Ok. so what’s been happening lately? what worth mentioning? and what makes something worth mentioning? am i gauging it on audience, taste, intellect or cool, today? i guess it’s nothing. i am gaugeless, like a shitty dollarstore knitting pattern.
so i’ll talk about what’s on my mind.
a friend died two days ago. in the first leg of a motorcycle trip he was taking across the country, he drifted past the center line and met a really big truck. why do i feel the need to mention that, when it makes my bones hurt and my eyes leak?
we had our own we-knew-him-since-highschool wake for him @ a party last night, just because everyone there but one, knew him. we brought out photos and told stories and did all the stuff you do to stir up someone’s memory, make them be really violently alive this one last time. it was good. no one cried. we’re crying for ourselves when we do, i know that, we all know it, so we have the decency to not pretend, to keep those scared or self-pity tears to ourselves.
he’s one of our boddhisattvas. a hedon and a poet and a pencil-drawer and a beautiful seemingly unlined soul. i guess he ironed all the lines out. there were times when i thought he might be a new soul, and maybe he is. maybe he’s reentering the cycle and becoming someone else right now. but i think it’s possible he’s an old one, older than me, even – and he’s gotten off the ride.
in my secret heart, that place where all your petty and romantic and deluded hopes grow and fester, i picture him just understanding, wheels humming under him, blue sky casting its yellow daylight down on him. i see him opening, like he was so very able to, and allowing all the knowledge that we’re all seeking, in. and just being ready to be somewhere else, done with this whole shebang, ready to scatter back into energy.
but in my secret heart, he just disappears. or maybe his wheels lift off the pavement and he does some cheesy E.T. motorcycle into the sky bit. he does not drift past the center line. there is no semi coming towards him. the birds are singing that haunting northern ontario birdsong.
my secret heart is a coward who wants happy endings.
an excerpt of a Dystopia post he did back in the day:
“from time to time i can see the void between atoms, and the true emptiness of things. but i still miss you all and want more time w/ you. more sitting in fields thinking about how city slicker shit bags see us as small town fugitives who don’t know what life’s about. more sitting in indian restaurants stoned w/ an acute awareness of the sounds of the meal. more growing into beauty.
life would be so sweet if i only had enough to eat. and friends around to love.
–”ALL COMPOUND THINGS DECAY. SEEK OUT THY SALVATION W/ DILIGENCE.”
–the final words of the buddha.”
.
That was beautiful Holly.
A stark, clear, and lovely memourium, that made mourn and value a person I’ve never met.
Comment by A.J. Valliant — August 27, 2006 @ 6:54 pm