Diamonds of Contentment
Everyone is very, very aware that life is short and time is fleeting, but it is a far better thing to feel that it is.
For no one special reason, but rather a domino avalanche of them, several members of a Myspace blogging collective reunited over last weekend. Last year, I was pleased to go and meet a few of them for the first time – including, but not limited to, Aaron Dietz, Gus Sanchez, Andrea Burlingame and Michael 'Spilt Milk' Grover – in Seattle. And this year, a trip to New York guaranteed meeting not only Aaron and Gus (and their respective loved ones) but Kristin Weholt, Inga, Erin McParland, Mike Garvey, Shaina Cohen, Christy King, Amanda Van Horn, Jannell Lannon and Luis, etc. within three days.
To merely describe the dinners and social events would prove a disservice to the people who came from all over the world for no other reason than to meet other people who came from all over the world to meet them. So I will attempt mere character sketches of a few of the people I met for the first time, and hope that the minimal lines below will coalesce to form a portrait one can see in one's mind but one would be unable to draw. Note: I have purposefully avoided talking about girlfriends and wives in any detail.
I will start with Erin McParland, someone who I just missed meeting last time I was in New York. She went out of her way to suggest or arrange places for us Out of Towners to go to, as well as being generous to host a big party with everyone from everywhere. Her smile is easy and her youthful energy is infectious. And she opened her home and heart to everyone.
Mike Garvey was known to me for many years as Armand Assante's Left Testicle on Myspace. He is acerbic, crude, vile and nasty – but it comes from such a good place that, upon meeting him, the handshake was quickly abandoned in favor of a warm bearhug. Although we did not have too long to have a heart-to-heart, we were able to share a few minutes and a few years of history together. He's genuine.
Christy King is angular, stunningly attractive and energetic like an Oprah-in-waiting. She described her religion/god to me as the nature she finds in the hearts and minds of other people; one could picture her hosting her own hour-long show and telling her stunned studio audience to look under their chairs. When the audience would return to their upright position, she would smile and say, 'I didn't say you were going to win anything - suckaz.'
Amanda van Horn would be a good cartoon lioness. Soft eyes, a perfect mane, a sly smile, a tat of a heart on her right shoulder. Virtually impossible not to greet her with, 'gawsh, yer purty.' We did not talk much, but she was a great pleasure not to talk to. I will work on that sentence.
Shaina Cohen sports one of those smiles that turn down at first, and is as vibrant as the ink that decorates her arm. An author/artist finding her way.
Allie Smith - a Smith girl and a Leo - was the biggest surprise. We are e-friends of an e-friend and only got introduced as Allie was considering relocating to Chicago. As it turns out, we were very old friends immediately, and while she had not met any of my fellow refugees from Myspace, she dove right in and held her own brilliantly. Sharp as a razor, soft as a prayer.
Finally, there is Kristin. Like my friend Inga, Kristin hails from Norway. She is what one imagines when one imagines Nordic goddesses, which I never do. She was the first person I met in New York and the last I saw. So New York can be bracketed by the hugs with Kristin. I believe we find each other equally adorable and annoying. Instant siblings. Encouraging words come from one when the other is a little down; and when one is feeling overly confident, the other one pours a nice hot cup of sarcasm. As a result of our multiple meals and long walks through Central Park, we were very adept at finding each other's buttons. Whenever I might look at her for more than two consecutive seconds, she would snap back, 'What?!', drop-kicking me into a fluster that would take me some time from which to recover. She also enjoyed calling me "creepy", which is one button that terrifies me – and one that was pressed more repeatedly than Helen Keller's doorbell.
In return, I would poke fun at her many stories of her boyfriend – and how she misses him and how wonderful he is, etc. It did get to the point where Kristin was thinking of him so often and fondly that whatever we were discussing would snap, quite quickly, into a story about her boyfriend. During one of the days, lounging in a hotel bar and sampling oysters on a half shell, Inga and I wondered if there was anything that we could say that would not instantly turn into a story about her boyfriend. I offered up that my wife was enduring her time of the month. Within a minute of this revelation, Kristin pointed out that, yes, her boyfriend, too, gives plenty of blood.
And coursing through all of these people was, of course, that beast known as New York, with its constant murmuring, breathing and rumbling that make it sound like either an underground animal, living under the pavement and plotting to escape, or a music more melodious than Mozart and thick like jazz. Even at 330am, when the city is most quiet, one is aware of something under the pavement, itching to get out to take on another day.
As I sit on the stoop of Park 79, the bastard child of any number of overnight facilities (hostel, boutique hotel, YMCA, some social experiment), I am pleased and happy and on fire with inspiration. It is these diamonds of contentment that, when worn properly, permit one to forget about who one is and what journey one is on and simply bask in the reflections of the friends one has.
Perhaps the group is best summed up by something Aaron Dietz said to me as we were saying goodbye for the second time:
"Keep hugging me. She's going to take a picture."
