A dear friend from back home died late last week, and the rest of everything has been a blur of planning, connecting, reflecting, flight ticket price searching, and crying.
And dreams. So many dreams. Many of them including a shape that can roughly be replicated by this symbol: II
(pause)
In the past few years, there has been a lot of reflection on who I want to invest in to become closer with. To solidify. Deepen. Grow.
I think of friends who show up in a no bullshit type way. Weddings, funerals, illnesses, graduations, job losses, income losses, and, if we can remember them without Facebook, these days: birthdays.
I've been thinking of who it feels loving and warm and right (even when it is hard, sad, and downright ugly) to show up for in friendship. Who gets the pass that will have me rearrange everything in the world I can to support or talk to or see them? In the past, I've looked the other way in imbalances. In the past two years, I can see that changing. It feels good. It has felt sad in some of the realizations that some of the relationships in my life that felt as solid as oak, turned out to be as easy to disappear as driftwood.
Friends and family are who act as the cushion to the more difficult events in life. They absorb some of the shock. Ease some of the pain. Make things difficult, less so.
Some of these people are people I am in constant contact with. Others, no less important by any stretch of the imagination, are people I text with periodically- about music or language or art or any number of things that are all related to, well, life, and all of the people experiencing it with or around us at the same time at this particular point in history.
I. My mother, when talking with me about plans for the funeral, told me that she would love to just pay for my flight home if it would be of any help, but that she knew she wouldn't be able to take the money out of her account without my father noticing it and blowing up on her. "You understand, don't you?" I didn't tell her I understood. I just told her I could afford my own ticket. Of course I don't understand. I never want to understand how a mother isn't allowed to try and help out her child whose friend has died because her husband is an abusive, controlling maniac.
II. A friend of mine is in a year old relationship. His partner has taken issue with our friendship, even though our friendship has existed since far beyond their meeting. They will be moving in together. It will be an issue to stay with them when I visit the state he lives in. "You understand, don't you?" It is left unsaid, but I hear my mother's voice, all the same. I don't, no. I never want to understand how a person is in a position to turn a friend away because of their partner's insecurities.
While these conversations are going on
I. A dear friend from high school is rearranging things to go on a memorial road trip in honor of our friend that died. She can't find a dog sitter, so we are figuring out how we can figure it out together. A friend of mine offers to do it, and a friend of hers might be able to.
II. A newer friend calls and is locked out of his house. I ask how I can help out. He says just stay on the phone with me while I wait for the locksmith so I don't feel like an idiot sitting on my own porch. You got it.
None of these thing are polarized. They are more complex. It is not "good friend; bad mother". There is simply a difference in how one goes about maintaining connection with loved ones who are behind strange fences of restrictions of who and how they can express their love. Some believe that some restrictions are more atrocious than others. I would ask where it is, exactly, that that line is drawn.
(pause)
And so things go on.
And closure will come in time, and it will also never come.
Yesterday I randomly came across an old photograph from the punk show venue back home that someone had been posted online. It was blurry, and thus it appeared fittingly as a ghost, but, anyone who knew him would recognize that oversized, long sleeved shirt with thin, horizontal stripes, as Eric. It was M, after all, who accompanied me to his funeral. How fitting that Eric would make an appearance after all these years on the night before M's.
(pause)
Be well; be loved. Know that there isn't all the time in the world, so make shit count. I've been lucky and blessed enough to have told the friends in my life who have passed away all of what I've ever wanted to tell them before they passed. That doesn't mean I don't regret things. It just means that if you are afraid to tell someone you love something that you feel for or about them, make sure that you do.
Rest in peace, M. Thank you for letting me love you as best as I could from all sorts of distances with all sorts of gaps. J and I will be off on our trip, tomorrow, to remember and celebrate you in the way we always did with you: Wandering and laughing, with no time sensitive destination in mind other than a general one in the comfort of her car, and each other.
k.
(post-script: One of the last dreams I had included a person I met long ago who was super into Rune stones. After writing this, I looked up the Runes and saw that the symbol I was seeing in my dream appeared as the image of two Runes, alternating. That of hagalaz: hail and as mannaz: man/humankind. It fits, and it's strange how much it reflects much of what I have written, here. Scroll down to Hagalaz: Hail and to Mannaz: Man Humankind if you're curious, or are into that kind of thing.)
photo: part of Toshitaka Aoyagi: Area via Arqsa Tumblr)
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