A Basketball Game

Years ago, before I got the call that my younger brother took his life, I had a dream. I was so fresh into my relationship, the bed was still on the opposite side of the wall. This was before I cared about what my new home looked like. This was me beginning a loving affection for my new fiance. In real life I slept with him on his NASA bed. In dreams, I had a nightmare that a hot Asian woman moved in as a roommate and seduced my new fiance. I woke up shaking. This was so long ago, I doubt my (then) fiance remembered me nervously reciting my dream.

"A woman came in here and stole EVERYTHING. Your heart. My new life. Everything that was perfect was gone." At this time I knew crystal clear that I loved my life. Loved everything about my quirky and handsome fiance who stayed with me through a long isolation period in Nebraska. Who remembered spinets of me when I was only 26. A gentlemen who I loved against my will. The plan was to move my sister and brother in his three bedroom home. Have an affair on the side. But I fell hard for him after only a few weeks in his company. I had everything I've always wanted. I was happy.

Last night I had the first dream of it's kind in 22 years. My mother asked me if I loved her. When I said, "I think about you all the time," She asked again, harder and more stern: "But do you love me all the time?"

I never knew how good I had it. This is not a tabloid. I have no intention of writing down the soppy details of a death. But I'll tell you how happy I was before I got that call.

My fiance and I never fought. I blared Air Supply jokingly. There were many family photos of us and our spruced up home. I digged his vast knowledge of music. His snobbish food choices. His ambition. Then a phone call shattered my reality.

The bridge between happiness and such extreme grief is a long way to hell in a milla-second.

From there I knew I lost. I could no longer insult mean people. Because it only took one mention of my brother's departure to destroy me. I was so fragile. I am so fragile. It never ends. I watch these Datelines or 48hours about death on YouTube and they never focus on the loss. But it's the same universally. Those 48hours on YouTube have ONE SENTENCE on loss. Because people don't want to break their stride and focus on their lottery ticket to eternal sleep. Death of a loved one reminds us of our own death.

When my brother died I went drunk off of Vodka to the emergency room. They turned me away for being drunk. A woman named Raven saw me the next day at the E.R. She said, "It's a struggle that never goes away." And if I could take that pain from my family I'd die a happy person. It's sick to see others grieve. Unspeakable.

I went out to get the Vodka. I went out to the E.R. I went to the doctor yelling of killing a random politician though my words meant nothing. I knew this was the end of me. No, I will not go into details. But I can not longer drink Whiskey because it will kill me. I nearly died from anaphylactic shock from the corn in Whiskey. I drank for so long that my body rejected certain alcohol.

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One morning I woke up crying uncontrollably and my finance said, "Whoa, this is a nightmare." He meant what he had to go through. All my happiness was turned into nightly sweats and day terrors.

A week of walking on the beach, talking to people, crying in shock- you never lose that shock, and soon it becomes terrifying to lose the idea of not caring. My fiance took me to his classes. One day I saw my first roommate, who knew my brother. Three days after getting the news. I saw her at a computer lab. I whispered in her ear, "Ambrose committed suicide three days ago." She mumbled something like, "Well that's what happens..." Then she started talking about sex and still owning my sister's bras. I felt sick. Physically sick. So I went back to my fiance's class.

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After a little more then a week I went out to watch my fiance play basketball. I was watching his adorably dorky friend repeatedly say, "Hey, I keep forgetting that you're on my team." I started to laugh. It felt awesome! I could feel the wind on my face. The air.

I don't remember the ocean wind on my face. I don't remember sleeping that night. Or who called to say they were sorry.
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Ambrose died on Leap Year. That year, I jumped off a massive rock into the green Trinity river. I figured, if I could take my own life, I can take this risk. I have two people to live for now. More then two people. I learned how fragile life is again. I'll never forget so I don't have to be reminded though shock.

Belgian Symbolist: Fernand Khnopff

Gustave Moreau: Oedipus 
and the Sphinx, 1864

Hands down, my favorite artist is not Fernand Khnopff. It's Yves Klein. And I've wrote more then one blog about that martial artist, French, highly spiritual genius who died of a heart attack in his early 30's.
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At twenty, I was assigning the beauty I did not know that I possessed in myself to other people; I treated the "idea" of them as if knowing their secrets rested my entire salvation.

During this phase I did great things- always alone. I would take the Redding train at 3 a.m. only to visit the MOMA in San Francisco. The third floor was my favorite. There was a ritual around the trip. Dress well. Drink one cup of black coffee. Limber my thoughts and....off she goes!

There was the eye candy of the Germans. My favorite art visually is watercolor with black pen on grainy paper. Dreamy. Then there are concept pieces. And the best can mix both or stay polarized. Fernand Khnopff, a Belgian Symbolic painter, did both.

Khnopff created angelic, golden paintings. His specialty is piercing eyes. Visually he is on cloud 9. But what I loved the most was reading about his life. He loved his sister in a very strong and righteous way. Most of his paintings are on his sister.

During this time period of me in my 20's, I innocently stalked a man who was, by all means, more beautiful a soul then me. He launched balloons with hand written letters inside them asking, "Are you the one for me to love?" I mention him because he had a tattoo of his only sibling- his sister. I thought he was so wired in life. All my life, I've only been an observer. Not because I don't want to get out in the World (sacred words get capitalized) and LIVE, but because I am so cripplingly insecure. Now that I am starting to adjust to my looks, I'm damn near old enough to run for President of the U.S.of A. I spent my 20's not understanding the concept of power in youth and beauty.