Annotations

I have so many things I want to tell you about: the prank I kept pulling last week, (which I’ll tell you about later), and about spreading the embers of a bonfire before bed while a possum screamed, and the long hug with my dear first nephew home from college, and about apologies and forgiveness, and love songs, and playlists, and a long awaited dream of my father. Times like this, when there are so many things to write about, I really wish I had the pensieve from Harry Potter.  Or some kind of device that could record my voice and jot down what I say.  Oh wait, I have one of those…Take that, wizards!  Who’s the muggle now?! (I’m not sure what just happened there, I apologize–it seems I was mentally teleported to a Wizards vs. Muggles basketball game)

There was a pink phone message slip on my desk at the beginning of the week.  It was from someone who wrote with me back in 2012.  I often meet people in the very darkest times of their lives, and if they’re ready for or in need of what I have to offer, it makes an impact and they stick around for a while, and we have an exchange of ideas.  They become a part of the tapestry of my interior life, and I become a part of theirs–whether they stay in touch or not.  Folks don’t always stay in touch, and I completely get that, but I wonder about people a lot when they’ve gone.  Just before the holiday, on Wednesday evening, I watched the moon rise from my balcony and a few people kept floating to the surface of my consciousness.

Sometimes when that happens, I’m about to hear from them (look, I don’t know how the universe works, but that happens).  And I did hear from two of them, but one person I haven’t heard from, and I keep thinking of him.  I don’t know if he’s going to come here and read this.  I don’t know if he has found laughter where he’s landed (Colorado was where he’d headed last, if I recall) or if he’s still making art.  I am thinking of the enormous pastry he ate each morning, how he poured resin into styrofoam and nearly gave me a heart attack (there’s a noxious chemical reaction that comes of that, btw), I am thinking of how his hands shook except when he had oil paints in front of him.  I am thinking of how long it took for him to open to us, how absolutely worth the wait it was.  Wherever he is, whoever he’s become or becoming, I hope he thinks of his time here sometimes and remembers it wasn’t all bad.  That out of the pain and difficulty came bright spots of deep connection and joy and acceptance.

I’m annotating again.  It’s been glorious and slow.  My dear sweet friend John was staying over and kept poking his head in to remind me that annotating books doesn’t mean rereading them.  I’ve mentioned before, I like to make a note about how I found a book or article, what else I was reading or puzzling through as I read it, and then copy out my favorite passages.  The books came when I needed them–or rather I was open to their messages when I was ready for them.  The same way important people seem to enter our lives.

Someone in a treatment program once said to me, When I retell the story of how I came through this, I’ll change you to a shaman I came across in my travels.  I love that so much. You don’t have to say where or how you met someone.  You don’t have to forget every good thing in order to release the bad.  Tell it however you tell it.  And here’s the connection I’m trying to make, in the form of a writing prompt: annotate some of the people you miss.  Not the big foundation people, the parents, the siblings, the great lost loves.  I mean the friends-by-circumstance, the people you don’t necessarily think of all the time but are pleased to be reminded of.

The unexpected sweet humans you’ve come across maybe while doing hard things.

Here’s a form to fill out:

How did you meet them (you can fictionalize/use a metaphor to hide details here)?

When?  I don’t mean the date here, place it in terms of major life events, or maybe phases of your life (I met him when I had just discovered Pink Floyd and thought I was the first person ever to)

Finish this phrase: He was the kind of guy who…/She was the type of girl who…

(for example, He was the kind of guy who started to laugh before he got to the punchline of his own joke.)

A quote that stuck?  How about a catchphrase of theirs?

What did their most common facial expression look like?

Try some synesthesia in your writing (those of you who were in my groups last week know about this)–mixing the senses.  She had a voice like the color blue.

***Great idea–let’s consider sending these annotations to their subjects.  Celebrate friend love!

Or you know, write whatever the hell you want to write.  Those of you who do write to me regularly, thank you, I really do love to see your name in my inbox.