My Strange Life
9/14/2006
On a cool September evening, my friend L joined me for a cup o' Joe on Brookside. It was a pleasant experience. We chatted for roughly two hours and I discovered something about our mutual history that has riddled me with strangeness ever since.
Way back in 1994 or 1995, I spent an adventurous several days at a friend's apartment while he journeyed out of town for a family visit. I was in the middle of a transition from living at my parent's house to finding a roommate. The first night I went dancing, and I took "M" 'home' with me after the club was closed.
"M" wasn't exactly the kind of girl to 'meet the parents,' but she was pretty, slender, and pale as a sheet. We made love numerous times over the course of the week and spent every waking and sleeping moment together. I was developing a little 'heart tug' of sorts and was eager to see what would develop, but some of her addictions and personality traits were to rend that mystery as she eventually moved on. She was homeless at the time, as was I. I suspect that I wasnt 'bad boy' enough for her.
I wondered for a long time why she never came round again. Last night I discovered that the person I was drinking coffee with on Brookside was perhaps "M's" best friend in the world, and that "M" was killed many years ago when a car accidentally ran over her in a parking lot.
The uncomfortable part of this story has yet to be revealed. See, this is the second occurrence of such a thing in my life. About six months ago I discovered that one of my early girlfriends was found dead in a public park several years ago. They suspected suicide.
I didn't exactly have an emotional bond with either of these people, but the time I spent with them is a part of my history, and to know that someone I touched and kissed and made love to is no longer on this plane of existence is very strange and troubling.
I've been humbled by death before. I worked at a nursing home and also have experienced the deaths of family members. In death, a person is beyond the critical eye; they are beyond the need for redemption, earthly concerns, and they can never be touched or held or communicated with; They are absorbed into nature and perhaps their spirit continues in some way.
Ultimately, people leave nothing behind but impressions, and we hold them in our memories. Our experience is a drop of sand in a bucket. I have rediscovered that when anyone shares their time and energy to be even a small part of your history, it is a rare and precious thing. No two encounters are the same. People change and move on. And beyond death, there is some form of possibility, and a mystery that nobody has a lease on.
posted by Edward Svengali @ Thursday, September 14, 2006,
1 Comments:
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At 7:21 PM,
Monk-in-Training said...
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Very powerful post. In my tradition we call it the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinosum , the mystery that both fascinates and is awe inspiring.
Not an easy thing to reconcile with our throwaway society, I think you are a very spiritually connected man.
