Love letters

We built a porch.

Well, Len did. I mostly watched and occasionally held a board straight while he drilled a screw in. But now we have a front porch, and I swear I am spending more time outside now, during this pandemic, than I have in the past few years combined. I’m out there from morning till night. Today a couple of red-headed woodpeckers popped in to say hello before moving along.

Anyway. I was sitting out on the porch tonight, and the neighbors across the street, who were sitting out on their porch, were blasting music, when In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel came on, and I started to time travel.

The specific version of this song live, from the Secret World album, with Paula Cole hitting the rafters and Peter shouting out, “Paula!” and tribal beats and chanting, Jean Claude Naimro on keyboards, is the closest thing to the Universe itself that I have to a religion. I couldn’t tell you why this version of this song gets to me the way it does, except that damn, it’s so… joyful. Like, this is a rare and glorious musical moment and every single person participating absolutely knows it and is having the time of their life.

Anyway, my own fangirling aside, Peter Gabriel in general makes me think of my friends, and my best friend in particular, and then I suddenly started thinking of all the loves we’ve lost, too. And I started to wonder, what is the average here in the USA, what is the normal number of close friends you say a final farewell to by the age of 43?

First there was Danny, her friend. Danny was a sweetheart and a heroin addict. Heroin addicts in NYC did not have great outcomes in the ’90s. (My own heroin addict friends survived this period, although one had an almost-lethal stroke and another OD’d right in front of me at work.) For years afterward, we would both feel Danny’s presence around us any time anything beautiful happened.

Next there was Gil, my friend. Gil was also a sweetheart and not a heroin addict. Gil loved movies more than literally any single person I have ever met — and I went to film school. He was warm-hearted and easygoing and kind. Gil died in his sleep one night from a congenital heart defect. He was 36.

Then there was Laurie. Laurie was complicated, and Laurie lied both to and about me a lot. By the time she passed, we were not friends anymore, because it was too hard to manage her moods. But for a time, she was one of my very best friends. For a time, she was the person I told everything to. She was even the reason, in a roundabout way, that I met one of the greatest loves of my life. I grieved her long before she died — but her death still hit me like a ton of bricks.

Kate, the most difficult — and also forgiving — friend I’ve ever had. Kate was like a hurricane. She was a brilliant dancer and a wonderful human. She drove me absolutely out of my mind. I loved her so much. Kate died alone in her own apartment of dehydration, somehow. I learned after, from her sister, that she had had borderline personality disorder, which suddenly made a lot of things make a lot of sense. Kate died four years ago and I’m not even close to finished with the grieving yet.

Aimee. Coming up on three years now. Another who just died one night when her heart gave out. Aimee and I went to high school together and connected, actually, thanks to Facebook, when we discovered that we were both what I call “memory keepers” — we were both people who remembered everyone, who remembered everything, who could jog everyone else’s memories for them. And once we started talking, it was impossible to believe that we’d been so close without knowing each other for so long; we should have been the closest of friends all along. Aimee loved cats, indie music, and taking pictures of doors. Knowing Aimee, getting to be her friend, was a blessing beyond compare. I loved her. I miss her almost every day.

I kicked off the 2010’s kissing my friend David at our local pub. I adored David. He was so smart, so kind. He gave the warmest, fullest hugs. He apologized, that NYE, for his mustache tickling my face. He died in his sleep too. Heart attack. He was 41.

And then there was Tom, the very biggest love of my very best friend’s life. And the less said about his passing, the better. I wish very much that he could have found help and found reasons to hang on.

Tom was another one who was a fucking force. An Irish boy from Queens, reddish hair and this perfectly attractive round face, deep accent and rich laugh and so many opinions. He hurt my best girl more than words can express but she loved him still regardless; so did I. It was impossible to not love Tommy. He messed up a lot; he also tried so damn hard.

I guess percentage wise I’m probably doing better than average. This is not a lot of people, especially compared to the number of people I know. I am probably fortunate, compared to most.

But every single loss burns like a thousand suns. I know many people, I get close to few. And so many of those few have left. But my god, do I love every moment I had with them.

In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
The resolution of all the fruitless searches
In your eyes