Location: Healdsburg, Ca.
Here's what I thought today: how do you show sorrow in a photograph. This is the best I could do.
Ah, fuck. I'm so sad.
What is a person supposed to say on days like this?
Today happens to be a close friend's birthday. She's the same friend who is mourning the death of her cat and of course, I planned on calling her today. But when I woke up this morning, there were a half dozen messages on my iPhone (the one I don't sleep with anymore) -- two of them from my friend telling me the most awful news, that late last night we lost a dear and good and far too young friend of ours. That our friend was dead. It was sudden, as unexpected as a tornado down Sunset Blvd.
There is nothing that can prepare you for this kind of news and after a day of staring blankly into space and crying my eyes out, of writing about him, about nothing, of commiserating with friends and just trying to make sense out of one damned thing, I still don't know how I feel, exactly. Except sad. An overwhelming, aching, blinding sorrow.
Our friend, David, wasn't just any friend, he was a light in the universe kind of person, who touched more people than he'll ever know, who made the world a much more interesting place.
I am so sad that the sound of the cursed rain pounding outside is welcoming. I felt like running out the door with no shoes on, and standing in the middle of it, letting the cascades of water sink in, soaking into my skin, all the way to my bones, until I don't give a shit anymore.
It's like having parts of your heart removed. Literally. Like the doctors came to your house overnight and surgically cut out a whole section. What's left has to beat harder and faster just to keep up, making your breathing shorter, like half hiccups, like you've been holding your breath underwater for a week, like catching it and breathing out is the same damn thing.
I realize there's never a time more suited for selfishness than when someone you love dies. Let the pity party begin. I feel bad, that's for sure, but I haven't yet been able to shake the feeling of shock, of bewilderment. Is it really real? This is what happens when you hear about the death of a friend who just a couple days ago you were trading emails with, who was in a really good place (after not being in a very good one for a time) who was in many ways larger-than-life and who was only 48.
Dammit.
All I can say is that if it's true that nature abhors a vacuum, then we all better just duck for cover. Because there's a big freaking black hole in the universe today.
I think I'm going to go get drunk.
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