Annie

 

Another sleepless night for me - likely due to forgetting to take my thyroid medication one, maybe two, days; I can't remember.  Or maybe something else.

I found myself scrolling past many tributes to Annie K. Blake tonight and being overwhelmed.  I am, of course, in the outermost of the farthest reaches of the most remote circles of her social world.  Barely within the gravitational pull, barely in orbit. Claiming space there almost through sheer force of will.  But I've followed her and Simon these last three months much more closely than even before.  Took homemade "churro milk" and homegrown eggs.  Flowers.  A note.  Sent her a video of our chickens when friends asked for little snippets of beauty in the world to fill her days.  I hope they made some split-second difference.  Just a split-second - to fill in any tiny gaps between when the love of her closest friends and family could rush in.  I am, after all, a very, very small human in this world compared to a force like Annie K. Blake.  And living less than a mile away, it's like living near a pulsar.

Now she is leaving.  It seems she is leaving very soon.  Part of me hopes she will be here on Thursday afternoon when we'll get 6" of snow.  She could watch it cover Cascade Mountain from her big mid-century windows.  But, then again, she'll probably watch the snow no matter where she is.  Maybe she will be the snow.

Paul is surprised - he'll find me staring out Ansel's window at Cascade during sunsets.  Just say, "This is really affecting you, isn't it?"

It really is.

Stay with me now. I don't want to talk too much about myself in a post about Annie's departure.  I'll try to be concise.  

We are the same age.  We both have two children.  I knew about Annie K. (at the time) as a friend of friends even when I was 20 years old - we were at the same school, same social orbits.  We both went through excruciating and beautiful faith journeys that led us to very similar destinations.  

I suppose, perhaps, it affects me because I have always thought I would die young.  And I have often tried to think through how to die best - I mean, to die with nobility and love and acceptance, but giving the right, humane amount of space to regrets and fear and pain and sorrow.  Annie has shown me what that looks and feels like.

It affects me.

Even more than that, though, is how I've seen the massive and fiercely loyal network of her close friends organize the most supportive army.  And reading their goodbyes today was all overwhelming.  

They reminded me, though, that I am now here and not likely to be moving anytime soon - for the first time in my entire life.  So perhaps now I can do my best to build my own long-term, local, close connections in a new network of supportive, fierce, smart, wonderful women - for the first time in my entire life.   I don't even know how to begin.  How do you do that?  Starting at 36 years old?  It's always been so hard for me.  But I have to try.  The benefits of the possibilities outweigh the risks of rejection now.  I wish I could figure out how Annie K. Blake did it.

Though I suspect, she didn't really have to try very hard.  It's not hard to pull in others close when you have always been a pulsar.