What's with all the death? - Gretzky

Welcome to life. - BeC

There’s been a lot of death going around. A week and a half ago it was a little boy with cancer. The past few days it's been Solzhenitsyn, Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes, and Mahmoud Darwish.

One of the homeless men in the park, Big Mike, is limping painfully up the hill towards Parnell's. His normal stride is smooth and easy, long legs rambling over the sidewalk. And there's an ambulance wailing down the street outside my window.

A woman asked the cloud: please enfold my loved one
My clothes are soaked with his blood
If you shall not be rain, my love
Be trees
Saturated with fertility, be trees
And if you shall not be trees, my love
Be a stone
Saturated with humidity, be a stone
And if you shall not be a stone, my love
Be a moon
In the loved one’s dream, be a moon
So said a woman to her son
In his funeral

Mahmoud Darwish, from A State of Siege

Of course, to paraphrase Dante, in the midst of death, there’s life going on all over, too. Friends got married this weekend, and we had a good time at Coffeehouse Saturday night.

I'm thinking about Falstaff today, about Hal, and Shakespeare's vision of death and what it means. And how our culture views death, its finality. I'm thinking a lot about how to live in light of our imminent departures, and I'm again reminded of Barbara Kingsolver's words from Animal Dreams, about what she wants - well, about what Hallie wants, in her letters to Codi:

I don't expect to see perfection before I die. Lord, if I did, I would have stuck my head in the oven back in Tucson, after hearing the stories of some of those refugees...What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you knew how to drive...You keep your eyes open, you see this damned to hell world you got born into, and you ask yourself, "What life can I live that will let me breath in and out and love somebody or something and not run off screaming into the woods?" (224)

...You ask why I'm not afraid of loving and losing, and that's my answer. Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up. It goes into the groun, into crops, into children's bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don't get lost. Codi, here's what I decided: the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That's about it...Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides. I can't tell you how good it feels. I wish you knew. (299)

And also I've been listening a lot to my darling Kate Rusby, who says "I don’t really have long term plans apart from continuing to make the music we want to for as long as we can. You never know what’s going to happen so you just have to work hard and be good to people and hope life treats you well. " Here's hoping she does a North American tour at some point.

"It's not weird, actually, that you can't find it, because you don't remember the title." - Cab

Cab left for Pittsburgh three weeks ago, on towards future greatness in the international development world. She is amazing, and I miss her. I had a 100 calorie popcorn bag at 3 p.m. today and thought of her, because like clockwork, Cab would pop those mini-bags and make the office smell like an amusement park, if ever so briefly. Here are more reasons why Cab is cool:

1)

She gave me the Between Boyfriends book to read and it was hilarious.

2)

Gretzky: "He doesn't know what he wants."
Cab: "We've heard that before. Next."

3)

The exercise balls we bounce around on in our cubicles.
Cab: "This is the shit we need pictures of."


4)

Action in Save Darfur.

5)

Gretzky: "I didn't think you liked me."
Cab: "I get that a lot."

6)

She runs marathons every other week. Not quite that much, but almost. She is strong.


7)

She makes sitting through meetings bearable. This is not a skill most of the world has. I wish she'd bottle it up and sell it to the rest of the people I have to meet with.

8)

Karaoking to Mama Mia! in January.

9)

I spilled barbecue all over myself on a first date. Classy, right?

Resulting in the funniest quote ever from Cherie: "Maybe he was thinking, 'Ooh, I wanna sop her up with a biscuit!'"

A text from Cab at midnight: "Ooh, I wanna sop her up with a biscuit!"


10)

And one of two best Cab quotings ever, from Miranda:


Cab: "There are no mixed messages."



the other best Cab quoting ever:

"'Save it for Oprah, honey' - that's right, from Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Don't be a hater."

"it's sarcastic Wednesday!" - hoops and yoyo

OMG I am in love with hoops and yoyo. Maybe hoops just a little more. But they could both come live at my house.

It started last week when Cherie sent me a sarcastic Wednesday card, which you should view. Then it became a semi-obsession, especially since I needed to laugh this weekend. And I started watching hoops and yoyo cards a LOT. But also trying not to watch too many so I could savor the ones that are there.

I'd really love to meet the creative genius/es behind hoops and yoyo. I bet they are AWESOME.

"what a beautiful piece of heartache / this has all turned out to be... " - Over the Rhine

There is not much to be said on the day of a child's funeral.

At least, nothing that means much.

I was listening to Over the Rhine last night, and they come close, but still so far away.

And I was thinking of some Barbara Kingsolver words from Animal Dreams. I think I've quoted them before, but they're so real and right. Someone is talking to Codi, I think it's Doc Homer, but I can't remember who..anyway, they say:

"Why do you suppose the poets talk about hearts? When they discuss emotional damage? The tissue of hearts is as tough as a shoe. Did you ever sew a heart? The seat of human emotion should be the liver. That would be the appropriate metaphor: we don't hold love in our hearts, we hold it in our liver."

I understood exactly. Once in the ER, I saw a woman who'd been stabbed everywhere, most severely in the liver. It's an organ with the consistency of layer upon layer of wet kleenex. Every attempt at repair just opens new holes that tear and bleed. You try to close the wound with fresh wounds and you try and try and don't give up til there's nothing left.

don't greet your boss with "how the fuck are you today?" and things of this nature...g's paraphrase of what dave said.

When there is great sadness, I want to do something. Wash every dish in the cupboard, cook people meals, vacuum, scrub the bathroom floor, anything, anything, anything, anything as long as it means I don't have to sit still with the sadness.

K8's brother-in-law is one of the best people I have ever had the privilege of meeting, and I'm going to quote his e-mail to K8, because it's just one of the best things I've read, in terms of advice in times of grief... Also, he calls and says "I'm not going to tell you to have a good day," because he knows it's not going to be a good day.

People like this are invaluable. They are the ones who make the world go round, by simply living out what it means to be a friend. Offering people soup, telling them you love them, sitting down with them and calling them even if they can't talk back to you. These people remind me that the world does keep on turning, that somewhere in the world there is still goodness, and that there is still much to live for.



Dave's E-mail:

1 little bit of advice from somebody not comatose such as yourself. As your mind is so totally filled with thoughts of the little guy or filled with other thoughts to keep your mind off the little guy…………It is soooooo easy for people to let their guard down in times of trauma, I am sure you are catchin my drift……All this to say please be deliberate in everything for a while i.e stopping at stop lights and stop signs, looking over your shoulder before you change lanes, safe following distance,don't step on the soap in the shower, open doors before you go through them, don't greet your boss with "How the Fuck are YOU today" and other things of this nature that could cause you harm.

I love you.

Be extra safe.

P.S. I think that people named Dave must be really amazing, because the ones I know are all people who blow me away.