Monday, August 9, 2010

Adventures in Grieving?

Adventure is probably not the best way to describe my grief, but taking my sister's advice, here I am trying to write a blog entitled, Adventures in Grieving. The title is her suggestion. As you can see this blog is not Adventures in Grieving.


Booted Butterfly is a random-o blog I created on June 21st, 2010. It was really late and I should have been sleeping instead. I was at home in the apartment I shared with my fiancee. We lived in Brooklyn. I don't know how nostalgia works, but on that night I was thinking of Lisa Bernstein. She and I were close friends, and once in her life, I was the object of her desire. She wrote me wonderful love letters. How I loved receiving her love letters! First off, love letters were rare to come by in high school, and hers were especially well-written. She also sang. She was a karaoke queen. Her voice was brilliant, and soulful. Lisa and I maybe shared a kiss or two, but we never fell in love. It wasn't meant to be. Looking back, I think now that it was the depths of her inner pain that gave Lisa's voice its mesmerizing sparkle. That's because for as long as I knew Lisa, she longed. She longed for something incomprehensible- a potent form of love that one only craves when they can't love themselves. This would explain a lot of things about Lisa. Whenever she fell in love, she suffered for it. I always wanted Lisa to find love. More specifically the domesticating kind of love. The one that makes you go to home depot, and buy hammocks. The one that makes you shit with the bathroom door open while your partner cooks breakfast, and talks to you about heirloomtomatoes. I don't know if Lisa ever felt this kind of love. We slowly lost touch. Our connection hanged perilously in the hands of mutual friends neither of us really talked to, and on the aging social networks I hardly ever visited. Then Lisa died. She ended her life. A mutual friend had called.
Fourteen years ago, Lisa had written that I was like, "a butterfly with boots on." Fourteen years later, I see how much sentiments can stick with you. I mourned Lisa topically. She had been so far away from my experiences that while alive she had already become a memory, so her death was sad, but distant from my then current happy circumstances.
For me, heaven had come to earth.
I was in Love!
Head over heels,
blinded by,
beautiful, fantastic love.