fucking i have left so many things behind

two things about lately, one i can't get enough blue.  started with grecian blue, which is middle blue, a little bit ruddy, tiny bit yellow but mostly blue.  then a blue like in sayulita, like jolie says mexican blue, and that's more sunstained and weathered.  so now i'm even up for electric blue.  so susceptible, i want all blue now. i want every blue now. i want only blue.
second thing about lately, i can't sleep always.  i keep waking up at the too-early hours, and there is no more sleep.  it's not painful, like insomnia exactly, it's more like just -ful.  whatever-ful.  there are so many things about lately, way more than two.
but both lead me here, which is awake and thinking about the last time i saw dave.  i was wearing a blue blouse, and if i could remember who got it when i moved away i might ask for it back.  it was the first kind of blue.  and i'd attached a blood red velvet rose to it, because it was for a show.  and the show was a special one anyway, not for it being the last place i saw dave alive, but for itself.  it was cafe du nord, and i felt poised.  and happy.  both before playing and during.  the three of us onstage--bianca, lily and me--we all coordinated wearing pieces of blue.

in the microscopic microcosm of my family one person means a lot, there's very little personage.  some unkindly drifting took the older generations far apart, so as not to encourage the younger ones to have children, both sides of my family.  and while everyone dies, those who are kin seem to die ahead of schedule and on purpose.  dave was really tall, had a scathing scandalous hilarious sense of humor, and was the limit of my family in california. 
that night at du nord, i saw dave came down the stairs into the redness of the dark club, i remember feeling possessed as soon as i saw him by this hungry comforted feeling of OH HE'S MY BLOOD THANK GOD HE'S HERE, i think especially because my dad was in chemo and barely hanging on, but i grabbed him by the elbow and my friend denise who was standing by me and said THIS IS MY UNCLE, DAVE.  with significance only known to me, on the outside just seemed like just a plain introduction, like oh cool of your uncle to come to your show.  but because of the significance of family in my family, to me, this had some sort of impact in my brain.  like seeing a star dashing across the sky, a rare thing one could point to. 
he had brought a petite woman with him, i guessed the kind of stranger to pass a cold night with, no one special. i wonder if she ever knew what happened to him or if she still thinks of him as a man who stopped calling. 

i used to play just one kind of music, songs which i sung and played along to, usually alone but sometimes with others.  then after dave died, that music went south.  my stomach turned.  from the event of his death, violent and sudden and self-made.  and from doing the after math in the aftermath.  i couldn't sing that way anymore.

for almost a whole year before he sorted his belongings and settled his affairs, making sure his life insurance policy counted in the case of suicide, asking manny from new york life in couched language if it would (it did he had had it long enough).  he waited for his mother to pass first. 
on the day he boarded his cat, even threw his razor and toothbrush into a black trash bag on the floor of his bathroom which was there to catch the last-day stuff.  he brushed his teeth that day  ?

he had mailed two letters, one to my dad, one to his friend from college.  another he left in an envelope addressed to his ex-wife, next to the letter to the police which said:  "as you can see, i shot myself.  i have no next of kin." this he had left on the ledge, with his id propped up beside it.  a final rent check. 
he went into the backyard for the occasion.  first he smashed his blackberry with a hammer.  then the supine position.

of course two policemen went to see his brother my father neil in florida, what little family there was still was.  then he called me.  even with all the prepwork dave had done, there was more to do, and when my dad asked if i would and if i could, i said yes.  brazenly and uncompromisingly, i said yes, which soothed and exhausted me.  coroner's office and neptune society and a first for my family, an official memorial service.

but that night at du nord.  from the stage, i could see dave sitting at a table to the side, right under a light. he was sitting forward, chin cupped in hand, looking directly at me, beaming. and here's why: he sent me the beatles '62-'66 and '67-'70 in 1993 with a boombox.  i was eleven, forming in jersey.  and at thirteen, an electric guitar and amp and four-track appeared.  i mean come on, he was the guy.  he knew i needed the tools.  he must have been proud.

the poise i felt, maybe the most comfortable on stage ever.  i spoke directly to dave before one song, and said "this is for neil, because he needs us".  i know i beamed back.  he left that night without saying goodbye.  he texted later that he was sorry he left without saying goodbye. 




and then after  healing, how i became to inhabit my body wholly.  and how that led me to dance, to love dancing as much as i am now beswept by blue, i just love to dance and be free.  true blue just dance and be free.  oh how i mean this. 
there's pulse in my music now.  but i have left things behind.  i freely admit this.
it must be time to put it all together.

Dave. 

he doesn't speak crypto and can't find this place, but i can and i can

there is some line drawn from thing to thing.  like a mnemonic device, in which you picture the next thing literally hanging onto the foot of the last until you've a whole chain linked up, from elephant to telephone to bucket.  the boots i tend to wear on days that turn out rainy, they fill with water from the sole, making cold buckets out of each my feet.  and hanging on the crook of that, how we sold the van.  but how we used to crawl into the backseat together whenever there was something to parse out, how the back seat of the van used to be a confessional, anything-goes space and i would sometimes hold his head in my lap while the pain came and went.  i wonder if we hadn't gotten rid of the van if our love would have survived this year.  because we could have known what was around us.  the next is something delicious i've forgotten now.  and finally, just whether it's too rainy to be empty or not, the boathouse, would it have seats available.

i've woken up and thought about what day it is and what that means.  saturday, gentle enough.  i made my bed, closed the window, climbed out.  now i've got a full cup, but i am listening to a sad song, one which is very true.  i've had doubts this morning a few, about this perceived cooling, that scheduled, my best friend who has gone south to haiti without a return ticket.   sometimes a cry is like throwing up, here it comes and just out and you feel better.  maybe that's what it is.  i'll switch over to the light, to the smile on your face.  warm sweet coffee does feel good.