Vanessa Redgrave

There is all sorts of news today and I skim across it like a sandpiper speeding down the beach ... zip, pause, zip, pause. There is the slaughter in Orlando, the Siamese twins of obesity and malnutrition, the pairing of the potential British exit from the European Union and the daunting, undimmed catastrophe of Middle Eastern migration... and so much more. Somewhere, someone is killing someone else, but you knew that and so did I.

And then, without forcing anything, I come up against a person of substance, a person with sand, a quirky and unrepentant person and it's like falling into chocolate mousse ... or like a dog wiggling all over because it's so glad to see you. Is it because she's old and I'm old? I don't think so. I think it's the brass and how it twinkles, even if the article is a bit rumpled.

Actress Vanessa Redgrave. Even at the distance imposed by the written word, I get a sense of glee. The world is not entirely a hopeless wreck. Somewhere, there is someone like Redgrave to pin your ears back even if she is doing nothing more than being herself ... a person of sand and substance, a person who can bring the heat and stand the heat, a ... the only word I can think of is mensch.

I read the article from end to end, despite all of its written rumples. Here was something I wanted to know without really knowing what it was I wanted to know. Like a woodstove in winter, it was toasty and reassuring ... at least you're not going to freeze to death right now.

She reminds me of the observation, "Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help." She is Vanessa Redgrave -- that's all. And the universe is better for her.