Conclusions

Well, it's a million thoughts, tears and words away from my last post. I have handwritten posts to fill in, but for now, I'll just spill my head a little...

It has been a powerful time in my town. Death and tradgedy has prevailed for months now, sprinkled with all the irreverent mirth of the universe can display.

The funeral was so genuine, impressive and beautiful. All the creative people; even hermits like me, attended and the feeling of loss, but enchantment with a memory.

It was a windy, blue-sky-scattered-with-cotton-wool kind of day, with a determined bite in the Autumn air. As we approached, the words, "Forever Young" flowed upon the breeze from the tree-chapel where so many people were gathered.

We sat and our old school song, "Jerusalem", played. I tried to sing to it, but the words choked in my neck.

So many school assemblies had ended for my friend and I with this song. No matter how mundane, 80s and stressful boarding school was, that song always moved me. It was one of those dusty-sunbeam moments when life feels like a movie and tears intoxicate the motion.

Today, this song brought bitter tears from me and anger at a system that shook our souls like an angry wind to tender blossoms.

Confusingly, this day I was torn between the body of school-based pain that was unlocked by these all-too-familiar strains and chords, yet still, as no longer a teenager, hearing the beauty of William Blake's words still enticed me to be open to this emotional minefield of a song.

The eulogy read as a great person, like you would usually hear on a docoplayed the world over. She had performed to many, but she had so much more potential. I want to take her work out there to the public as much as I can as a video celebrating her, but that's another post...

She did so much for so many and even organised events for childrens' theatre she wouldn't be around to see. She never stopped. She gave so much and she was always there to visit lost souls wandering the outer horizons of their souls.

When she performed, she didn't act,- she became.

She didn't know her worth, yet it's so great. I wonder if she could have seen the events of the day if she would have changed her mind...

Imagine if birthdays really were a celebration of your being here and that everyone who has painted a colour in your life, could come together, as if in a dream.
Look around and life may all seem so ant-paced concrete-unchangeable,
but it's not and it will...

But, imagine if all those people could all converge at home and tell each of us our worth, how differently would we all feel?
Instead of B-days, we need BE-days...

But, my mind scuttles off the thread with junk-shop clarity...

The funeral progressed with live music and a charged feeling in the air.
As it concluded, they played "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". A sweet relief to balance the point of farewell. The crowd clapped a single repetitive beat, like at the end of a play, when you're counting down to the final applause, and when the song ended I tried to begin a round of applause. It's one of those things that you have to jump into fully, or not at all. My clap was loud enough to raise eyebrows, but not enough to command response. Disappointed, I stopped.

My friend had thought of releasing blue helium balloons into the sky, but had appropriately declined, a beautiful idea that will be done at a later time.

Upon leaving, I found myself at the place she was to be driven from. Behind me, in the crowd, someone screamed out her name and I found my will and I clapped past the point of puzzled/disapproving looks until one, then another joined my meagre sound until the whole gardens around us filled with a warm wave of applause.

An exit befitting a star.

As we drove out of the gardens, we fell into the flow behind the hearse. We were only three cars away. For thirty seconds we followed before turning out into the street. She was so close. I was so aware this would be the physically closest I would ever be to her again in my life. As we turned away, I watched through the back window to savour any last grasp of her immediate presence in my life.

As our distance increased, the hearse crept up over a rise that seemed to go on for hours as I watched her disappear surely and finally over the hill and gone.