oh, sister

witness to Purity.

it was Purity.  the energy of a drunk who insists on dipping her glass into street puddles for their oily rainbows. She picked up cats from the dotted yellow line in darkness and traffic to protect them from a pounding death. poured tears onto their limp and hissing bodies until they started to forget the debt owed to them.  I'm not making this up.  but its only believable as much as you believe your ancestors were ever children and you can see them and imagine what they felt exactly. 

ha.

THe other day my friend told me that she had a dream and in the dream Alicia was laughing. The laugh was so clear, so distinct, that it woke her up. Its something I've thought of many times since Alicia died...her laugh. Though people often mistook our voices over the phone or noted their similarity, no one ever told me we had the same laugh. I loved Alicia's laugh. It was a slow rumbling under a sly grin. So she was sad but it didn't stop her from laughing. Her sense of humor was pretty incredible- it could shred you (though usually more self-deprecating) yet it was kind. The rare sort that comes from intelligence that shakes off its vanity.

spring

"The wonder of the world,

the beauty, and the power,

the shapes of things,

their colors, lights and shades,

these I saw.

Look ye also, while life lasts."

-Anonymous, from an English gravestone

Saturday, May 9th, 2009- 9 months and yet another Full Moon. The predictability of spring can't kill its wonder.

We dedicated a trail in her name at the Michigan Nature Association's Timberland Swamp sanctuary in northern Oakland County. 

In the evening, I went to see Leonard Cohen at the Fox Theatre. A little late, we walked in just as he started singing "Oh, like a bird on the wire, Like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free..."

The whole night was like a collective prayer as he knelt upon the stage and sang to us.