death, twilight and time passing

Writing this blog is like writing in a diary...then strategically placing it where someone might find it. I don't know if anyone will read it, but I love hearing from you when you do.

It has been a long time since I have written. Geoff and I are totally absorbed in our lives. It is hard to imagine any space for anything else...things we want to do like surfing, museums, mountain biking, trips, kids...somehow we fill up every minute of every day. Even our down time feels full.

But life stopped one week ago today: my uncle Ron died.

Out of the blue, totally unexpectedly. He was there, then the door slammed shut. No negotiations, no more conversations. That was it.

Up until that moment, everything was rushing forward, relentlessly, as expected. Everyone was where they should be. I didn't think about it. Friday night I fell into bed, exhausted. The sun rose Saturday morning and I with it. I read physics a little then headed to the gym for the first boxing class of the day. I felt happy and vibrant and full of life. After class, I lingered for a while in the steam room, showered and put on clean lounge clothes. I stepped outside into a day that was spectacular even by San Diego standards. I reached for my cell phone to call Geoff, and that's when it hit me: too many calls from too many people.

The rest is a smear.

On the way back from the memorial in Houston, the flight attendant announced that there was some sort of technical problem and that we wouldn't have satellite TV. Oh, well, I would study. She came on the intercom a short while later to say that she had somehow gotten us free movies, instead. The chapter I was reading was interesting enough, but I couldn't resist.

I scrolled through the new releases - movies I had seen, movies I planned to see with Geoff. Then I saw it: Twilight, the teen sensation about vampires. Something G would never watch. Something I would never watch...except in that in between space of the stratosphere, where all things take on a layer of importance. At 30,000 feet, even the worst chick flick will make you cry.

I watched it...twice. The first time with my eyes scarcely glancing my book. Edward, the vampire protagonist, is hot. The scenes are cast in a dark, blue light that my tiny airplane screen could hardly transmit with appropriate contrast. Even so, I was somewhere else. The soundtrack is mesmerizing (the last song is by Iron and Wine, a band we first saw at the wedding of our friends Shawn and Laura). The second time it played while I read, and I only looked up at the best parts.

Since then, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

Not that it was that good. Watching that movie was like devouring a bag of Cheetos and licking the last bits of fluorescent orange goodness off of your fingers. Of course you love it. Your 12-year-old self loves it, imbibing all of the hope and tension and mystery of love while your 32-year-old self knows how it ends.

I googled the author: a 36-year-old Mormon mother of 3 boys who wrote the bloated 500-page manuscript in 6 months between shuttling kids to swim practice and waking up with her youngest in the night. It was like reading about the inventors of the Snuggie, something we actually own, thanks to my in laws...yeah, we actually love our Snuggies, too. A freakin' blanket with SLEEVES. Brilliant? Not exactly the light bulb.

How simple!! How perfectly formulaic! With my lifelong fascination with vampires and the obvious components of a preteen titillation, why the hell didn't I write it?

Whatever. Maybe I'll use all of that time sitting around during breastfeeding to write a preteen sensation. No, I'm not pregnant, but it doesn't hurt to plan. My friends who've had kids say they were bored out of their minds during that time. Better plan an escapist vacation for your brain....

All of this has sent me thinking about time passing. The time between 12 and 32. The time between feeling alive and suddenly dying. All of the time in between. The time we waste. The time we squander because we fail to recognize an opportunity. Or a last chance. The time we think we can't because there is no precedent.

I don't think my Uncle Ron knew his time was near, but something made him prepare for it. He reached out across big chasms, made his peace, drew people near. He drew me and my sister close. Differences between Ron and my dad had placed a rift between his family and ours. When my dad died, Uncle Ron reappeared. He tried to make up for lost time. He flew out from Houston for our wedding luau, even though it must have been hard. He called us, asked us about our lives, updated us on his. At his memorial, I realized I knew him. Amazingly, I had come to know this person who reminded me of so many of the good and quirky things about my dad, someone who, like my dad, I would lose too soon.

As inevitable as it is, death (like birth) can be so astonishing.