Short Story: An Angel Passes By



As I am (slowly) putting my website together and applying for freelance writing jobs I have been going through a lot of my writing and trying to group everything together. I noticed that I hadn't posted this story, which is strange as it quite naturally goes with Autumn's Place and Of Instability and Growing Roots. I wrote them all about the same time and with the same frame of mind.
In any case, everyone needs a Marlena in their lives, just to make everything a little brighter and happier. Not long after I write this one Bat For Lashes released her last album, with the song Laura on it, and it really made me think of my own Marlenas. Cherish those friends forever.

An angel passes by ("un ange passe") is a French expression that always takes me back to moments in the dead of the night during my late teens with the friends I grew up with, that moment when everyone goes quiet, contemplating their own thoughts, and then all go back to their conversations at the same time. That silence that doesn't feel uncomfortable, but warm and fuzzy. These are the people that will always be with you, your own personal angels in your lives. I dedicate this one to those who aren't here anymore.



An Angel Passes By

She stood there in her little babydoll dress, her long, skinny arms wrapped tight around her body, as if she were protecting herself from an invisible force that was about to hit at any moment. Her eyes stared wide into the distance, somewhere away from what we could all see around us and her forehead was creased into a frown of concentration. This is always the image I will have of her in my mind, touchable but unapproachable. Surrounded by a ring of fire keeping her away from the rest of us.

She stood there in her skinny black jeans and black velvet jacket, cigarette smoke encasing her body and a bright smile on her face when she recognized a friendly face approaching her. Nothing fake about her smile – once bestowed upon you, you felt like you were the center of attention for a minute; that no one else existed but you in the world. There are so few people on this earth who have the ability to make you feel this way, that when you meet them you cherish their love for life, long after they have moved on to other places and other people. This is the other image I have of her, happiness and sadness, encased in that body with the beautiful face.

Some people leave and their memories fade over time, until they are remembered only when a photo is found, or a random memory pops into your mind. Other people leave a special legacy behind, one that cannot be erased by time, or alcohol, or drugs or age. All I need to do is close my eyes and conjure up her face and all the emotions I felt every time I was in her presence, even after all these years. Her foot prints can be found all over the world, in the many countries that she traveled to and the many people she met and loved along the way. She was never famous, she never felt exceptional in any way, but she simply made everyone she came into contact feel special for a few moments, and those few moments always lasted forever. Some days I walk through the streets of Manhattan and see a swish of long, blonde hair and a cigarette in a hand and my heart stops for a second. Maybe it is her? Maybe she is still here, walking and talking and dreaming and crying and smiling and just simply present. Maybe I can have one last hug, and this time I will know it will be the last and I will remember it forever. I never knew the last time she hugged me would be the last time I felt her touch and smelt her shampoo and perfume floating around me. If I had known, the last time I told her I loved her I would have looked her in the eyes for more than two seconds and would have made sure she knew that I meant it with all my heart. I hope she knew that before she left.

Marlena was one of those people that you felt had always been in your life, however long you may have known them. She arrived in my life randomly one night, a friend of a friend drinking in a bar that we didn’t often frequent. I didn’t really talk to her that night, she was wrapped up in a conversation with another person who didn’t want to surrender her attention, and then she left abruptly, hugging everyone as she made her way to the exit. A few days later I bumped into her on the street, and she smiled at me and invited me to grab a late lunch with her at her favourite restaurant. She gradually introduced me to all of the people she knew in the neighbourhood and I became part of the family of people working and living there. Marlena always had time for a chat, however tired or overworked she was. She had the ability to make me laugh and smile, even when I knew she was having a rough day. And when she was tired or unhappy, all I wanted to do was make her feel better, a small gesture, a hug, a cup of tea at 3am. Anything to get that look of pure gratitude she would give you on those days. 

There are no perfect human beings. If perfection really existed it would be a flat, boring piece of blank wood. Imperfections create the depth that makes someone human. As much as Marlena was an amazing person, she was definitely not perfect. She kept herself distant from certain things, and locked away parts of herself deep inside so that you could not even see a glimpse of them in her eyes. She would turn away when someone tried to get too close and shut down, wary of giving herself fully to another, wary of being hurt again, and having to deal with pain, again. But she would cry openly and sometimes let you into what her life had been and what she wanted to hide from. What she had finally got over and what she was still going through. She could be as stubborn as a bull and would butt heads with people with her strong opinions. I could not even count the amount of times I had seen her jump up and smash her fist on the bar shouting “but you aren’t listening to me!!!” and stomp off outside for another cigarette, ranting under her breath about idiocy and hypocrisy. But two minutes later she would be back, buying rounds of shots for everyone and laughing at the argument that had taken place moments before. There was never a boring moment in her presence.

Marlena taught me how to find the perfect beaches near the city, wild places where the waves would drag in shells and crabs and city trash, where you could sleep at night if you felt like it and you knew you were safe. She showed me special places in the city where the walls were painted with so much art you could spend hours just looking at them. I taught her where to find the best bagels and where to go to feel like you were in the middle of the countryside right in the city. She would sometimes disappear for a few days and apologise when she reappeared, always saying she needed time away, time to herself, time to finish a song, time to listen to her own voice in her head, away from others that were always crowding it. She would wrap her arms around herself and frown worries away until she could smile lightly again. Some days I would walk into her work and see how tired she was despite her smile and other days she would jump up in happiness and throw herself into my arms, a little ball of energy that couldn’t stop itself from showing all her emotions. She was just a normal girl, but one who created a special place in her heart for everyone.

“I think it’s time for a pint – who’s in?”

“Marlena – it’s only Noon! We have stuff to do today!”

“I said a pint, not 20, and I could really murder a Guinness right now. We can have it with lunch, that way we won’t feel like we are just drinking. And let’s call Robert and Liza and Sandy and the rest so they can join us!”

“OK – and here goes our productive Monday. Let the fun and games begin!”

Never a boring moment. Being friends with Marlena meant being friends with everyone she knew. And being friends with everyone she knew meant that you never really felt alone anymore. Some people you liked less than others, some you felt great connections with while others remained acquaintances, but everyone had something in common: Marlena. She loved to be surrounded by friends and watch them interact and be around each other. She loved to try and match make but hated it when people tried to do it to her. She didn’t get angry often, but when she did you could never see it coming until her rage had broken free. After you saw that you tried hard not to cross her or upset her. No one wanted to be on the other side of that!

When I put her in a cab that night and hugged her, telling her I loved her, she asked me to text her when I got home, which was always the last question she asked all her friends when they left the bar. Twenty minutes later I got her text saying she was home safe and getting into bed. She never made it out of bed alive. Her heart just stopped beating, gave up and sent her off to another place. There was no real medical explanation for this happening at such a young age, so we all ended up deciding that she was needed more somewhere else, and that she had given us everything we needed and everything she had to give. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t devastated… It took me months and months to stop waking up crying and looking at pictures of her. I found it hard to walk down the streets where she used to always be, hard to be in places where I always wondered if she would miraculously walk through the front door. All of her friends banded together and talked about her and stayed friends, but it was always surrounded by sadness. Her presence was always around, but her voice could not be heard anymore.

Even now, years later, we always hold a Marlena party, a night out together where we drink pints, do shots in her honour and get completely drunk and silly. There are people who just won’t go away, even if they are dead and long gone. Marlena is one of those, an angel passing through lives, making them just that little bit better than they were before she arrived. Cherish those Marlenas as they are special people that may not be able to stay long. 

Catch some of their essence before it drifts away elsewhere – it will stay with you for life.

The Adventures of Luna


I always thought that she would outlive us all. Stupidly maybe, seeing as she really was only a cat, and the average lifespan of a domestic indoor cat ranges from 12 to 15 years. But Luna was more than your average cat, and always seemed timeless, living through more than some human beings live through in their lives. She was born in some place that only she knew about, abandoned by her mother and left, obviously the runt of the litter, to die alone. She was found by a friend of mine’s mother, and placed in an incubator. Thirteen years ago I received a phone call from my friend saying he had found a tiny black cat with green eyes, and would I like to meet her… Three hours later I brought my little Luna home to the apartment I shared with my best friend Maud in Grenoble. I had to feed her kitty milk from a little bottle and teach her how to eat. I had to teach her how to find and use her litter tray and during the first few days I had to try to coax her out of the most impossible hiding places (under the stove being one example). On the third night I had nearly given up hope that she would ever come out, and I switched my bedroom light off and went to bed. Four minutes later she crept into my room, snuggled on my arm and from that moment in time it really was unconditional love.

She never really learnt how to meow, but purred louder than most cats, and would even purr in her sleep, as long as she was next to me. As she grew she would become more and more adventurous (walking along the railing of my fifth floor balcony or finding a way on to the roof to chase birds for example).  When I took her to the vet to get all of her vaccinations she decided he was in good need of a scratch and that the hiding spot behind his computer was a better place than his examination table (and she was right, he was an asshole anyway). Whenever I was sad or depressed she would curl up on my lap and stare at me until I smiled. We would dance around my apartment to the Sisters of Mercy and Bauhaus, and she would sit with me and my friends while we got drunk listening to Cure records in my living room. 

Then I decided that I was quite over living in France for a while. My MA had been completed, all of my family was either in California or England, and I needed time away from everything. So I shipped all of my belongings over to my mum’s place in California, got Luna a good travel case and set off for the US. I bawled my eyes out at Charles de Gaulle airport when I had to hand her over at check-in, and didn’t sleep a wink during the 11 hour flight, thinking that she had died in the bottom of the plane. I made a vow that if she ever flew again she would be with me in the cabin. Of course she made it over alive, a little shaken up and a little annoyed at me for abandoning her, but she settled in very well in the house in California. She finally had the chance to explore the great outside, fighting with cats twice her size, at one time challenging a huge black and white snake that appeared in our back yard (at that moment I forgot my own fear of snakes and rushed out to grab her away from what could have been her death). She met up with her old friend and foe, Fury, my sister’s dog, and let herself be chased around the house until they both got bored of it and decided to live together peacefully by mainly ignoring each other. Although there were many times that I found her hiding on the stairs, waiting to catch Fury out with a hiss and a playful paw punch on her way down them.

In June of 2003 I had to leave the US for at least a year or risk being deported and not allowed back into the country. Not knowing where to go I decided to take up my aunt in Israel’s offer, and visit her for at least 3 months, and help her with her kids. I ended up staying there for over a year, and left Luna with my mum, knowing full well that she would be well looked after (although it broke my heart to leave her). She ended up becoming more aloof, going out into the wild for a few days on end, only coming back when she was hungry and in need of a good rest before her next adventure. Once I was back in California she hardly left the house again. By this time she had acquired a new enemy in the house, in the form of another cat called Muffin, an abandoned cat my mum and brother had adopted. While Luna had always held her own against other cats, Muffin proved to be another story. They hated each other from day one, and even when we tried all the tricks to get them to accept each other they didn’t. While Luna had been fine with Ludwig, her old friend in France (apart from the time that she hit him on the head with her paw, after that they were always together, cuddled up on my bed or chasing birds and flies), she never became friends with Muffin. In any case, Fury realised that she now had a more evil enemy in Muffin, and bonded with Luna. 

And then I had to leave once again. With no visa and no ability to work in the US I had to go back to Europe, this time to England, the one country where at the time all pets needed to be quarantined for 6 months on entry. There was no way I was subjecting her to that, so I left her in California once again. In the ten months I was in England I came back to visit once, for two weeks. The day before I arrived she came home for some food, but then disappeared. After two days I put posters up around the neighbourhood and on day three got a call saying that Luna was running around a backyard. I ran out, still in my pyjamas and flip flops and saw the little monster running through the green belt. She stopped when I called her name, and then ran off. I went home, saddened, until my sister called out to me to say that Luna was waiting patiently by the back door. For the rest of my stay she did not leave my side, only to go back to her adventures of neighbourhood cat queen when I left.

A few months later, Luna went away on another adventure, and stayed away so long that she had my mum worried. She finally crawled back home, dragging one of her back legs behind her. The vet ran tests and x-rays and the poor thing had severely torn ligaments in her back leg, with three options: amputation, surgery or a cast for a few months to see if she would heal naturally. While the vet kept pushing for amputation, after consulting with me my mum decided to go with the cast option. A few months later her leg was healed and she was able to jump up and down on things. At that point I finally had a visa to work in the States (albeit New York and not California) and I flew her back with me after spending Christmas with my family. She came to live with me in my tiny one bedroom apartment in Spanish Harlem, killed the mouse that had been living in the couch (the one I couldn’t kill because I hate mouse traps and refused to use poison because I knew Luna was going to be living there). From that moment onwards she never left me again. We moved to an even smaller apartment in the West Village, where she was more than happy to give up her outdoor adventures and stay inside, sleeping on my bed and waiting for me to get home from work or from my own adventures on the Lower East Side. 


A few years later we moved to a much bigger apartment in Bushwick, where she would wait for me to get home from work from her perfect spot on the couch from where she could watch the front door at all times. Her cat friend Ophelia would sometimes come to visit, and many friends would come over to cuddle her and listen to her purr. She loved people more than other animals, although I was always her first choice when it came to cuddling. My roommate once commented that it was as if she wanted to become part of me, never leaving my side and following me wherever I went, even waiting outside of the bathroom door while I showered. She never failed to jump on my bed and sleep next to me every night, even when she was annoyed at me for not coming home or for staying out too late. Her fur went from black to brown with age, but her eyes remained pure green, unless she was in a playful mood and they would turn yellow. She was always tiny, and put a little bit of weight on with age, but never had a weight problem that older, less active cats often experience. She never overate, always eating whenever she was hungry, and spent many a day sitting on the windowsill, watching the world go buy. We would always still dance to music together, and she would sit on my desk while I was writing, watching me put all of the thoughts and images that travelled through my head into words on paper. When my roommate adopted a dog (the lovely pitbull Doyle) they became fast (but secret) friends. I’m sure Luna was the only one to know Doyle’s past, his life before he came to live with us, and she knew that all he wanted was peace, as did she. I sometimes found them nearly curled up together on the couch, and they would touch noses in front of us on occasion. I’m glad she had a friend like Doyle in the last year of her life.

She never seemed to be unhappy, and I don’t think she suffered any illness or pain. One day I woke up and found that she had become an old lady practically overnight, the next day came home from work and she was gone, peacefully in her sleep. However heartbroken I still am, and still will be for a while, for the past 13 years I have had the sweetest, cutest, funniest and smartest little creature in my life, and I also know that I gave her a life that she probably wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t have adopted her. And nothing can take all of those memories away. I know that for a while I will still automatically check to see if her food and water bowls are full before I leave the house (and therefore leave the house with tears in my eyes), and also expect her to be at home waiting for me when I get in. Every morning I reach out for her when I wake up and then realize that she won’t be there or coming back. One day I will search for another cat to live with me, but for the time being I am going to learn to live without the little being who came everywhere with me.
However heartbreaking it is to lose a pet, the amount of love and joy they bring into a household makes it worth it all. 

The adventures of Luna… Two countries, two states, three apartments in NYC, two hurricanes, one near death experience (that I know of), many people friends, cat friends and dog friends. The little French cat who was raised in French, and to whom I spoke French to until she passed away. The little monster who peed on my roommates bed when she was pissed off (yes she wasn’t perfect) or who would leave me lovely fur balls as presents. The baby cat who continued to think I was her mother until her last day. I imagine that she is running around somewhere with Bella and all of the other pets that I have lost in my life, waiting for me to join her at some point in time.


Ramblings: February Reflections

I find that the beginning of each new year is usually a time for reflection on my life, for some changes and also a time to relax a little and think about what I want to accomplish over the rest of the year. 2012 was an interesting year in terms of change and life in general and in a way I want to continue along that route, pinpointing the issues that tend to bother me and get rid of them for good, while at the same time focusing on the things that make me, and others happy. Of course there are moments when I feel like I am doing everything wrong, moments where I feel like I am a failure at everything, as well as moments when I just want to give up and go and live somewhere else away from everything. There are also moments when I feel like everything is worth it, and there is no place better to live than where I live now.

I feel like I am finally miles away from all of the gossip mongers that tend to be in any place that you live. People who spend their lives talking about other people, deforming stories and passing them along, just because they don’t know how to stop and focus on their own lives. I hear snippets of things here and there, random stories that I supposedly told someone else (how I wonder, seeing as I haven’t spoken to said people in well over six months), but I have decided that there was a reason that I moved on from all of that and decided to remove myself from it all, for better or for worse. Nowadays it doesn’t hurt me as much as it used to, because I am surrounded by people who really care about me and my well-being, as much as I care about them and theirs.

Sometimes in life you spend a lot of time with a certain person, and think that they will always be there for you, as much as you have been there for them. This person will be the first person you call to tell good or bad news to, the one who will answer your text at 5am when you are suffering from insomnia and need a friendly ear to listen to you. This is the person who you will pick up every time they fall down, even when you are tired of doing it and wish that it was the other way round for once. But you continue to do it because one day you know that it WILL be the other way round. Or so you think… Sometimes that person decides that they don’t have the time or the energy to help you. However painful that may seem at the time, in the long run it is all for the better. At least you are now aware of the one-sidedness of your relationship, and in the end, you are better off without this person in your life. It gets easier, and honestly your life takes a turn for the better. I feel lighter and happier nowadays. I’m not worried about that other person’s mood swings or anger or happiness anymore.

Hmmm… I don’t really want to finish that last paragraph anymore, as I started it last week and things have changed again. Yet another sign of how life can often surprise you, especially when you think a certain part of your life has gone forever, it pops back up and decides to give it another chance. We will see how things pan out in the long run, but in the meantime I am putting all reflection on hold so that I can see it with an open mind instead of being bogged down with past feelings of hurt and anger and betrayal as well as nostalgia and memories. Maybe that’s a sign of growing up (finally) – the ability to be able to forgive and move on and not to just cut someone out of your life for once and for all. Although I have to say, it doesn’t work with everyone. Some of the people I have cut out are never coming back in, and that is just so much better that way!

I’ve now been living in Bushwick for 5 years and in New York for nearly 8. Our landlords decided to raise our rent $250 this year, and although I feel like the raise is extortionate, it’s still going to be less than what most people are paying in this neighbourhood for the space and the amenities that we have. We were able to negotiate a complete revamp of the apartment (fixed windows, paint, bathroom regrout) and are staying another year here… I don’t want to move, and in any case, how would I ever be able to sign a lease nowadays with my credit as it is? I’m still not paying anywhere near as much as I paid when I lived in that tiny studio in the West Village, and this apartment feels like home. It’s also been incredible to see how the neighbourhood has changed over the past 5 years. Who would have thought that this quiet, not really very safe, area would become full of new buildings and interesting restaurants and bars. I never have to fight with cab drivers to get home anymore, and even more surprising, they actually know where my cross streets are without sighing and getting out a GPS or asking for play by play directions. This apartment feels like a home and looks like one. I couldn’t even imagine having to pack everything up into boxes and moving out now – so I suppose that means that I really have decided that New York is my home. As long as I balance it out with more travel and less time spent wishing I were elsewhere, I really don’t see myself moving to a different city or country anymore. 

Based on what an old (not anymore) friend told me via text message that bartending was cool when you were 20, not so much when you are 34, I should probably think about changing my line of work, but to be honest I’d rather not. In my opinion, living is about being happy and content in what you do, and my jobs make me feel happy. Maybe not the most mature of professions in some people’s eyes - but then again, what is? Are you all of a sudden supposed to remove all of your tattoos, put on a suit, stop having fun and do something boring for a living just because you hit the age of 35? I was pondering on that mean text message I received for a while, until one of my friends deleted it from my phone as there was no point in thinking about it anymore. I’m happy at work, and that’s the most important. Most days I come in with a smile. I am given different types of responsibility, now have some managing shifts at one job, and get to meet lots of interesting people (and many assholes too), and make new friends all of the time. What better job is there for a writer? I have enough material to write about for the rest of my life, and will continue to accumulate said material every day. Lesson learned – don’t read into hateful text messages that only contain a projection of the sender’s own life on your own. As long as you like what you do and you aren’t hurting anybody, there is no reason to feel like you are not living your life “properly”.

There has been so much good music released over the past few months, and I feel excited to see what else is to come this year. The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album is epic (no surprise there), there is to be a new Suede out soon, a new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, a new BRMC album, as well as many new bands that are right up my street. I need to start working on new playlists for the bar as well as for myself. And I need to make an effort to go to more shows again, starting with Knoxville Morning who will be playing at Mercury Lounge this coming Friday. I’m sure they are just as brilliant live as they are recorded. I have a pinboard above my desk where I stick notes of all new album releases, book releases and gallery exhibitions in an attempt to be on top of everything I want to do and see everything I want to do and see, but I’ve been too lazy recently. I feel like it’s time to go back into hermit mode for a while, finish off the pile of books that is growing by my bed, add to my poetry collection, finish off this newest collection of short stories and get some more photography collections together.

It smells like early Spring outside. I’m glad, as this winter has been a tough one again. Not really so much weather-wise, although it has been cold enough. For the second year in a row January and February have been plagued with the death of people close to me and of people close to people I know, and it just makes me really sad. I wanted to finish this piece of on a positive note, but I’m honestly finding it hard to be super joyful and happy at the moment. I think that all I can really say to this is that I need to keep reminding myself to always let people know how much I care about them, and to live life in a way that won’t lead me to regret too much along the way. Focus on accomplishing everything I want to accomplish, and help others feel happy with their lives too – that’s seems to be the most important take away from all this sadness and grief.

Ah Spring… I am really looking forward to feeling your warm sun on my face again!

For Mick

I wrote this piece a few weeks ago, just after the extremely untimely and heartbreaking death of a good friend of many of ours, Mick Baldwin.



For Mick
However much death you may or may not have experienced in your life, you never expect someone to die. You may be scared of losing your parents or grandparents or children or friends, but you never actually expect them to die. If a death happens it always comes as a shock, no matter how old or young the person is. One day a person is standing by your side, laughing at a silly joke you just made, and the next they are gone, lying in a coffin, their soul elsewhere, their physical presence gone from this world.

There I was, sitting on a beach in Montego Bay, Jamaica, enjoying the last full day of my holiday when I received two texts, both saying the same thing… “I’m sorry to send you this on your vacation, but Mick died in a car accident last night.” 

No.

My immediate reaction was an inability to speak or to believe that it had actually happened. How could something so terrible occur while I was sitting in paradise? Why was I not next to my friends when they received the news so that we could all cry together? Why him and not one of the incredible amount of disgusting people who are still alive on this earth? How could someone who brought so many people together be removed from our lives in such a manner?

The past week has been surreal. I was unable and incapable of believing that someone so full of life and love could just disappear like that, one wrong turn and gone, leaving his family and large group of friends to grieve his passing. We had a benefit at the bar on Tuesday and the turnout was amazing – the place was crowded from 7pm until after closing, laughter and tears and music that Mick would have loved. A lot of drinking, many, many hugs, stories that made us laugh and cry at the same time, and a very generous amount of donations to help pay for funeral home costs in the US and travel back home to be buried in England. 

No. It still can’t be true.

I kept thinking he was going to pop into the bar on his bike and laugh at us all, and then join in the party. But then again, I think I wasn’t the only one who was thinking that. How could we have a party for him and him not be present for it? I’m sure he was there… Just not in the physical form.
There were so many times when Mick and I worked together that I wanted to shout at him. He never cleaned the bar properly or brought up ice and always forgot his phone after his shifts. The amount of times that me, or one of our other friends helped him close the bar after a shift was infuriating, but at the same time became a running joke between us. I could never stay irritated at him for more than five minutes because you just couldn’t. You just couldn’t stay angry at Mick – he would flash his cheeky grin, say something funny or silly and have you in fits of laughter. Ironically, he finished his last shift at the bar before leaving for his new job, and made a point of filling the ice for me so that I didn’t have to do it. And that one time made me forget the many, many other times he had forgotten to do it. 

When Mick moved upstate to his new job and home I didn’t remain as much in contact with him, which saddens me now. I missed our conversations about music and now always will. I’ll always imagine him making everyone in his new life happy and him continuing to make new friends and bringing them together with his old friends. That’s just what he did. 

There was a wake and memorial for Mick at the Bleecker Funeral Home on Thursday. Jamie and I went together, for mutual support and I am very glad we did. I wasn’t aware that it would be an open casket wake, something that I already have trouble dealing with, and am glad that one of our friends warned us before we went in. We sat in the seats by the casket, and watched the slide show of images that was showing on the screen. Carl did an amazing job with the play list as it was a perfect mix of songs that Mick loved and that also worked well with the setting and the occasion.

Yes. It finally appeared to be real.

The body in the casket was Mick, but not Mick at the same time. It was a copy of his physical form, without the life and party and happiness that embodied him. My legs wanted to get up and bolt out of the room and the place and run away somewhere where I could cry away from everyone, but my mind forced them to stay, and listen to the memorial and the wonderful and heartbreaking speeches given by his sister, family and close friends. Jo, Paul, Kenny and Carl were amazing in their words – they nailed Mick’s personality and love of life in the exact way that we all see and saw him. In the end it was hard to break myself away from the seat I was sitting on as there were tears and sadness, but ultimately a sense of peace in the room. 

I walked over to work with Jamie and Checho, feeling so sad and angry. However real it finally was, I still didn’t really want to believe it. Friends are not supposed to die – they are meant to grow old with you, so that you can all walk down the street with walking sticks together and drink Guinness in the pub whilst chatting about the good old days when Mick danced on the pole on the bar or when Jamie beat Paul at darts or when we were all out dancing until 8am. 

RIP Mick – you died too young but will be remembered forever in our lives.


 

Of emotional rollercoasters

Anything I write today will just be too sad or too angry or too thankful. This week has been an emotional roller coaster and I am not prepared to write about it in public just yet and I just really can't get the words out properly anyway. I am thankful for the friends who gave me hugs and listened to me, and to those who were just there. I want to kick those who "zoned out" when I needed them the most, you know who you are, and also who you aren't to me anymore.

I listen to this song every day. It never fails me with it's beauty.

Those deaths we celebrate – food for thought

While reading the below remember that I am not pretending to have the answers to any questions. All I want is for people to start questioning things more than blindly accepting them.

So, when are we allowed to celebrate a death? When are we allowed to be happy about the death of someone we actually have never met? What allows us to rejoice, watch gruesome videos online, when normally we would weep, or, most often, not care. Why does the death of certain people touch the world, when ongoing death and starvation in third world countries takes a back seat.

In the beginning of May this year, US Special Ops stormed into a house in Pakistan and shot Osama Bin Laden dead, and many of us around the world rejoiced. There was no doubt that this person was one of the main masterminds of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, and the head of one of the biggest terrorist organizations in the world. The world is now a better place, no? Would it have been possible to have caught him alive, and tried him in front of a judge and jury? There was no doubt he was guilty. He was Number 1 on the “Most Wanted” list. Dead or alive… He probably would not have even wanted to be taken alive. I’m not even going to try to go into his mind, or that of the guys who went in there and killed him. He was taken out, pure and simple. A small act of violence to venge the death of thousands. A celebration around the world that the head of a despicable organization was chopped off, but as we all know, if you remove one, there are many more ready to pop up and do the dirty. We just got rid of the face of 9/11. Some may say that it took long enough, but “we” finally did it. I do think the whole death at sea part was a little strange, but who am I to question this? Then again, for all we know, the guy could have been captured alive, stuck in some bunker in some far off country, while people try to make him talk by any means possible (which I honestly doubt he will do, he probably has the willpower that Jean Moulin did when he faced Klaus Barbie). Or his body could really be at the bottom of the ocean, bones picked dry by fish and other hungry sea predators. Not that we will ever know, right?

This week Muammar Gaddafi was killed. We all knew this was going to happen at some point, he said he was going to fight until the bitter end, and again, I don’t think he really would have wanted to be taken alive either. First of all I doubt the “rebels” were going to treat him with kid gloves, and second of all, I doubt any of his former allies (hello US, Italy…) would really have wanted him alive. It could have been a little embarrassing, you know, going through some of the secret actions that had been kept secret for so long. Every country has its secrets, some just remain buried forever.

I’m happy for the Libyan people. They were ruled for 42 years by a cruel dictatorship and are now going to have to learn how to live as a free country. I’m happy that they are now going to have the chance to actually choose their own government. I don’t envy them however, because they are now going to have to fight off plies from their “allies” who all want a piece of the Libyan oil pie. In any case, we know Gaddafi was captured. We’ve all seen the videos, and he had such a memorable face that it would have been difficult to mistake him for someone else. The autopsy revealed today that he died of a bullet to the head. Where that bullet came from, no one will ever know, all we know is that he is dead and gone. So we celebrate his death all over the world, and hope for a better future, for the Libyans at least.

So, back to my original question: when can we celebrate a death? What makes it allright to rejoice over the death of someone we never even knew, instead of crying about it? Yes, the fundamental bases are there: we rejoice over the death of someone who caused harm, death, pain and grief. I myself am happy that Bin Laden and Gaddafi are dead (at least I hope they are), but I just wish people would question themselves about everything before blindly believing everything they are told. Instead of just rejoicing over the death of a dictator by posting about it in your Facebook status, why don’t you read about what kind of atrocities he committed to merit such a death? Why not take a few minutes to go back 42 years and read about how he came into power, about how certain countries courted him and then turned their backs on him, the love/hate relationship he had with certain secret services, how his name was attached to the Lockerbie bombing, and how he treated his people during his time in power. Yes, it’s totally OK to rejoice in the deaths of despicable human beings (as long as we know they are really guilty), but at least know why you are rejoicing before you do.

If you don’t bother to question anything you are just accepting the world we live in. And I can’t rejoice in that.

(On a lighter note, I think someone should count how many different spellings of Gaddafi there are and decide which one is the correct one).

4am Reflections

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn’t get back to sleep. These are the moments that I wish I still smoked… Sitting by the window, cigarette in one hand, notepad and pen in the other, savouring that time of the night where everything is quiet and peaceful, and writing lyrics or poems for a few minutes before going back to sleep again. So instead of smoking I tossed and turned in my bed, realizing that it was not all peaceful out there, that there had always been a fine line of 4am happiness and 4am despair, and that if you were in the outside world at that time of night then not all was really well… 4am reflection can be amazingly insightful, it’s just a pity I didn’t have a pen and paper right next to me to jot down all the thoughts that whizzed through my head.

Some of us go through adolescence a little more traumatized than others, often with some type of tragedy that happened early on in our lives that we can’t get rid of. Somebody close abandoned us, be it by unexpected and/or violent death, or just because they disappeared. You are searching for the answers to everything and no one can give them to you. Adults still seem to be the people who are supposed to be perfect, and you feel like a failure because you will never reach that perfection, or what appears to be perfection. So you stumble on, start finding yourself, make music, write, paint, create. Go to college, drop out of college, go back to college, work in different jobs and experiment with drugs and alcohol, still trying to find out the hows and whys of everything.

Then you hit your 20’s and start realizing that you are an adult too, and that you still don’t have the answers to anything. And your childhood trauma starts to become a weight you carry on your shoulders everywhere, a badge that gives you the right of way to fuck up whatever you can, because, in the end, you are the one who is messed up, and you are the one who has the right to hurt yourself if you want to. Hey, something traumatic happened to me when I was a kid, and I want to forget it, so I have every right in the world to obliterate myself with a bottle of Stoli and whatever else wants to come my way. Because, you know, in the end, it all hurts too much, this real life where people die and never come back, and where you have to carry this with me day in and day out. And you continue to function. You have a close group of friends who are all about as traumatized and messed up as you, and you all help each other out in all of the different ways you can. You go to work, you party, you sleep an hour or so, and you go back to work, forgetting that you had once had all of these ideas and plans on what you wanted to do in life.

And then comes the day that you realize that none of this really means anything anymore. One moment you are dancing on a bar, thinking you are having the time of your life, and the next you are crying into your drink wondering how that profound feeling of sadness crept over you while you had your back turned, the one you had been running so hard away from to avoid. It’s just time to let go… Nothing is ever going to fix the things that happened to you growing up, and maybe they will never really heal, but nothing is going to change them. Hiding from your own thoughts, while nurturing this badge of trauma is just not a viable option anymore. All I can say is tell those you love how much you love them, and start living your life the way you had always dreamed you would live it. It just makes so much more sense than settling for unhappiness and hurt for the rest of your life.

I wrote song lyrics about this once, a few years ago, not long after I stopped drinking. I named it “Ludlow St”. When I read it now it very accurately describes all of the above, in a song form. Maybe one day someone can put music to it and sing it. If I ever let anyone read it that is.

Me and Joy Division

And why it hurts me every time I listen to them.

I used to listen to Joy Division. I sometimes listen to Joy Division now. I usually find it hard to get through one song before I have to switch to something else. I love Joy Division, they will always be up there in my top 10 bands. Always.

Reverse back a few years, I wasn't in a very good place and would listen to Warsaw and Unknown Pleasures over and over again. I would dance drunk to "She's Lost Control" thinking how perfect the song was for me, that it was probably written for me and people like me. Just read the lyrics, you will understand.

Reverse back a lot longer, Ian Curtis killed himself. He was depressed, he couldn't deal with life, fine - terribly sad, but I was too young to actually have any real feelings about this. But Joy Division was one of my father's favourite bands, he adored them. I suppose they were perfect for him as they were for him, based on whatever he was going through at the time, just in the same way that I adored them a few years ago.

Move forward a few years to another death, mimicking Ian Curtis'. Someone who had adored him. And this wasn't just terribly sad, it was devastating, and it's only now, 23 years later, that I actually feel I can accept it, and maybe move past it.

That's why I choke up when I watch Joy Division footage, why I have trouble listening to them sober (and as I don't drink anymore that means at any given time), and that's why I can't revere Ian Curtis like so many people do. He was so talented, but in such a dark spot. In a way it just makes me feel so proud that I got away from that same dark place. I just wish that the other person had too.

I watched Control once and left the screening a wreck. I will never be able to watch it again. It's amazing how one band can be so devastatingly good, but leave such a trail of devastation in their wake.






Helping at home VS Helping abroad

Something else that has been bothering me over the past few days... For any of you who read my blog and/or my Twitter feed know that I am very much aware of what is going on in this world, always strive to learn and understand more, and am pretty focused on what is happening in different African countries and want to help create a better life for people who literally have nothing right now, and whose children have nothing. There is a severe need for not only reactive response (emergency aid for war and famine victims), but also proactive response (education, political stability, safety etc etc). I'm not saying that throwing money to all different types of organisations is the answer, but there are many actions one can take to help, that don't actually cost money (or very little at all). I've posted a lot of links below.

I usually ask people the question "so what are YOU doing", and hope that this will raise some type of awareness. The other day I asked someone this same question and was given the response of "well if it's not happening right in front of me then it doesn't really exist". Cue frothing at the mouth with anger on my part (deep breaths before continuing), as this is a standard response that makes me want to bop people on the head. Then said individual went on to say that he is a strong believer in helping out at home before looking to help other countries. To which I gave my standard response of "well there aren't millions of people dying of starvation in this country though are there?!".

And then I started to think. Is he right? Should I spend more time looking at what is happening around me? Am I trying to help people who are beyond help when I could be helping people next door? Are there REALLY thousands of people dying of starvation in this country?

So let's do the research and a little comparison. Nothing really beats hard facts when faced with them:

Hunger:
MOWAAF survey in 2007: 750,000 seniors suffering from hunger ( I couldn't seem to find stats for non-seniors in the limited search that I just did on the internet)
WFP Stats: There are more hungry people in the world than the combined populations of the US, Canada and the European Union.

Child mortality:
US, 2006: 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births
World Bank, 2009: 128.2 deaths per 1,000 live births

(Please don't hate me for my less than deep research - I would do a better job if I gave myself more time, but I think these stats just show what we all know anyway).

So, I'm still confused. Or maybe confused isn't the word... Thinking too much into this? Should I do something at home too? Work in a soup kitchen? Tutor young kids for free? I think that can never be a bad idea, right? In the end, the only reason that I keep thinking about this is that I now feel that I am not doing enough. But at least I am doing something.

UNHCR
Women for Women
Plan USA
UNICEF
War Child Canada
NYCCAH
MNP