This post is for no one.
Leslie died on Sunday, July 6th at 9 pm. Tim and I sat and watched her take her last breaths. It was terrible and painful and I can't say much about it because everyone knows all about death and there's nothing much to say.
I can't reach into my chest and pull out the pain and show it to you. If I could, what would it accomplish? I can try to tell you stories about my life with Leslie, but the whole time I'm talking I sense that you are inching away from me. I can almost feel you not getting it. The stories are nothing. They are like ash after a fire, they convey not one particle of what was. They are a dirty residue without warmth, glow, surprise or delight. Like ash they can be caustic.
It was Saturday July 12th and we went to the studio for clean up day. As has been common lately I was hours behind Tim, but determined to contribute. I was overwhelmed at the griminess of the studio. The dust and debris that builds up everywhere if not constantly beaten back. Kim suggested I work on an old fridge. She had emptied it and what remained was a coating of brown sludge, thick in some places, and moldy filth caked into every dimple and crevice.
For an hour or two I cleaned the fridge and thought about Leslie. I thought about the many fridges she cleaned in her life. She moved a lot - so that's a lot of clean outs. She was a kitchen manager and professional cook for decades. What is the point of cleaning this fridge? Who will use it? Will the cleaning of it improve someone's life? Will our landlord be able to sell it and make a little money? Will the person who buys it appreciate that someone scraped a rag through every fold of the door seal? Does this make the world better or is this how life means nothing?
Where is everything that Leslie did in her life? How can our whole lives boil down to this powdery, dirty ash? I can't take you to a party in the late 70s where we were all wearing Leslie's glitter body cream and she had cooked an amazing array of treats and cocktails and everyone was laughing and fighting and trying to get high. Sharon showed up with her squeeze box and sang and played and everyone got into the pool which had a thin coating of glitter on the surface of the water so it spread to everyone like party herpes.
I can't take you to the picnics, the movies, the dinners. My life doesn't have a tenth of the shimmer of that great and uproarious fire. I am lost without it and empty. I am totally empty. I want the stories of my life with Leslie and Dad to fill me with wonder and glitter and music. But they don't. I can't recreate that beauty. I've lost the knack of great parties where everyone ends up in the pool at midnight singing and drunk and thinking about who they'd like to make out with. And what of those parties? Why do they loom so large? Is the best of those days just having fun? When everyone posts their photos of Leslie they are always of these crazy events and adventures. What of accomplishments? What of success? When I think of Dad I am not concerned with what he made or bought or accomplished, but with him; that man himself.
My dad let me look as closely at him as any human ever has. He let me look at the inside bits. He brought them out for me to see where they were damaged and how he'd tried to repair them. He tried to be patient with all my inside bits and never made that examination feel pointless or self-indulgent. Leslie made the simplest get-togethers feel like wild delights. She made you feel like her best friend, more interesting than the rabble we were always forced to serve at restaurants or work for at stupid jobs. Instead we were the stars, the muses, the artists who actually made the world an interesting place. We were the brightest shooting stars who created the glow of life with our laughter and conversation and joyful abandon. Without her it's all just ashes.
