April 6th

April 6th is an important date for me. It marks the four year anniversary of my grandmother's death and the one year anniversary of my mom's overdose, which I am sure some of you remember. Here are some links to older blog entries that can give you an idea of what I was going through at the time:

http://www.davkadeergirl.com/2008/04/i-cant-write.html
http://www.davkadeergirl.com/2008/04/even-if-you-dont-believe-in-it.html
http://www.davkadeergirl.com/2008/04/its-3-am-and-i-cant-sleep.html
http://www.davkadeergirl.com/2008/04/update_23.html
http://www.davkadeergirl.com/2008/04/kim-phuck-running.html

This day last year started a very intense cycle of running, hiding, loving in darkness, clinging, crying, going crazy, finding friends that were so amazing in kindness and love I was knocked off my horse on my own road to Damascus (that's a biblical reference for a metaphor of just being so amazed its indescribable.) I also found out a lot about how shitty some friends can be when challenged with any kind of being there for someone else. I also found out that in pain and fear, we can cling to people who are really not worth any attention because we are so afraid to let go of anything that remotely resembles stability and here-ness when our minds are slipping. All in all, I made a lot of mistakes out of fear and pain, but I am proud to say I still moved forward and kept my spirit in tact despite all of this trauma and experienced so much love and beauty that I am forever changed for the better, only temporarily out of service in self-esteem and hope.

I can't even tell you all the crazy, traumatic events that happened during this year. I will soon begin to tell you about the terribly unhealthy relationship I held on to and suffered through with a very rich, selfish heroin addict. While telling you that story I will tell you the micro-story of fiercly loving this handsome, crazy sad boy through his sickness and how I also crippled him with my own sickness and how I may never figure it all out. I will tell you about the intense community I was so lucky to be apart of in Rick's recovery. The ecstacy of being there for a friend and knowing that this being there, although it was at times terrifying, was the purest love on the planet and just in helping him fall asleep by singing to him and rubbing his neck and arms, I experienced a texture of feeling so rich it was like going lucid in a dream and flying where-ever I wanted to. I will also tell you about how hard (what word is big enough?) it was to watch an able-bodied, beautifully perfect best-friend get shattered and broken to the point of being declared living-dead ("persistant vegitative state" ) and then seeing his eyes open and his tongue come out on command, that tongue coming out on command shocking the doctors and making everyone cheer and cry and it was like the first word ever spoken by a human being. Sitting by his side on Christmas night and he is writhing and grimacing every minute in some pain the doctors can't figure out and you are holding his hand, holding back tears, hoping your lover isn't dead in a mansion so lonely, even his mother won't come to visit him, and you fall asleep into dreams of your friend's beautiful body restored and you are making out with him in a hospital full of sick people, but his hands open and his mouth speaks and you are so happy you just kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss until you see that half of him is missing, he is a shallow bust, like a doll, where is his back- you feel for it and it's gone and you wake up to another day of just getting through it because you are not yours and you have no choice (a line sang by regina spektor on the radio that keeps you going.)

Oh, I have so much to tell you, so much to think about. I am so excited to be alive and love is so real- it was given to me by others. Rick's beautiful lifelong friend Kate using the sucking straw to clean mucus out of Rick's mouth while the sun was shining through the hospital window on her lovely skin shining from inner beauty and compassion and I was so tense with worry I was ready to have a psyhotic break (not kidding) and then suddenly she was sucking at his lips with it and making cute little noises and Rick smiled so big and she laughed so beautifully and the Grace mystics and visionaries have been seeking for milleniums hit me like....... like..... (what word is big enough?) like my first experience of the ocean, like my grandmother's hands, like listening to my mom's belly growl when I was little, like my addict lover's humor and care when he was happy, like my twin sisters singing, like my father's garden, like my first orgasm, like my life... my life...

I want to give it all to you, the love, the pain, the "crazy bitch" I am because I feel so much I can hardly contain it sometimes.

April 6th. My grandmother is with me always. My mother is alive and happy. Rick is recovering and can talk now and make me laugh and can sit with me and watch tv and whistle songs to me to cheer me up. My heart is broken from losing friends (I will tell you about that too) but I have enough amazing friends to pull me through-

making tea in my kitchen and my girlfriend brings over a cd to take to Rick, his favorite song by Townes Van Zandt "White Freight Liner Blues," comes on and Davey and I start singing it, whistling and remembering Rick's hobo wanderings and sweet anarchic, wild love- I drop my teacup and start crying, crumbling until Davey sweeps in and lifts me up and starts two-stepping with me across the kitchen, my face buried in his neck, my snot on his shoulder and we kiss and cry together and have hope together, together. Togetherness is all we have, all that matters. Remember that. Live that. You better live that.