How much do I love you? I bring you your fave covfefe… 800 miles away.
My dear friend and mentor, the iconic art critic, Suzi Gablik, has been an inspiration to me for most of my adult life. I’ve been hanging with Suzi for over 30 years. From the moment I first read her life changing book, “Has Modernism Failed”, cooped up in a hospital room for weeks, laying on a cot next to my baby boy, in traction from a dangerous, freak leg break of his upper right femur.
Suzi got me through then, as she does now, ever the wise, oracle.
Those who love Suzi, know what I mean. We’ve attended her vital “Salons” in Blacksburg at her previous home on Deer Run, and now visit her at another site, Warm Hearth, where she’s attended to by helpers with round the clock care.
I’m a writer, but I will need volumes to express my Love for the incomparable Suzi Galik.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzi_Gablik
Elizabeth: What would like, Suzi?
Suzi: A Small, Java Chip Frappuccino, with Chocolate Drizzle and here’s the important part, NO WHIPPED CREAM!”
Elizabeth: How about a large?
Suzi: No, a small is fine.
Elizabeth: Ok. See you in a few.
I bring her a medium. Though completely blind Suzi notices that the cup is heavy when I hand it to her. She says, “It’s not small.” I tell her, “save it for later.” She finishes it while we visit.
Suzi is near deaf. I sit just so, and talk loud so she can hear me. We reminisce about the days of her Salons and politics. She asks about my work which we discuss often. We pick up the thread, where we left off last week, during a call, talking about my projects, NO KNOW NOTHING an upbeat, apocalyptic tale; The Spirit of This Plot of Earth, a Historical Mural I’m working on. She loves that her muse shows up in it, Virgil the Alligator. Suzi always has an enlightened, insight to share.
When it’s time to say goodbye, I want to hug her again one last time before heading home to Florida. I can’t help but walk up behind her, and massage her now fragile, tiny shoulders, always big enough to lead me and so many of us for a lifetime, and cry all the way home 🙏
