Dear Diary,
The last few days have dug up not only stirrings of my soul in both music and art, but also from the past. I cannot help but look at the invitation to the Berkley College reunion and not feel a bittersweet orchestral version combining dulcet notes of nostalgia with rising flutes of hope, only to be brought down to wailing saxaphones of lust. The lust of course, is due to one soul. One beautiful soul.
Dare I say it on the inter-web Diary?
I shall.
Fine.
One… Thompson… Wilcox… Valdez.
Happy, Diary?
Admittedly in some ways, I hope he reads this. As Grandmother used to say, “From your cupid lips to Aphrodite’s Ears, my darling Ivy.”
She was the only romantic more hopeless than I.
Upset as I am about Alex’s departure, and the grounds he based ending our relationship on “I don’t think you are over you-know-whom” he said, I cannot help but wonder if he is somewhat right.
Grandmother used to say a girl only gets two loves of her life in one lifetime. I wonder…if Alex was one of them…could Thompson be…?
No Diary.
Could he?
No.
Yes?
No.
No no no no no.
NO.
Right?
To be honest, Alex was more of a fit than a true love. I suppose. Who knows?! I am so confused. They tell you to follow your heart, but when it leads you to someone who is not of the same stature…a girl can get confused. I am so confused.
Thompson and I…we were just children then. He was my first. Both in love and – well, other things. I was his first, too. Though the way he threw down one might dispute it. If that batting average were put to lovemaking well, let’s just say Thompson would be up there with the greats. Hall of Fame. Cooperstown. You understand, don’t you Diary?
He had a way of pushing me against a wall and…
Mother didn’t like him. Father did like him but questioned if he could provide for me. But what I loved about him was he was a real salt-of-the-earth type. No pretenses about him. No titles or black American Express Card to obnoxiously wave around. When he looked at me I saw what Picasso saw in the only subjects he would paint: authenticity.
Thomas had, and I am sure still has, a way of gazing at a girl that makes her knees go weak. I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. His engaging grin and eyes full of passion. Hmm…Thomas Wilcox Valdez…how I trembled the first time he touched my hand without a glove on it. He, in fact, is the one who charmingly cajoled me to stop wearing gloves.
Oh Diary!
I sound like an old fool…pining in such a dramatic way. It was young love. And who knows, perhaps he has forgotten about me by now, or is involved with a Laker’s cheerleader or something. Perhaps he has moved on, on, on…
And not thought of the 19 year-old me, supporting him at all his tryouts, wearing his lucky baseball cap on my head and telling him “Go get ’em tiger.” How much trouble we would get into sneaking around together, playing pranks, and laughing.
Tut! I am done with such nonsense for now. Mother’s schedule awaits. I have been at her beck and call for the last few days, going to benefits at MOMA, meeting some lovely girls at the Daughters of the American Revolution. She is right. I have duties. And I should be meeting more men of my caliber I suppose.
And I should be happy being a single, independent woman who is on the brink of major success! Did I tell you the other day Karl Lagerfeld ran into me at the fall Fashion Week brainstorm and told me he was condsidering me being his muse? I thought he was joking but this morning he texted me to see if I wanted to get together later this week at the Algonquin – my favorite! How did he know?
See Diary? Yes. I am going to no longer be a silly woman in lovesick love.
xoxo,
The INDEPENDENT Ivy.
PS Thank GOODNESS Mother leaves on her private jet this weekend. Sunday latest. (A swan had made a nest in one of the engines and was scared to death, poor thing. Mother and family are fine now, and have made a nice home on our west pond.)
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xoxo-
Musings of a Baroness 
