Love and Loss

Quarter of three. I’m back from Laurel Hill. I told Heidi about the cynic. She said I should tell the adjuster about him. She was very tired, barely awake. She works ten hour days and goes to school and does homework. Sleeps only five hours… The autumnal colors are beautiful, changing leaves everywhere. My oak is all red now. Maple is gold. It reminds me of past fall seasons, even the ones when I still played in rock bands. Like when I met Marc and Tim in October 2002. My religious delusions were bad back then. Every day was Halloween. I could never tell where the Christian ideas came from, but my sister was an evangelical almost from birth. It’s maybe genetic, but I couldn’t stand being around Christians. In that year they were everywhere, living the myth, making it real. I didn’t want to be menaced by hellfire. It seemed to be the Baptist way, and they all were white. At least the Lutherans have a diversity of colors… The other Octobers I remember because I was at Laurel Hill this afternoon. It’s almost as if I’d never met Kate when I walk into the agency building. It’s like the old days of Serenity Lane across the street. Looking back, I was a good guy in my thirties. Something steered me wrong before 2004 was over. Later I learned that my boss drank and smoked weed every day. But the toughest thing was grieving for my mother. That wound was still fresh and deep. Took ten years to heal. Whatever happened in the past, I’m glad I won’t die of alcoholism. That’s what killed James Jamerson of Motown fame. I was certain I didn’t want to go that way when I got to that point… And my existence today is a parallel world, as if I’d sloughed my skin, stepped out of my shoes. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be gone like Jamerson. I feel like I’ve left my body, to be a wandering spirit. So much of my life has been this way. I grow attached to people who die and leave me stranded. To love is always to lose, but the loving is for the better…

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