And People Die

And the soil it turns and the wind. And the pollen that blows and the dust. And the nestling into seats on the train and the bumping of elbows and excuse me’s and the eye contact on the street. To caterwaul, to spin and live without randoms or unknowns would be criminal but the journey isn’t that, the world, it soaks in mistakes and unpredictable accidents. Help me help you to help myself to help us all.

There are conduits that move us through it all. To be one is a privilege. No one is simply given permission to help, it wasn’t a role assigned to me. I took the initiative and made a move. I am a born helper and a guide and that is my right. To wait and not act is the crime of all crimes, the one thing to regret on a deathbed. It’s not of concern to me, this regret. I will pillar with those of us who pillar. We know our roles and we take our jobs seriously. We are a community of leaders and instructors, good luck to the rest of you. Follow me, follow us, take note of our examples. It’s not charity we are offering but the opportunity to walk with us is free. Come.

Leaders take interest, leaders take note, leaders watch out for others and encourage the rest. Leaders compliment their colleagues, leaders don’t compete, leaders shoulder solidarity, leaders ride bikes with others and dress out of the ordinary. Leaders look out for flags, red flags, racing flags, pride flags, warnings, suggestions, traps, goldmines, treasures. Leaders look to the sky for northern lights, leaders squint to notice what others don’t, the things that aren’t necessarily there.

As she slumbers, I realize we never held hands. Our physical proximity was limited. Some are like that, my mother was one. She would accept a hug or a physical gesture but wasn’t one to initiate and if there was an opportunity to slip out of an embrace, she would take it immediately and too soon. There was an intimidation she lived under in that regard. Some are just born shy in that regard. They maybe didn’t grow up with siblings and if they did their childhoods were laced with goals of progress or learnings, not spirit of emotion or touch or the holding of hands. Are most only-child loners, do they not reach out to hold hands with friends? She did reach out, I reached first, I remember now, as she stepped up on the rock I steadied her and she took my hand gracefully. Like a slow dance on a wet and slippery rock.

The colors she chose in life were bold, we expected as much from her, we’d learned over time that this is what she did. Her mused and leanings, the moves that she made amongst us, they broke barriers. She said things that raised eyebrows, she excited and bristled the faint of heart. I can see how it could be intimidating but being a contemporary, I encouraged her and applauded her as well I could. Not that she needed that, she was independent and focused in her spirit. Shocking pink, fluorescence and a field of pattern, no excuse and no reason ever, the gift of a decision, beheld to us all. She told me she’d moved to Los Angeles at one point and was yelled at for what she was wearing as she rode her bike. She was too flamboyant for Los Angeles and this was in the 80’s.

We’d met on bicycles and then again in her shop where she pushed a pair of sunglasses on me until I bought them. I wasn’t interested but became so, she was so insistent. There is something to be said for a push of opinion that encourages a thing you don’t want. I long for and aim for friends who will eventually change my mind. If my mind is not meant to be changed, if I am truly destined to be set in my ways, what fun is that, what joy exists, what use is the world around me? The sunglasses I lost but that was never the point.

From then on we swam and took note of the tide every day. We’d meet at high tide at that certain rock, first rock, out on the breakwater with the others. Pauline would often go in twice, she couldn’t get enough.

In the aftermath of who she was, I sonnet to Pauline as she sleeps: I am the day as it passes, I am the morning that wakes and also the night, unconscious, unknowing, telling all in sleep. I can be firm and stick to a decision but it is not my goal. I want to be persuaded and changed and swept off my feet. Make me not what you want but what I will become. Switch up my condition and pull the comfort from under my feet, surprise me and let me surprise others. My payment, my gratitude for you being you is to share the change you’ve accosted in me.

Thank you for so much. The sunsets, the talk of light, the temperature of the water. Basic things that need no discussion or clarification. To specify each physical attribute in that special world, our village, our community, it brought us together in such an obvious way. To speak of such elements was bold and efficient, unnecessarily addressing the things that didn’t need addressing, the things that wouldn’t change no matter how much we opined. We were travelers in nature’s realm, blown along, bumbling and accepting, getting old til we die.

Yesterday Joey and I had got out of the movie, it was French and one of the best I’d seen. I said that to myself as I sat in it. The choices made were bold and audacious, odd and uniquely of a perspective that I was not, I’d felt pushed and malleabled to a place I’d not been. For that I was grateful. We went down the escalator onto 65th Street and a text came from Jack. It was just her name. Pauline. We knew and at first I was angry for the way I’d learned but in the end it made perfect sense. The movie made sense, the bicycle ride after, so far down the West Side Highway, too cold for that trip, our hands freezing and our ears. I was the one who hadn’t cried, I was the one afraid to touch, I was the one who needed to be told. Is it denial to sit in the place before a decision is made? Is it bad to prolong what inevitably is going to happen? is it wrong to not know who I am?

The birthday party she’d had last summer spanned three days. There was an extravagant meal on a long long table in our favorite restaurant on the west side. Secrets were shared and we screamed and laughed and switched places throughout the meal. There was a cake that might have been vegan because Pauline was being strict about her diet. There was another cake on another day, the next one, in a room that felt like a rotunda, letting light in from all sides. Just like Provincetown, there were surprises and people there who didn’t belong. In the best possible ways. I spoke with Cookie Mueller’s son’s girlfriend and grappled for the weight in that, accepting the gravity in our geographic gossip zone. We walked across the street after and danced. Pauline was dj’ing, it was where she was comfortable most, shouting out her requests and favorites from the dance floor.

Joey says now that she knew how near the end was. Who has a party of such fever pitch unless they are sure to pass soon? Pauline would have done it either way, whether or not she was going to die. That’s the thing. Unpredictable and not, at the same time, being a familiar amongst a hundred more familiars who take our banter for granted. At the end of the day, the way she dealt with her passing is no one’s business. And it will never matter, what matters is the way she rode her bike, the way she showed up with full hands, the way she wore colors and the way she spirited into our lives. Tears.