Listening to Elliott Smith Again.

You died just before noon on Wednesday morning. From the time I woke up that morning I was almost doubled-over in pain. It didn't make sense, but all of my insides hurt. My neck and back had been hurting me for days, and I'd been battling a strange headache (something with which I have little experience). On Wednesday my guts started to hurt so much that I worried I might have appendicitis.

On Thursday nothing hurt anymore. My body knew it was your time even though my mind refused to admit it. I guess pain is the logical result of a serious disconnect between mind and body.


When I got the unmistakable midday phone call, I thought to myself, "You're better. You're better. You're better. He's calling because you suddenly got better," and my esophagus grew tight like someone was inflating a balloon inside of it (kind of like it feels now).

I left the office right away, throwing things around so quickly and carelessly that I squashed a fly in one of my folders (which I found the next day).

I cried as I walked to the bus stop. Cars let me cross in places they don't normally and people kept their distance from me. A little boy, I'd guess he was about 4, stood staring at my intently. His mother kept trying to redirect his attention, but he kept looking at me, and finally she gave up. I thought about what I would say if he asked me why I was crying. Nothing seemed right, and I finally settled on "someone I love went to heaven."

I worried a lot about saying something that would scare him or make him sad. I worried that seeing a stranger cry on the bus might scare him or make him sad. I worry about children so much. I worry too much.

As I drew closer to my stop, I pushed more and more of my sadness inside until finally I wasn't crying anymore, except for the occasional rogue tear which I quickly wiped and denied. I imagine a great body of water building inside of me from all the tears I'm not crying and, like a dammed lake or river, sometimes a little leaks out to relieve all of the pressure.

I haven't let myself have a big cry - a red-faced, on-my-knees-cry, yet. I'm always afraid of hurting other people with my sadness. Listening to Elliott Smith, I think of the line, "I'll fake it through the day" (and never mind the next line about Johnny Walker Red, I'm too tired to drink).


I know I'll grieve in my own time in my own way. I know it's still too soon.


Today is the anniversary of Cliff's death. I can tell I'm in defensive mode because every year on the anniversary of Cliff's death I cry, and I haven't cried for Cliff today. That will come in due time too.

This morning when I woke up, I thought about you teaching Cliff to dance. I imagined you wearing a white shirt and black pants, and Cliff wearing khaki shorts and a t-shirt and a bandanna. You were both smiling and laughing. You were both so spry. I imagined Cliff saying "You're the woman" and you replying "don't I know it," as you danced together. And I laughed and felt happy for a little while. As the day went on, I thought of that image again and again and it brought me some happiness and some relief.


I want you to know that you filled an empty place in my heart. I know your family is experiencing unimaginable pain right now because they love you so much, and even though I have the utmost sympathy for them, I keep returning to thoughts of how lucky they were to have had you in their lives, and how lucky I am to have had you in mine.

Lost Souls

I am so upset to hear of Heath Ledger's death.

I suppose I have a secret expectations from the celebrity world - that they will always provide entertainment without reality. That they will always provide diversions from my reality.

About a week ago Brad Renfro died. I was shocked. I know he'd slipped into the oblivion of most American minds (if people even knew him at all), but I'd never forgotten him, nor the first time I saw him in The Client. He was the ultimate heart-throb material - a southern bad-boy and anti-hero. Even as he aged and he acted very little, and when he did act he took really risky roles again and again (I have to shut my eyes for many scenes in Bully), I still cared about him as a human, and when I heard he had trouble I always hoped he'd get better.

So when he died, after so many months or years of silence, it felt like all my hope had been in vain. I thought again and again that he couldn't die, it would be far too James Dean for the real world. I don't know him. It seems silly. But I was sad that such a talent, albeit a troubled talent, had died so young. More than that, I was sad because I had cared about him, whether I knew him personally or not. He'd had an impact on my life.

And now Heath Ledger. It seems ridiculous. I don't know Heath Ledger. I know nothing of his character or even of his person, and yet I'm crying. I'm crying because the movies, and all of the celebrity diversions help me to forget my troubles sometimes. That's the point of movies and the entertainment industry. Sometimes movies are about troubles of one kind or another, and make you think, and hurt you, but they always pull you away from your own life and into someone else's.

And now I am sitting here thinking of how much pain Heath Ledger must have felt. How sad he must have been, and it reminds me that I have my own sadness, and that other people - all other people- have their own sadness - even the ones who are meant to keep us from ours.

I sat here hoping and hoping that someone somewhere was wrong. I read the story of his death like a novel, thinking that it might have a happy ending even though I knew it didn't. When I read that his housekeeper tried to revive him, I rooted for her to bring him back, all the while knowing he was already gone.

I sit here writing this knowing that someone I love and cherish is not going to be with me much longer, and I can't help but realize that the way I'm feeling over the death of a stranger is a reflection of the fear and pain I haven't let myself feel for her. Heath Ledger won't let me ignore the pain anymore. So I sit crying tears for Heath Ledger, that are hidden tears for someone else. Someone I'm not yet ready to cry for.

You Can Choose Your Afterlife

Eric Gamalinda wrote a poem called "You Can Choose Your Afterlife," in his 1999 book, Zero Gravity. It is one of my very favorite books, and perhaps one of the most complete collections of poetry I have ever encountered*. In this poem, the speaker addresses a friend, real or created, who decided to take his own life:

---------------------------
"You Can Choose Your Afterlife"**

according to the strange customs
of the T'boli
who believe we are not judged

by good or evil
but by the kind of death
we meet: to die by the sword

is to enter the kingdom
where everything
even the sound of water

is red They welcome you there
with the tintinnabulation
of copper bells

and the lamentation
of bamboo violins
and all night long

a wounded sun hovers
over your place of business
And those who drown

return to the navel of the sea
(that's what they call it)
where they become subjects

of Fon Muhin, god
of all creatures
who breathe water And those

who die of sickness
go to Mogul
where they receive everything

they've always desired
but are not free of suffering
And those who kill themselves

go to a place exactly like earth
but where everything sways
even in sleep

Arne you didn't tell us
why you wanted
to go

we can only imagine you
in a world where
you can't keep a cup

of coffee still
and people keep changing
the rules for soccer

because the ball
keeps rolling away
You won't miss us

everything moves in the same
direction You were always
one step ahead
---------------------------



I think about this poem a lot, particularly the line in which the speaker first addresses his friend, Arne; "Arne, you didn't tell us/ why you wanted/ to go"

The speaker is so obviously at peace with the lack of closure in this situation. He doesn't know why Arne took his own life, but he's not going to spend the rest of his life trying to figure it out. I have spent many hours wondering about questions I'll never be able to answer. I haven't made peace with many of them, but it's an ongoing quest.

We, humans, have the desire to know why. Why did it happen? Why did they do it? We'll never know. But that's not the point of this poem.

This is a poem about empowerment. In death, in which most of us imagine that we have no choice, Gamalinda is positing that maybe, in some ways, we do have a choice.

The answer to the riddle of Arne's suicide is hidden in these stanzas, but the answer is something that pertains to much more than suicide, or death. This isn't a poem about death. This is a poem about choice. If you have can choose your afterlife, then your possibilities in life are endless.

You can choose anything.





*I have a system of grading poetry; it's somewhat elementary and childish, but it works very well for me. I put a star on poems I like, a check next to poems I have read (let's call them neutral), and a "re." on poems I don't understand the first time through; this way, when I re-read a book, I know which to give special attention ("re."), which to give another shot (check), and which are already favorites (star). This means that, to me, the mark of a truly "good" collection (in a very generic sense, and barring any poet's collected works) is the ratio of stars to the total number of poems. By this reasoning, any ratio of 1:2 or higher is "good." I starred 26 of the 34 poems in this book on the first reading (and if I were to re-do my marks now, I'd star them all).

**Eric Gamalinda, I fully acknowledge that I have absolutely no permission to reprint any of your work in part, or in whole. However, I must warn you that if you contact me asking me to remove your work, you are going to subject yourself to a barrage of questions filled with breathless adulation, and a standing invitation to every one of my birthday parties.

Long ago, I had a question for everything...

Two nights ago I found out that my friend's older brother died tragically young in a car accident. I didn't know his older brother well, but there was a time when I was very close with my friend. Anytime I hear that anyone I know has died, my heart wrenches in my chest with all too much familiarity.

I called my father to tell him I'd be coming home sometime soon. He asked me why, and when I told him that I had to attend a viewing he responded, "Jesus, again?"

My father is not a cold man; he was expressing genuine shock. He went on to say, "You must have been to 10 times as many funerals as me." (The knowledge that my father is 40 years older than I am was implicit to both of us.)

I, and my group of friends, have lost more young people - far more young people- than any other person my age that I know, or have heard of. Most of our friends and acquaintances have died in car accidents - all of them have died tragically young.

We're not a reckless group of people. We're not a bad group of people. Some of our friends were risk-takers, others were incredibly responsible and cautious. Some of their deaths may have been preventable (but how can you even measure such a thing?) and others definitely were not.

The only thing our friends had in common, aside from dying too young, is us. I know it has crossed all of our minds - that there is some connection between the deaths, or some "curse" among us. Everyone knows it's ridiculous and untrue, but still you reach a point where logic and emotion blur together, and when what once seemed completely irrational, begins to seem the only logical explantion - well, let's just say there are only some manys ways to put the pieces of a puzzle together.

I mourn this loss, and all of the other losses. My heart goes out to you, Eric. My heart goes out to you, and your family, and your friends, and your fiance.


Eric Gamalinda wrote:

"Long ago I had a question for everything
but now I know better: everything goes
and only the questions remain."

And so far, this is the only truth I know.