As we approached Amma's ashram in San Ramon this evening, one of the people in the car noticed the new moon. Someone else said, "it's smiling." For me that was a portent of chuckles--and tears--to come.
It has been a quite insanely difficult year for many reasons. In December of 2008 I was not only mourning the loss of a relationship I had had with a tattoed, university-educated guy from Mexico, but I also had to deal with being forced to move out of a place in San Francisco where I felt very grounded; this place also had as a resident one of the most unique cats I've ever known, Buddy Budders. He still lives there, I think. He was jet black like a seal and just as fat with huge green saucers for eyes. Every time I had a nightmare in which I woke up not knowing who I was, Buddy was there on my bed staring at me saying, "You're back. You're here." I still miss him.
For six months thereafter I was losing my mind, piece by piece, in a living situation in which I had NO privacy. I had heard the song "Ticky Tacky Boxes" but I had never thought I would be living in one. How I survived that one was to rely on my kitten Joaquin, a raccoon-striped Maine Coon, to keep me in the present. His little striped face would scrunch up into a tiny kitten-head ball every morning when we had to wake up at seven so I could go to work.
By June I had, through friends, found a huge sunny room in the upper Haight. Work was done and I was free...I painted the walls the color called "hot kiss" and green and yellow... With no money, I couldn't go anywhere. I can't even remember how I spent my days. By August my cousin called, crying, to say that my aunt had a huge tumor in her lungs...So I went to visit her--a three-hour drive and having to pay for a hotel. My aunt was staring at my Tibetan mala I wore around my neck and when she asked to look at it, I handed it over, literally...she put it on her neck! She died a week or so before Thanksgiving.
In September, on Amma's birthday, my friend Margaret died of cancer. The father I never had, Bro Jud Presmont, died almost a week ago. I could go on and on about how much he meant to me and how much I will miss him. I will write a poem to him instead.
"Nice is nice," was one of yours.
Also: "if it ain't fun it won't get done."
We used to talk about the "Cosmic Opera"
And "Theatre Verite." Of course there
Was Kerista and polyamory and the
University of Utopia and W.A.K.E. ,
The World Academy of Keristan
Education. No one can forget
Your desire to eliminate poverty
And homelessness, with "love
Energy" guiding us "on to the
Next thing," I will miss your
Overriding optimism...a kind of
Sagittarian trait I shared but often
Forgot about, drowning in
Scorpionic desire for liberation.
Sweet angel, Jud, I am happy
You are liberated from this body
"We are trapped in." Now when
I call you up, seeking a confidant,
I will watch the candles burning
Softly with your significance.
