Jean Donatto
In one of my many lives, there was the big yard with old growth trees and dappled Spring sunlight. On one such afternoon, we three, Zora, Maya and Toni, or The Delaney Sisters and Zaki, but really Shirley, Jean and Mary sat ourselves down for the easy exhale of the kind of conversation that just comes when you are absolutely certain that you won't have to explain the most obscure pun or reference. We talked of writers like only readers could. We spoke of the state of the world as world citizens. We remembered fads, fashion and civility of, "Our" time. Our knees didn't hurt when we popped up for, "Well maybe just a little" more wine.
We all want days we'll never forget but we cannot create them. They come of their own in absolute serendipity, are enjoyed and have soft easy endings because nobody was left out, nobody had to shout to be heard, each one understood each thing...easy company. Mary was easy company. She was elegant, erudite and unfailingly kind. A snapshot within this memory is the relaxed way she leaned from her car window for goodbyes.
It was languid and glamorous but only because it was not contrived.
Mary, reader leader, francophile and all around splendid human being, enjoy the liquid ease of Paradise. Tell Cormac McCarthy to have something else written by the time l get there.
And please, please, hug Kay Boyle for me in Heaven's splendid replica of Paris. She will know who you are.
