Saturday, September 13, 2008

You Would Have Liked It...

O Natalie, you would have liked your ash scattering. It was a blustery day, changeable and dramatic. There was fog, then sun, then lavendar and shapes of mountains looming over the coast road. I left early from Cambria and popped in a CD you made two years ago. I have listened to it a million times, but this time, burrowing into a tunnel of fog and swerving up Highway One totally alone on a Sunday morning, I heard different things. I heard you sad about your death, and defiant of what people will think of you. I heard you telling me you loved me, no matter what happened, and I heard you wanting all the pain to end. You sent me messages in the music, in the Ben Harper, in the Bonnie Raitt, in the Bob Dylan. But until that day, I couldn't hear them.
Before the ceremony I went to all the places you took me and we loved. I took a pilgrimage with your soul on my shoulder. I went for breakfast at Deetjens and ordered a huge plate of eggs. Do you remember when we went there with Nick? A bald woman, certainly a cancer survivor, sat at a table near me. I saw her watching me, and smiling. What did she see? What did she feel? Could she sense where I was going?
Then I headed up to the Henry Miller Sculpture Garden. I love that place! And I was greeted by a Miller quote that could have been you: "Only by living your own life to the full, can you honor the memory of someone."
I browsed through the bookstore, bought some inspirational posters, found a book of Hafiz poetry and bought it in honor of you, then lay on a big wooden bench under the giant trees and thought about you, and what you meant to me. I felt you there with me.
I headed back down the one to Esalen. O, you would have cried to see what the fires did to your beloved Big Sur. The hill by Julia Pfeiffer was burnt to a crisp. They barely saved Deetjens and Henry Miller. But still, Big Sur is so beautiful. I saw Beth, then Lauren, then your sister and your father.
We went in the back gate, and down to a lawn overlooking the ocean. Chris Price set up an altar on a log. There was incense, candles, words about you that you loved, and all of our favorite pictures. I put up a picture of you holding Benji, with him laughing in your arms. Someone brought sunflowers. We sat on big blankets on the lawn, and Chris Price ran the memorial like a gestalt group. Your father read a prayer: St. Francis prayer. Then we spoke of you. We just offered up spontaneous memories. I liked Lauren and Ama's best. Lauren told of the first time she met you. She saw you on a sofa in the sorority, crying over a boyfriend. She ended up rooming with you the next year--to get the best room in the house, of course--she felt a little trepidation since she had seen the crying fit. She arrived at the sorority house and looked up the stairs and there you were on the landing, staring down and waving, totally naked! So you were always filled with tears and nakedness!
Ama said she was a cryer, too. She told of coming to you late at night at Esalen. She knocked on the door of your yurt, and you and Nick were in bed, and she was crying on the doorstep, and you called her in, and put her in bed between you, and comforted you, as you cried. Both stories are just you. Your essence. Chris Price was so wonderful--letting us celebrate your wonderful qualities, but also not letting us forget your pain, your struggle, your sadness. We laughed at funny Nat stories. Your sister and your father were silent. They did not tell a story, or a memory. But perhaps the more you know, the harder it is to reduce someone to a single anecdote, one story. Even for me, when I think of you the stories just wash over me. There are so many memories. How to pick one?
Your cousin Paul came. He was beautiful, in a suit, with white white teeth. He came to honor you, and for his mother. He brought a letter they had found in his mothers estate. It was a letter to his mother, that you wrote when you first moved to Esalen. It described how you felt you had come "home." How much you loved this place.
So we sat there on the lawn. A dude blew a didjeridoo out over the cliff nearby. Pelicans flew low, right by us. And the sea rose and fell, heaving gently, like it was breathing, then the waves crashed on the rocks. We were at the end of the world. It was so quiet. The world fell away. We were only thinking of you.
Then Chris got the urn of you. We stood in a circle around a planting of rosemary. We sang dona nobis pacem. And we dumped your ashes. We sprinkled them on the rosemary, in the stones, by the trees and threw them over the fence to the ocean. At first none of us touched you. We poured you out of the lid. But then I wanted to touch you. I wanted to have your ashes run through my fingers. It was so strange--I would have thought it would have grossed me out. But I wanted to feel you, one last time.

There was so much. So at the end we all went to the fence with the ashes in our hands, and threw you into the sea. You didn't want to go. You blew back, and we were coated with your ash. It was on our faces, our clothes, in our hair. You were still holding on. Your father was so quiet, so stoic. I hugged him, and told him how much I loved you. It was strange. The only times I saw him show emotion were when I got close, and held him. He trembled. And later, when I came to him and hugged him good-bye, and told him again how much I loved you the tears just flowed out of his eyes and he shook all over. He was still silent.

Then we went and just watched the waves and thought of you. Ama took some of your ashes to the baths, and we went to visit your old house by the art shed. It's a bathroom now. So we paid our respects and all used the bathroom. It is a shrine to art, covered with whimsical mosaics. You would have laughed.

Then we drove to Nepenthe and sat in the sunshine. You were with us. Suddenly the sun came out. And we laughed. And there were wacky characters you would have gotten a kick out of, like Beth's boyfriend, the back up bus driver for the Green Tortoise. It was sunshine and beauty and love.

Lauren said you would have wanted more noise, more wackiness, more rabblerousing. I am sure there will be some of that at your memorial. But this was beautiful. It was the people who loved you most, and it was true to you.

I miss you.

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