Christina

Photo; Shandra Beri

The fear that kept you from basking joyfully in your life covers you now in the form of a thin white hospital blanket. I try to draw your attention through the triple-paned glass of your luxuriously wide, high window to see the finger-tip close, verdant mountain projecting its tranquil majesty into your expensive private room- but you refuse to turn your head to look. To you it may as well be a filthy parking lot hidden behind an ugly, soiled solid grey cinder-block wall. There was no true beauty in this life for you and it will not intrude now. The hallucinations that envelop you spill unedited from your lips and are painstakingly detailed and salacious; sex rings, bondage, slavery and a conspiracy of silence. In those looping, confused (and now opiated) utterances I can't help but wonder where is the peace from the god you spent a lifetime claiming? Where is the solid-to-the-core 'happy' you force fed everyone around you as your true self? In your final moments, the curtain is dropping to expose that which you spent a lifetime sublimating. Your brittle veneer dissolving into the barren gash where you always claimed your soul resided as you crossed yourself before every meal. Now you are whispering the bitter truth through gritted teeth; distrust, jealousy, sexual fetish, anger... emptiness. When you say my name, your eyes form suspicious slits and you only see a stranger.

Christina, I 'saw' you long ago. Through your carefully rehearsed, perfectly mannered daily performances percolated a simmering discontent. I studied it and marveled at your improv skills whenever I poked the bear by knocking you off your script. It was so much work for you just to 'present' Christina every day that I developed empathy for you- an empathy that eventually grew into affection. You were my unaware curmudgeon masquerading as a well mannered proper English lady. I enjoyed you tremendously.

Christina, you will not suffer. You will not be alone- but I am drenched in the awareness that you died so long ago this moment is almost unnecessary.

34 Years Ago Today...

 ... I lived in a 4th street 2nd story apartment in Santa Monica and if I stood on my balcony, tilted my chin up just a little, I could look past the gay boys giving each other anonymous sexual pleasure in Hotchkiss Park and focus my eyes on a tiny slice of ocean view. At that time I earned my living as The Worst Waitress In The World (not by intention, by default...) and spent every other moment writing songs, rehearsing with my band and listening to music- which was an accomplishment in and of itself because in those days, your favorite music was something you really had to make an effort to carry with you. We bought cassettes and LP's from the record companies, traded them among each other and then made mix-tapes (songs carefully stitched together from hours bent over bronze-age technology) of our favorite tracks so we could play them on a little battery powered brick called a Walkman. Punk had torn a refreshing hole into the fabric of popular music, 'Boy Bands' hadn't yet been distilled into a poisonous formula and the latest rounds of Congressional investigations into the 'Payola' scandals were a few years down the road. The vacuous hum of 'disco' was finally dying out and had everyone hopeful there would be 'real' music playing on the radio again. John Lennon and Yoko Ono had just released "Double-Fantasy" and it. was. great.

In those days we still had heroes and John Lennon was one of mine.

On the night of December 8th, I'd rushed out the door to a rehearsal with my Walkman pressed against my radio to record an interview that John was giving to promote "Double-Fantasy". I knew my batteries would run on and die long after the interview, but I wanted to listen to what John Lennon had to say and at that time it was the only way I could. I stumbled back home in the early hours and fell into bed. On the morning of December 9th, I woke to my telephone ringing off the hook and in my sleepy fog heard one of my band-mates tell me that John Lennon had been murdered the night before while we were at rehearsal. I turned on my radio and every station on the dial said it was true.

I pulled on my clothes and walked out my door. I needed to look at something beautiful. I needed to stand in front of the ocean because I thought it might be bigger than my broken heart. As I walked down Strand Street, Bob Dylan stepped out of a doorway with the same pain-filled, dazed expression I wore on my own face. He pulled the door closed, slipped his hands into his pockets, stood on the top step and watched me as I walked toward him. We held eye contact until I passed, but neither of us said a word.

Soon I sat myself on an alter of beach sand, listened to the choir of crashing waves, looked out into the endless cathedral of blue sea and sky and cried.