New endings, new beginnings

I have filled this journal.

First entry: September 10, 2005
First sentence: “‘Orpheus, trusting with all the power of his spirit and the divinity of his art, bravely took what he desired from the otherworld of Styx. Thus art, aided by firm purpose, vanquished nature.’ –Thierry of Saint-Trond, 11th century poet”
First recorded event: A visit from Manos at my apartment on 10th Street and 2nd Avenue. He tells me he never understood why people make such a fuss about the definition of art when it’s always been so clear to him: art is the destruction of ego. We talk about life and art as identical, two panes of glass laid on top of one another. He says, then, that there is no need to make art. To live is enough to be an artist. I cannot take it that far, though I have always maintained that there is no such thing as “fiction” or “creative writing,” that we are a living art, that the conventions of writing are the conventions of life itself.

Last entry: June 21, 2007
Last sentence: “It was one of the saddest, most unsettling things I have ever seen.”
Last recorded event: A hired band playing out their contract at an under-attended charity event where all of the guests have already gone. Joyless, obligatory music for an empty room.

And everything in between:

Happiness and platonic love in New York to Graduation to Depression and isolation in New York, friends scattered and preoccupied to A low energy goodbye party where we all feel that it is over

David Cohen, finding comfort and love and cabbage soup, and losing it, and finding it again

Lou Reed’s email address, written by his own hand

Fiona Apple at the Orpheum in Boston (a setlist on the back of my ticket). Later, Fiona Apple unexpectedly onstage with Jon Brion at Largo in L.A. She is a foot away from me. She sings “Tonight You Belong to Me” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” I cry in the audience; she sees me.

Brandy finds a miniature box holding a lock of hair in a vintage purse that she bought in Paris. The hair is white and I think the giver or receiver or both must be dead. It is romantic and I take pictures.

Aaron in San Francisco, Aaron in L.A., Aaron in Miami, Aaron in New York, where it will stay

Cold in the city, I meet Elinor’s boyfriend on 10th street (he is a Republican); I am at a graduation dance party in Bushwick, she calls to say they are engaged; an August wedding; a July baby

My Poppy is dead. We all eat too much at the shiva. I write a eulogy.

Bodies.

I meet a very old man on the pier in Santa Monica. We are both lonely. I draw his portrait. Later, a letter from him and a painting by his long dead wife. Later, an old lonely woman in Washington Square. She tells me I should keep writing.

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Letters from the priest; the explosion of our Paros story; the end

Alice and I go to the Wellness Center at NYU, half-joking, all serious, giggling as we distill our sadness into checkmarks in boxes. I draw an extra box next to loneliness and mark it twice. We both think that is funny.

Charles and I reclaim our friendship. It is effortless this time.

Oscar Wilde

The first warm day of spring; bucket drummers and skin in Washington Square; Marco, Cliff, Howie, Noelle and I bum around the West Village and Soho. We are happy.

Apocalypse. Al Gore tells me that it isn’t going to be quick or sublime, as I had always thought, but slow and violent. I am incapacitated with fear, and the reality of life with no future.

The road trip; we find love and the end of the world everyplace

The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Hottest summer in Bushwick; busted fire hydrants; futile standing fans

Work and death; wrinkled dress pants; rush hour trains; greyness in midtown

The Galapagos and coming home without a mother

Ghosts

His Dark Materials by Philip Pulman

An uncomplicated new years, 2007, on a rooftop in Bushwick with people I love

A Sympathy, A Welcome by John Berryman

Dinner with Zach on 2nd Avenue where we decide that we don’t know anyone who is happy anymore

The seder. We are all together. After everyone has left, an outsider says to Misha and I, “You all seem very close. I can tell you have been friends for a long time,” and Misha and I look at each other and realize it’s true.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Kurt Vonnegut is dead. I cry on Alice’s shoulder. I cry on the Subway and at work the next day. What will we do without him?

Bees are dying. Einstein said we won’t last four years without them. I am afraid again.

Peru.

Music camp in Spartanburg. The music is good and the dancing is easy, but I am alone and I am aware of that, watching people share the feeling I’ve been relegated to contain within myself. I remember the last time I felt this way, the last time I was alone and surrounded by people, the last time the sadness was as deep as the height of the happiness— Spain, Carnivale of 2005.

17 religious pamphlets, collected mostly in New York. A couple from elsewhere: Vancouver and South Carolina

So long, old friend.