My Friends Are Aight

The people who really know me, know that FB is not the story of my life. Well, it’s not the story of anybody’s life, but it’s been a real long spell of “not-really-my-life,” for me. And yet, it is, in some good solid ways. Despite my very strong and often contrarian points of view, definitively expressed, I was born to celebrate. I get excited about everything, big or small. The small, even more than the big, because the big takes a little time to digest. The big is like a Pacific NorthWest twilight that takes its own sweet time. The small? Effervescent thrill like the ball drop on Times Square. Why note get giddy about it ASAP!? And so a lot of the joy and silliness that I express on FB is also an essential part of these “not-really-my-life” times.

I go to FB to remember that, more often than not, to throw my whispers and shouts into the vast churning vortex of friends and acquaintances, knowing that my words may light someone up in the way that their words often set me ablaze. Today, I came across two posts (well, one is a quote), that settled into the deepest part of my soul. Here they are.

The first was from Reginald Dwayne Betts. We met many years ago, all agog about our this and our that, bantering with each other about our work and words, our lives. We were both unpublished writers, whose songs were finally being sung in the light. A light that is particular to Ripton, Vermont, at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. This is where Cheryl Strayed and I met, too, though she had a first novel out, and I was serving drinks to the fine and the famous and the aspiring, and delighting in all of it. Both of these people have been an essential part of my life, but even more than that, of my engagement with the world. They are real people, the ones who can get giddy about the silly stuff, but who can also hear the “not-really-my-life” life stories.

Here is Dwayne, reminding me of pretty much everything:

Reginald Dwayne Betts
13 hrs ·
Eighteen years ago today I got locked up. You really do have to pick the dates you remember, but I’m ADHD with the numbers though and so every time the clock strikes 12:08 I think about how you can ruin your life on a humble. Anyway I have work to do and a long night but was thinking that eighteen years ago the future was literally as dark as a life sentence. I still remember so many cell partners. I remember the first cell. I remember the second cell. I remember every single solitary cell. I can still see calluses I earned at pull bars with men named, well they had names. I can see this cat’s ankle protruding out of his skin after he moved a little too quick on the basketball court. Sometimes now my folks folks check up on me. And then I realize that my time stopped and theirs kept on. What you walk around with probably defines you more than where you walk. I can’t really pretend to know that yet. But I did alight since that day in December 18 years back. But shit, if you do run into that time machine, let me know. I can’t rightfully say I’d trade it all – but at least I’d go tell that kid that it would turn out fine.

And here is Cheryl, echoing his words: