So I was shelling a boiled egg under the tap water before getting on to practicing scales, whole tones and double-stops. And a name, a face and a moment snapped into mind: Lani Irwin, 1964, on a train ride to Naples, Italy. Strange how the mind works—especially the aging mind. The past, always the past.
We were students at the University of Maryland in Munich and she and I and half a dozen others were sharing a train compartment on a holiday trip to Italy, close to Easter. I was quite taken with her, even obsessed, but she paid me no mind at all.
I did, however, join a few of the others in staying at her Navy family’s villa above the harbor for a few nights before some of us continued on to Rome. In June I went back to the States and lost track of her forever.
And so this little memoir would end, with just another strange obsession called to mind on its own accord, but for the Web and Google. I was surprised and delighted to find Lani is now a rather famous artist. Most modern art irritates me; her enigmatic paintings do not, for they are of people, seemingly real and striking women mostly, in surreal settings.
I’m glad for her success, and longevity. Some other old obsessions played out via the Internet have led to unhappier findings. Will this one now expire? I expect so. It certainly has changed.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 