Please Talk about Me When I'm Gone

(2013)

L'amour de l'art fait perdre l'amour vrai.

I didn't say that.

Although that's the sort of thing I might say, since I'm the sort who feels obliged to quote the books I've read and I allow art to remind me how to relate to myself.

The love of art means loss of real love.

Some people, sometimes, choose to make their lives more complicated. Life, sometimes, decides for them; sometimes life gets there first.

To win? To lose?

What for, if the world will forget us anyway.

I didn't write that. A poet wrote that. I'm no poet. Poets are always looking for things, such as heroes. Who wants to be a hero these days? Who can afford it? The world could be-and might very well already be-full of folks who will ring changes and do their part to shake up the constricting and crazed institutions that keep us chained, bound and complacent. There are lots of these people, I'm sure: tons and tons of them. But the thing is, most of us are too busy trying to live. It's enough just to survive without seeking to pursue such lofty, such poetic propositions.

This is the new poetry: the more things stay the same, the more they change. Here is our art: haikus of horror in the cities, sonnets of sin and corruption, limericks of deregulation, free verse free trade, rhymed lines of laissez-faire, and the emboldened ghost writer, Death, forever at work on our collective life stories.

These days we look for poetry in all the wrong places. Some of us even believe we're gazing more deeply into the murky waters of existence when all we're actually seeing is our own reflections.

And so (I think): A life is not unlike a poem, too often eager to please, predictable, safe. I think: One should, therefore, feel obliged occasionally to ask some complicated questions. Such as: What am I doing to keep things interesting? What can I do to generate momentum, keep the narrative flowing?

Listen: When some of your best friends are people who exist elsewhere-characters in books you've read, musicians you'll never meet, people from the past who died decades (even centuries) before you were born, or people you knew intimately who are no longer around-it might be time to ask some complicated questions.

Who are you?

That is, or should be, the first question, as well as the last question, and it should be asked as often as possible along the way.

You see, all men are islands. After all, no one else is inside you when you're born, no one is going with you when you die, and between those first and last breaths, the decisions, actions, and accountability are your own. All, all yours.

So: You find friends, you seek solace in yourself, you learn to discern redemption through the aimless affairs that comprise the push and pull of everyone's existence. You realize, in short, that you're going through it alone, so you should never go through it alone. You can't run away, and the farther you run, the closer you get to yourself. And you're all you've got.

If you're fortunate enough to figure this out early on, you find friends: the real ones who exist in your everyday world, and the other ones who have been there all along, the ones you can always turn to, wherever or whoever you happen to be.

Please talk about me when I'm gone. That's the title of this memoir. It's also the presumptive title of any memoir. More, it's the unwritten title of any work of art-a desire to have those thoughts and feelings articulated, read, understood, appreciated. More still, it's the often unexpressed message of any individual life: We want to be discussed, loved, and celebrated after we're no longer around. Mostly we don't want to be quickly or easily forgotten.

When you hear voices, or find yourself talking to people you're not sure can hear you, you should cut yourself some slack. We've all been there-or will be at some point. We've all, on occasion, looked up to the clouds and wondered if there was a kingdom beyond the skies, the place some of us were told our dearly departed looked down from. Haven't we all taken comfort from a one-way conversation we forgot to be self-conscious about? Aren't we all, at times, unable or unwilling to entirely abandon the idea that someone else is listening?

And so: You talk. And maybe, someone listens. Anyone might be listening up there, and that's more comfort than anything you could ever find in a church. And so: You talk. Say something, everything. Say anything you need to say to survive.

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

What he said.