Life, the Universe, and Everything in It

Life is composed of rhytmns, the beats we learn that make up the music that is our lives. Somtimes it is somber, others truimphant, often it is the music of elevators we are waiting to leave. We submerge ourselves in our respective pieces. This week, I was Radiohead. Last week, I was Mozart mixed with Kathleen Edwards. Today, I am Erin McKeown. The notes and lyrics describe my feelings, my life. The pleasures and pains of my hopes and dreams as they flourish or evaporate. I take for granted that tomorrow will be another day, another piece, another song. Today, I learned, that the music of a dear friend and classmate has become a requiem. Chrystian Wurmser, Class of 1992, a computer geek for a national stockbrokeridge who wanted to retire to become a high school math teacher has died of pneumonia, a secondary condition of lukemia that no one knew he had. I wish I could tell you how old he was. I think he was 35. I thought of him recently when I saw a 1994 Erasure concert being broadcast on cable. That was his favorite band in college. I have a cassette that he made from a cd that he had, "Pop! 20 Hits!" I thought of calling, but didn’t, knowing there would be time. What do we wait for when we don’t call? I wait for a time when my life will be better, when I will have good news to reveal, especially with old friends I haven’t spoken to in a while. Like attending some kind of high school reunion, I have this resolve to appear that I have made something of myself. It isn’t as vain as you might think. Its a desire to be a positive force in people’s lives, forgetting that it is better to show up as we are than to not show up at all.
     I find it inevitable to take inventory of my memories when someone I know dies. I think of the last time I saw them. I saw Chrys last in 2002 at his apartment in San Francisco. I was working on a documentary film and had driven cross-country in my car. After filming ended, he put me up in his living room. We ate sushi in the catro and I had the finest unagi and mochi that I’ve ever had. He smilled and laughed. He had a broad grin and an infectious laugh. In school, he and our friend Christine, whom we called Butsie for reasons I still don’t know, used to drag an old worn-out type writer into the bar in the club where we hung out. They would type line after line laughing uproariously and periodically reading their works aloud. I remember the night we met at our friend KT’s party in her dorm room. The entry shot was a kamakazee. Upon arrival, I annouced that I didn’t do shots, so he promptly got himself another one and we sipped them instead. He taught me how to play college drinking games like Mexican (dice), Asshole (cards), and beer pong. And if he didn’t teach me, he was there sharing it with us. Together, we tested the limits of young adulthood in the company of warm friends, feeling safe and loved each night. I remember our first date. We met at a local Chinese restaurant. Looking back we would laugh every time to remember that we both appeared dressed exactly alike, same color everything from shirt to shoes, even belts. He was my first love. He never returned it but I still remember discovering the butterflies, the impossible unbelievability of knowing the exact moment of falling in love. We were friends when he came out to me after graduation. I remember feeling so happy that he would tell me and I wished him the very best. I understand he had a partner. I didn’t get to meet him during my visit, and now he’s grieving. I remember the day he called after my own partner had died. It had been years since we’d talked, after a series of failed email exchanges and missed appointments at our school reunions. We talked like old friends do, the times between exchanges evaporating. He immediately offerred me his assistance and wanted nothing in return.
     I have been thinking of my friends lately, near and far. The one I haven’t spoken to because I’m embarassed about the last time we spoke. Friends I haven’t seen in a while. Recent attempts to visit cancelled due to car problems and illness.  I had to miss a going away party for friends who are leaving for Alaska. I called instead. There is no inherent danger in moving to Alaska. I will see them again, I tell myself. But what if I don’t, I reply. And at the very least, I would like to see their faces again in person before they go. But it is no different with other friends. The years come and go. They marry, have children, get jobs, loose jobs, have health problems, change living spaces, and we stretch out like a great cloth that is connected beyond the horrizon and out of sight. I know we are connected, but we do not see each other or speak for long periods sometimes. Why do we not make more time for each other? Life is more complicated. We have less time, less energy. This is not wrong. We are not to blame. How can we overthrow everything we are building for a few hours with an old friend? How can we not? Somehow I look to find the balance that is mine in all of this. I think back to Chrys’ smile, the kind that encouraged joy and misbehavior at the same time. I think about how I had to stand on my tippy toes to hug him, the way he spread his arms so wide in preparation, it was if he intended to hug the world. Or the way I used to admire the alabaster hue of his skin and the curve of his torso shaped by years of sailing. How he made me laugh in spite of myself. I think about all the things I would have said to him during the phone call I didn’t make, about how good my life is going, now, the proof that his help meant something.
     I would like to think that if he’d asked me that I would have done anything to help him. But he didn’t ask and life is not about exact reciprocity. A score card will not get me through with more love or fulfillment. I may help someone and see an ease in their shoulders. I may be lucky and catch a smile. I may see nothing in exchange and I will give anyway, I promise myself.  I think about his generosity and beauty in how he gave and hope that I have that same genosity inside me. I remember his gift and I’m inspired to be more helpful. But his greatest gift was himself. I can hear Erasure cueing up in the background with "Chains of Love." Its a 90s pop-electronica requiem for our dear friend Chrys. May he be lifted up in love and light and find his peace.