You Can Take It With You

What memories would you like to take with you when you die?

I have enjoyed looking back over my life and choosing events/memories/sensations … One of the reasons is that it gives me a sense of abundance, rather than scarcity. The abundance of my life. There is so much I would want to take with me. So much! This is a wonderful exercise, wonderful in that it helps one focus on gratitude.

And so: some memories I would like to take with me:

— the moment Cashel was rolled out of the delivery room by my brother. He was a small wrapped-up amoeba creature with enormous staring eyeballs. That was Cashel. Brendan said, “It’s a boy!” (they had waited to find out) – I was there with my parents, and Maria’s parents, and when we saw Cashel in the flesh, and heard “It’s a boy” we all just started hugging and crying and laughing. Such intense and piercing joy. The happiest moment of my life.

— the night at Glendalough (and then Donnybrook and Dublin) with my sisters. Our laughing fit in the graveyard set the tone for the entire evening. One of those nights you will never ever forget.

— running along Lake Michigan, every day, during my years in Chicago. Ahhh, that skyline. My walkman, the long sweep of shoreline …

— sitting around the table on Beth’s deck, drinking wine with my dear friends from high school. Mere, Betsy, Beth … ramekins … stars overhead … utter joy.

— the night Miles played piano for me in the locked-up improv club in the middle of the night. Many people didn’t understand why I loved that guy (although Mitchell always did) – but if they could have seen him on that night, they would never have asked any more questions. Miles played the piano for hours in the empty dark club, and I danced, and sang along, for hours. Our time together was coming to an end and so we reveled in it. That’s why I loved that guy.

— walks on Narragansett Beach with my parents, talking, or not talking. Enjoying one another’s company.

— the night of “the fabric morgue” – which honestly, deserves its own post. I can’t even begin to describe it.

— Sundays over at the Wagner apartment in Chicago. Our home away from home. Jackie, David, Maria, Me, Mitchell, Brian, Amy. We still talk about that time in our lives with such fondness, such love. The simplicity of those days.

— sitting on the deck at the Ocean Mist, with my siblings and friends on a summer night. Waves crashing, moon rising, all of us there … nowhere else to be, nothing urgent to do, an endless summer night …

— my long afternoons and weekends with Cashel in Brooklyn the first 4 years of his life. Precious time with him. Precious.

— my 5-day stint in Milwaukee, performing at Summer Fest with Pat McCurdy. Never had so much fun in all my life. Ever. It was LIFE-CHANGINGLY fun. If I had had any more fun, I would have spontaneously combusted in a fiery mesh. Let me brag and bask in the memory: The image I particularly would like to take with me is: the feeling of walking out from behind the thick green curtains onto the stage as the opening strains of my song began. I was wearing a bowler-hat, a black bustier, fishnet stockings, tight black shorts, and combat boots (I looked awesome, I’m not ashamed to say it)… and hearing/feeling, as I appeared, the cheers of thousands of people. 4,000 people were there, screaming. Glory. Fame. Yeah. I was a rock star for 5 days. What’re you gonna do about it??

— the sound of waves, the sound of rain, the sound of wind

— Oct. 27, 2004.

— the feeling I got when I opened my first acceptance letter, and then the feeling immediately following: “Oh God, I have to call my parents right now to tell them.” I am blessed.

— Lenny Kravitz’s “Fields of Joy”. The song changed my life. I heard it at the right time, I guess. A dark time. The song said to me, “It’s okay … let joy back in … it’s okay … There is still happiness to be had on this earth …”

— the weekends at Brian Jones’ apartment surrounded by dear friends. Cooking spaghetti, jitterbugging, playing old records, swinging (it was an old warehouse, and he had a SWING in his kitchen), trying on old hats from his boxes of costumes, talking, napping, being together. Brian Jones sold that apartment 15 years ago and we all still talk about it. Time stretched out when we all would gather there. I swear, that a weekend would last 10 years.

— making my dad laugh

— playing with neighborhood kids during childhood, summer nights, fireflies, crickets, a feeling of complete safety, the sound of the mothers calling us in to dinner – from this house, that house … as we scrambled through the grass, living fully in the land of our imaginations, ignoring the sounds of our mothers voices. The soft summer night on our skins. Such freedom. Such peace.