You Can’t Take It With You

But if I could, here are some of the memories I would like to take with me when I die.

— 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!” 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 in Beth’s backyard, drinking wine with my dear friends from high school. Mere, Betsy, Beth, Michele … ramekins … stars overhead … utter joy.

— the night M. 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. M. played the piano for hours in the empty dark club, and I danced, and sang along with him, for hours. Then we sat at the bar, and talked, and played cards, and messed around, rolling about on the floor. Of an improv club after-hours. We laughed, we didn’t talk about anything deep, we just were being. 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 afternoon in Ithaca that Pat, Laurie, Michael and I went wine-tasting (posts about it here). Magic. A magic convergence of our individual energies and time and place to create something that was perfect.

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

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

— the afternoon that Guy, Kate and I went to go see Private Lives on Broadway with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan and then went out to Film Center Cafe (before they re-designed it and totally ruined it) and had martinis and talked for hours. There was something so perfect about that whole day.

— 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 with 3 dear friends – Kenny, Phil, and Ann Marie – 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. 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 – the huge Miller Oasis 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. 3,000 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

— the first weekend I met Alex for real when I was in Chicago for Kate and Tim’s wedding. We watched movies, we sat on the porch laughing so loudly we got in trouble, we just jumped headfirst into friendship, and we’ve never looked back.

— 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.

— sleeping over Allison’s apartment – watching movies, documentaries, Forensic Files, talking, playing with Charlie the cat and Oscar the dog … just time spent together. Nowhere to be, no stress, pajamas on … safe and cozy inside with my dear friend. Movies piled up.

— 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 spent at Brian Jones’ apartment in Rhode Island with 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.