jay/day

Photo by Chuck Phillips

I received this lovely reminiscence of Steve Jobs from Shelley, Jay's second wife, who lives in Malibu. She is still, I'm told, as sweet and lovely as when we all knew her from the Golden Years at Chiat/Day.

steve,

no doubt so many of us are revisiting the time we spent with steve jobs, and this seemed to be the place to share the memories. here are some of mine.

steve and I had been locked on a sound stage for days shooting “this is an apple… and this is an apple.” with dick cavett. we wrapped the last day and were walking home as we had done many nights before.

suddenly he took my arm and stopped. “shell,” he said, “i just realized something.” steve’s observations were always compelling—reductionist, razor-sharp, singularly steve. “what?” I asked.

he gazed around, then up at the evening sky. “life,” he said “is very poorly lit.”

earlier in the year we had spent the night in his first house. he had just moved into it, and with the graciousness that characterized him, he gave me the only furnished room. in that room were two things, both on the floor: his futon and a $375,000 tiffany lamp.

steve spent his days illuminating ours. jay connected us to our passions, steve connected us to each other. both of them found more in us than we found in ourselves. again, we are in the darkness. again, it didn’t help to know it might be coming. again, we’re shocked and sick with grief. as we share our sadness, I can’t help feeling that the only other person with a lantern has left us now as well. the loss is, as steve would say, insanely great.

in my dream of his ascent, steve meets soen nakagawa roshi, zen master monk/extraordinary poet/calligraphy creator-- someone I think he will love. and in his enigmatic way, steve becomes nakagawa’s words:

“at last I have met my own cool star.”
xoxo s.