voyage

so. 

this was/is/has been (?) a post i have been avoiding since last february.

i have started and abandoned this several times over the last few months, i haven't been able to really articulate what i feel like i am trying to say, or work out, or through, or whatever.

on february 10, 2014 the world lost an extremely talented and beautiful woman. my friend, kourtney.

she was thirty-four years old and died of breast cancer.

she was an amazing person, she was positive, upbeat, artistic, she didn't let her condition define who she was and how she lived her life. i remember asking her once how she could just not be so overwhelmed and depressed by what was happening and while i don't remember what she said, i do remember how i felt about what she told me. it was simple and i remember thinking that i could finally see, so clearly, those differences in the way i process life and the way she chose to.

the last time i saw her was a few weeks before she passed. i was at the grocery store and i saw a little woman in one of those electric shopping carts. then i say a tattoo on the woman's neck, it was of two horses. it was kourtney.

i didnt know that she had come back to the area.

i tried not to let my feelings, my shock at how sick she looked show but i'm sure i failed. we talked for a bit and i said we should get together and have some tea sometime soon.

she said she would like that.

we hugged and said goodbye.

and that was that, i heard a few weeks later she had died.

i don't understand why useful people like her are taken and others are not. i told her once at the river that i wished i could take her place, that it wasn't fair. i meant that, i still do. 

i am a better person for having known her, and i will miss her.

thank you kourtney, for being my friend.

September 2010

"eleven years ago i was taking classes at the local junior college, mostly arts and humanities. each semester was like christmas, a never ending supply of new girls that i could potentially date.

it was a very shallow time of my life.

but i was young, moderately cute, and played guitar.

there was this one art class where i sat next to this cute burnette that i developed a bit of a crush on. we became friends and since she didnt seem interested in taking things further than maybe making out once or twice (i think?) i settled for friends.

and we gradually grew apart.

then i moved to san francisco and she los angeles.

and that was that.

tonight i went to my youngest sisters house for a going away party, my cousin is moving to costa rica, and her place was swamped with people i didnt know.

so in typical patrick style, when not able to booze it up (had to drive home after all), i hide.
i had a great time hanging out with my soon to be brother in law and his buddy, we sat out back and enjoyed the cool night and talked crap about everything.

eventually they went inside, i didnt.

earlier in the evening i notices a young woman with tattoo on her neck, a stylish vintage mens hat and a pair over-sized jackie o sunglasses.

and everytime i did venture inside for some food or a coke or whatever that i kept looking at her.

i could tell that her head was shaved, and drew my own conclusions on that.

so anyway, im out on the porch sitting alone and listening to people talk at one another and she comes out and i look up and say a name followed by the upturned pitch that accompanies a "?".

and it was her.

eleven years and there she was, this person i hadn't seen in ages at this random party in a town that was nowhere near where we had met.

as we talked about our lives she told me, and im not going to go into too much detail here as i havent asked her permission to talk about it, that she got sick, and that it wasnt good.
but she was upbeat and sarcastic and irreverent. and i made her laugh, over and over.

and then i had to cut it short cause i needed to get back home in case there was grandma issues (simple fact of life, no begrudging there).

as i drove home, and then sat around drawing i felt sad, despondent, this has affected me in a way that i didnt expect, here is someone that i may have thought about six or seven times in the past decade and i feel guilty for feeling like im losing someone much closer, like i dont have a right to that sense of loss, of sadness.

maybe its because shes not even 30 until next week. maybe its because i felt something for her once.

ive been around death, but its old people, people in their 80's, thats a 50 year deficit. and thats pretty fucked up.

i guess im trying to say something that i dont really know how to articulate, i feel like im dancing around it.

it was a nice talk though."

A few days later

"this was actually yesterday but there is something about drinking coronas in the sun (i'm sure that there is a joke in that somewhere) that makes you (read: me) feel like i actually exerted myself in a physical manner.

anyway."