Things Jay Lake Told Me

We lost Jay Lake on June 1st. A lot of us, as it turns out. And yet we each lost our own personal Jay. Not quite the same critter as the next missing-Jay sufferer.

Me, I lost a friend who gave me some things no one else ever had, who held my hands and my confidences gently.

A lot has been said about him in the time since, but a few things haven't been said yet and I'd like to say them.

Jay believed in love, yes. But he also believed in touch and sex and adamantly and passionately believed that there was nothing wrong with either.

One day when he was visiting me, I turned on the tape recorder and got him going on various subjects, which wasn't hard to do.

Jay liked to talk. It was one of the many things he did well.

About people and how to treat them:

"Way too many people don't get listened to, or experience kindness, or touch. If you pay attention and you're nice about it and you gently offer touch, it's amazing how people respond."

About sex and death:

"We are put on this earth to do two things: fuck off and die.

"We fuck off to make more of ourselves, and we die to get out of their way. Since we only get to die once, we may as well work on the fucking-off as much as we can."

I laughed at this. He smiled and added, "I'm saying that funny, but I really do believe it."

And he did. Among the things I learned from Jay was that there are lots of ways to do sex.

Now that he's gone, I realize he also showed me there are a lot of ways to die. His way was to leave it all on the table.

Or to take it all off the table.

"Two of the greatest things in life are sex and food. Sensory input. I approach them similarly."

Sensuality. The stuff of life. He wanted it all.

The morning Jay died I went into a cafe and got myself a large cup of whipped cream. I drank it to his memory.

One day, many years ago -- pre-cancer -- I was complaining to Jay about something or another in my life.

You do your best, he told me.

No, that's not what he said at all. What he said was this:

"Here’s a twenty sided die, a jar of anchovies, an accordion, and a lug wrench. Good luck."

He meant that we go forward with the tools we have. Maybe not quite the tools we'd hoped for. Maybe not even sufficiently good tools. But they're the tools we've got. So use them, he meant.

The gifts Jay gave me - his love, his insights - are among my best tools.

Along with the twenty-sided die, of course, which I keep handy for those occasions when I'm without a jar of anchovies, an accordion, or a lug wrench.

"The entropy of the universe tends toward the maximum. Our role as human beings is to stand against that tendency."

And he did.

I'd like to think that through those of us who remain, missing him and loving him, he still does.

"Love while you can, live as you must."


Yes.

These Things Happen

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, I took a cantaloupe-sized green egg away from a father whose kind has been unchanged for some 80 million years.  I was nervous, because he weighted nearly as much as I did, and had claws far longer and sharper than mine. And besides which, he was a parent and I was only hoping to be one with his stolen child, which I imagined gave him an advantage.

But he was confused, new to the game, not really that concerned, and I stepped past him easily enough and took the small pipping green egg, this hatchling critter who, when she was finally free of the hard shell, fit easily into the palm of my one hand.

I raised her inside for months until she was big enough, then outside in a greenhouse. She was beautiful, of course, and smelled fabulous to me, with my mother's eyes and nose.

When I left that far-off land, I left her in the care of both new human parents and the parents of her own kind. Knowing she was well was enough.

She died today, at five and a half years old.  It happened suddenly, mysteriously, in her sleep. These things happen.

Having recently been through the death of a beloved fur-child that was not sudden, not mysterious, and not fast, I do see the advantages in this quick transition.

And yet, and yet. It is not all that much easier.

But these things happen.

Days Like Years

Each day, minute and minute, sipping slow to make it last. Days like years, minutes like hours; we sit outside together in bits of sun and breeze, sipping. His eyes close just a bit, soaking up, soaking in, every inch of him solar-powered.  His lanky, emaciated form stretches out across cement with startling ease. Finest-kind feline. He looks at me, cat-content, as if to say, "you know, this is not so bad."

Goodbye, Dear Sir

Today a man I admire, respect and care for lies in the hospital dying.

I never heard him complain over the years. Not once. I was always impressed with that. Not when they took out his spinal fluid to irradiate it and put it back, not during chemo, surgery, and not when his heart stopped working, not when his brain stumbled. Each time he'd just - come back, step by step, as if it were something anyone could do. He'd shrug as he described his trials, as if the surgery or chemo were a small thing.  An inconvenience. A minor detour.

He was easy to admire, and it was easy to think he'd keeping beating Death.

This time, it seems not.

Across the years, when I'd see him, he would hug me with a sort of fierceness and a smile, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am a scientist, but also I believe in you."

The tears of grief are for we who remain in life, not for them, the dead. Where do the dead go, that I can wish this man well?  That I can send something, some final appreciation, some bit of love?

Goodnight to you, dear sir. I hope there is something on the other side, something good and wonderful, because imaging you gone forever is almost more than I can bear.

Enter Stage Left, Exit Stage Right

About six years ago I lost someone. It wasn't death that took her, but misunderstanding and fear. I did everything I could to keep her, but I failed. So I cried, I lamented, I agonized. I railed at God. I went on.

That's how it goes: we lose love, someone dies, is destroyed, leaves. We object, agonize, lament, rail at God. Then - somehow - we go on. Sometimes the pain is so wretched, so unbearable, that it seems nearly certain we'll die from it. But mostly we don't. We keep breathing. We keep walking.

Recently I lost someone again. This one is more fresh, so of course it feels more poignant, as such things do. The loss is just as hard, just as wretched, and seems just as permanent.

But you know, nothing is all that permanent. It comes on stage left, exits stage right. Indeed it was this particular friend in whose company I came to a better understanding of this lack of permanence, of stage left and stage right. Nothing was the same for me after that.

Loss of a person has the feel of a freshly dug, freshly inhabited, freshly filled grave. You look at the dirt, you think about your love, and you marvel at - and abhor - the moments between the life and death of that love.

Now it's spring and renewal (and resurrection?) is in the air, so I'll tell you the good news: about four months ago, the first friend contacted me again, and we are gently, kindly, sweetly, talking again. Somehow the dead have risen. To my eyes, it is a miracle.

Enter stage left.