For My Friend

“Singular Squill” – © chriscondello 2013 – Calming blue… Soul soothing tones… The perfect companion on a day like today…

I wrote this yesterday… But I couldn’t press post until today… Sorry for the delay…

Today I received some grave news regarding a close family friend… Things are not looking good for him right now… This is not something I have had to deal with in quite some time… My initial feelings were rather cold… Having used heroin for the better part of a decade… I had become accustomed to regular death… Almost hardened to it… I expected it… And as a user… I embraced it…

It took roughly ten minutes for what I had just been told to sink in… Oddly… My initial feelings reminded me of being dope sick… I just felt ill… My initial reaction was purely physical… My stomach twisted… My head started to throb… Then I realized what was happening…

My face got warm… And it became difficult to see… Weird… My mind left the present… And immediately focused on the past… Memories… And not the bad memories I commonly associate with the people I used to use drugs with… But good memories… The kind you relate with a real friend…

The feeling was so foreign to me that the only thing I could comprehend doing was heading to the woods… It is the only place that makes any sense to me at all… Walking at break neck speeds… I choked back tears along the entire seven block walk to Frick Park… I have severed a finger without making a sound other than quietly asking to be taken to the hospital… I don’t cry… But today I cried…

Normally when I get in the woods I become a different person… I become highly aware of my surroundings… I look for color… Observe movement… Listen to everything… I don’t just think of it as walking through the woods… I walk with the woods… I don’t subtract… I add…

Today was different… I was expecting the good forest vibe to trump my grief… I was expecting the trees to kill my pain… Or at least dull it… Like an opiate dulls physical pain… But it did not… Although I was no longer on the brink of crying… I was still lost in thought… As I walked aimlessly through the woods… I realized that my mind was far from the present… I had no focus… I had no aim… I was just off-balance…

As I started to realize what I was feeling… I was able to focus it… And use it to some degree… Though I would compare it to learning to walk all over again… Normally… When I find a place to stop and work… I can focus on the present and get right to it… But today I could not focus… My mind was in the trees…. My mind was with my friend…

“Watching” – © chriscondello 2013 – It is difficult to write about the feelings I had running through my mind while I was on this rock… Really painful…

As I clawed my way to the top of the steepest trail in the park… My mind was focused on getting as far away from the relentless onslaught of people walking their dogs through the park as humanly possible… On a normal day… This is one of the parks best attributes… But not today…Today I needed to get as far away from them as possible… I needed a place to be invisible…

At the top of one of the trails lies a shale outcropping… From this rock… I can see five trails… From this rock… I can see myself… From this rock… I can see you in the pale gray distance… I will do more than this stack of stones… Maybe 100 stacks… Maybe 1000 stacks… I just don’t know… I won’t know until it feels right… The only thing I do know… Is he deserves more… It is very rare to know someone who has had a positive effect on every person they came in contact with… Those that do… Deserve something special… I don’t grieve like most people… And I don’t memorialize like most people… But I do cry…

“Holding Up” – © chriscondello 2013 – Because when you needed a friend to help hold you up… He was always available… And willing to help…

I will create art……
I will plant trees…
But most importantly…
I will not forget…

peace – chriscondello

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