2008

pdt

wed
may
14

—Look at me! David said inside my head an hour or so before he died.

I had been sitting beside him, matching him breath for breath, in total synchronization and solidarity as he noisily struggled to keep afloat under deathly anesthetics.

I glanced at him and took in a deep impression of his face: eyes closed, mouth open, face drawn -- he looked like a dehydrated, struggling swimmer. I kept my breath synchronized with his heaving belly.

People in the room were telling Gina about the lake we skated on and worked around in central Massachusetts, back in the 70s, a major undertaking of sixty to eighty people, planting gardens, clearing fields, moving rocks, building dams, collecting firewood, ice-skating, making meals, holding meetings in a rustic barn, excavating ponds, and building David's new cabin.

Then I noticed a shade of eroticism in David's being, something that reminds me now of how an octopus changes color to express emotion. Somehow David was changing his emotional color, and at the same time, Gina, across the room, said, "Did people go skinny dipping? I had to ask."

pm
6:26