whom life and work were integrated.
A natural dance between the two.
.
We could at once be talking about the German avant-garde
then the latest Premier League results
then what happened with his son in Victoria Park the weekend gone.
.
Earlier in my career it had seemed either no one had children or they were a kind of unseen and unspoken of part of professional life.
.
It seems implicit if not explicit that to excel was either to remain childless or else hold your home life far away and perhaps even below your artistic priorities.
.
But not this man.
.
He showed and shows me they
we
are
in fact
all one and the same.
.
. . .
.
A few weeks later it is the second anniversary of your death and as I drive to work I am overtaken with a desire to tell this man what his writing
and by that I really mean he himself
means to me.
.
So as I turn onto the M2 I turn on my camera
hit record
and say this:
.
I’m just sending you this message because I think if I don’t
I might never say it
and I think it needs to be said
and maybe you need to hear it.
.
And it’s this.
.
I think some days that your work might have saved my life.
I don’t say that lightly.
My proximity to your art was like practice
You know
to actually feel or try to feel that depth of devastation
within the safety of my imagination.
I thought so often about that
since Imogen died
about how
I wasn’t going somewhere where new
I was going somewhere where I’d already been.
Like
terrain I was familiar with.
But now
two years on.
I don’t think as much about how that you gave me a blueprint for loss or for grief.
I think
how much love there is
in your work.
(I am crying now).
Love
in the tiny little details.
And how we can be robbed of that love.
But I wasn’t.
I wasn’t robbed of it.
I had it.
I still feel it.
It’s not been taken away by some tragedy
like it can be.
And so.
I guess
you know
this is one way of me saying
thank you.
Um
of saying.
I don’t know.
This stuff matters
you know?
Um.
And you know
your friendship and your mentorship and your just fucking love for the world
means a great deal
to me.
Um.
And.
I guess
yeah
I just wanted you to know that.
So thank you.
.
. . .
.
The next day he sends me a voice note in return and speaks eloquently and idiosyncratically about art and work and manhood and you and me and our friendship.
.
And I am deeply moved by his words
.
Towards the end of the message
he leaves me with a gift.
And true to form
it is a story.
.
And this is the story:
