Dear Sara,

When you were dying – in the very short spaces where I let myself really know that you were – I thought I knew when I would miss you. And I was right – I miss you today, on the anniversary of your death, on my birthday, on yours. I miss you whenever I see Ewan McGregor. When I’m home and drive by Puccini’s and when I go to the drugstore to stock up on candy before a movie. Whenever someone says that they hated Moulin Rouge with a roll of their eyes (in my head I always imagine your exasperated response).  Whenever I want to talk about the complexities of family. I will miss you dearly when I marry and in weak moments I let myself imagine you there, grinning at me.

But I never could have known this.

I never really call myself an artist. And by never really, I mean that I don’t – ever. I’ve thought a lot about why in this past year. How easily I bestow the label on others. How it feels like something that I can’t claim, without risking the dreaded omg-who-does-she-think-she-is.  Why I care who people think I am. If I should. I try to push myself, to find my voice, to say what I need to say, but I do so quietly and behind-the-scenes, leaving things uncreated and unsaid and unpublished.

I remember how it felt when you called me an artist.  You threw it out so casually and so often, ignoring the way my eyes widened in protest, in please-don’t-tell-them-that.  You did so long before I even found my medium. When I was sitting next to you at Herron, trying so hard to transfer what was in my head onto the paper, trying and failing to bend the colors to my will. You always made it look so effortless and I humped along and I never understood how I got to be a part of this “we.” This we who were artists, who created things. You were an artist and you looked the way artists should look and you talked the way artists should talk. Everything was altered under your touch – your hair a daily sculpture, your car a political statement, your skirts shortened, your jeans tattered.  I was the opposite of an artist — cerebral, a reader who parted my hair in the middle and wore prairie skirts and made lists and got lost in my own head.

But when I came over you would have two canvasses gessoed and you’d haul out your paints and we’d sit in the front yard and I would say what should I paint? And you would say, whatever you want to paint! You always said this while already painting. And so I would paint because when someone hands you all the tools and sits beside you, what else are you going to do?

Your paintings were always vibrant and full and sometimes tortured, though I’m not sure you ever saw them that way. You painted the things you knew and the things you wished you knew and the things you were trying to teach yourself. I remember when you brought your painting of Che into school – the one that said “A true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love” –  everyone one loved it and no one knew quite what it meant. And I thought well no, sometimes revolutionaries are guided by thirst for power or struggle over the control of resources or plain blood sport. But I looked at your painting and I wanted to believe it. That was the power that your art had.

My paintings were horrible by anyone’s estimation. They lacked all detail or nuance or cohesion. They were often quite thick because I just layered paint over paint, hoping that it would turn into something worth seeing. I worried about wasting your paint because nothing ever came of it but it never bothered you. I wished I had something to say, that I was sure like you.

You called me an artist to my face and I’d say oh I’m no artist. And you’d scrunch your nose and say Sierra, of course you are, you make art, don’t you? And I’d say I guess so, but in my head I knew that I wasn’t. There were other requirements and I didn’t fill any of them. And now, when we’re out and I hear friends tell someone she’s a photographer, and they look at me head-cocked, I rush to add oh it’s just a hobby or yeah, I take pictures. I see you just over their shoulder, shaking your head.

I know it’s not just a hobby. Because I see beauty everywhere, and sadness too. Because I have things I need to say. Because when I don’t make time to create, something essential in me withers. I realize now that you were feeding this before I even knew I was hungry and in these moments when I inch closer to naming myself I miss you so deeply it feels like I might break.

Love, Sierra

If you’d like to download it, please click here. The password is chud.

(Song credits: Blindsided by Bon Iver; Good Man by Josh Ritter)

Forty years go by with someone laying in your bed
Forty years of things you say you wish you’d never said
How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead

As I’ve been reflecting on the past year, and all the tremendous loss and love that it offered up, this is what I keep returning to: the incredible power in the words that I choose to speak, the lasting effects of how I choose to treat people. I believe strongly that the most effective way to cut down unfairness or apathy or rudeness or meanness is to refuse to respond in kind. The rub of course is that in those moments, it’s actually incredibly difficult to be the first to soften your voice or go for the laugh in an argument, to refrain from rolling your eyes, to bite back the sarcasm and let the vulnerability slip through instead.

I think that my struggle to keep my heart open and kind while also setting boundaries and standing tall will probably be lifelong, but when I revisit the memories I created with my friends who are no longer here, every disagreement seems so minor. So unworthy of harsh words or animosity. Every single one. It’s given me a fresh perspective, a reminder that life is short and sometimes brutal. That nothing is more important than holding on to the kindred souls that I have been lucky enough to stumble across. That no amount of pride or ego or good old-fashioned stubbornness could ever be more satisfying than choosing kindness.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
[maya angelou]

I always forget the aftermath. How with every emotional investment, there is this on the flipside, this whole feeling-like-I’ve-been-run-over-by-a-bus thing. This week has been an emotional roller coaster. I’ve flown across the country, worked without sitting or stopping or sleeping to get out the vote and then spent 17 straight hours working the polls. And then the win, the wins! The presidency. Virginia. Nevada. New Mexico. Colorado. Indiana. And my friend Matt won his race and is now Connecticut State Representative Matt Lesser from the 100th District (I know, right?! how awesome is he?). So much joy and I am not at all ashamed to admit that I cried over and over again.

And then the day I flew home, a new family member was born (Welcome to the world Baby Wills!) and I found that Prop 8 has indeed passed and many of my loved ones are once again second-class citizens in California, which took the wind out of my sails and reminded me how much work we have left to do. How much work we must do to ensure that the civil rights of all people are intact.

And then yesterday was the anniversary of the death of my friend, David.  I cannot believe it has been a year and my thoughts are with Lisa and the rest of his family and friends. These moments are so bittersweet and I just cannot believe that he and Charlie and Sara are just not here anymore, were not able to fight this fight with us and revel in this awakening because they would have loved it.

Charlie’s parents (our neighbors & best friends) loaned me his car to use when I was in Indiana. It was waiting for me in the driveway when I arrived and they had painted it. On the front it said “Obama,” backwards and in huge letters so that people would see it in the rearview mirror. On the back it said simply, HOPE.

I drove it around all weekend, and it meant so much to me to have a piece of him with me on this journey. He loved Obama and I know he would have loved to watch our home state light up bright blue. When I climbed into the car on the way-too-early mornings, I could feel him nudging me gently to just push a little bit harder and it was easy to, for him.

And I thought so often of Sara, and how she would have reveled in the slew of first-time voters who practically danced up to the flimsy cardboard booths, grinning in anticipation, feeling like they mattered. She always believed in the power of hope, and the good in people and I missed her in every triumphant moment.

This campaign has affected me deeply. Not so much because of Barack Obama, though of course he played a role. Because it has reminded me of the incredible power of community. Because it has pushed back against the cynicism that had begun to eat at my edges. And in its place have sprung new vulnerabilities, which feel raw and open and scary and above all, beautiful.

Good Morning.

I keep a rather obsessive calendar, but the dates that really matter, that are leaden with meaning, never get written down. I need no reminder because they are seared into my unconscious and skulk quietly in the background of my mind.

The day the towers fell and I was sitting in an auditorium, a senior in high school and I yelled at strangers because they were talking so loudly that I couldn’t hear the news coverage and people were trying to call their families in Manhattan and DC and oh my god can’t you see this is more important than who cheated first? SHUT. UP.

The day Sara died. The day David died. The day Charlie died.

I know I’m supposed to focus on the attacks today, but I can’t help but think about my friends. I feel guilty, but this is the loss I know and the loss I have gone through and the loss I have survived.  It is their faces that appear because I loved them. Because I have witnessed their loved ones try to let go and gather the pieces and face the future with courage.

When I think about 9/11, this is what comes: families and friends left behind, whole cities braving that kind of fight, leaning on each other and crying together and trying to live again.

I’m not someone who dwells in the past. I focus on the world I’d like to make and who I’d like to be and how I can get there. But some days are meant to be heavy – will always be heavy.

And so all I have to give today is my heavy heart, and the wish that your peaceful moments grow longer.

Feel the light caress your fingertips.
You have just begun, the word has only left your lips.
Maybe in time, you will find
your arms are wrapped around the sun
you’re wrapped around the sun.

[Big Strong Girl, Deb Talan]

For Lisa & Elizabeth & Laurie.

This June first I was in a boat on the Everglades, surrounded by good friends and so much beauty and watched this wicked storm close in on us. I spent a long time sitting on the front of boat, legs stretched out, leaning on the low railing, nothing in my vision but mangroves and clouds and salty smooth water. It felt like flying and I thought about how much Sara would love it, about how many experiences she will never have.

I was walking home from work today, disappointed and frustrated and tired and sad, thinking too much and trying to will my shoulders to relax. The rain came hard and quick and I fumbled my ipod into my purse so it wouldn’t drown. The shuffle pulled this song, a song that has languished unheard for years and I stood on the corner of Mass Ave, not trying to stop the streams that dug a path from my hands to the hem of my skirt to the tops of my feet, remembering the first time. I was sixteen and a boy told me it was one of his favorites because it’s so sad, but so hopeful, you know?

Yeah, I know.

I started writing this post on Sunday, but couldn’t find the heart to finish it, so it sat languishing in draft form. Imperfect though it is, I decided to release it.

I was watching the news today and in between each broadcast they had a picture of a solider with a memory spoken by a mother, father, wife, brother, friend. And what struck me was how young most of them were. My age, younger than me, younger than my little sister, unable to even order a beer in a bar. I’ve lost three friends this year, all of them so young, far far too young and I started crying hearing the broken memories of loved ones who had lost. Thinking I feel one smidgen, the tiniest fraction of what they feel and even that feels unbearable sometimes.

I’d like to offer my own memories of those that sit in the three empty chairs of my mind, whose faces I see everywhere.

For Sara, who I see outside, sitting next to me in the sun in her front yard with freshly gessoed canvases in front of us, telling me to not think about it, to just paint. Who always encouraged my art, who pushed me to create and told me that my voice was worth broadcasting. Who always fought for the disenfranchised, who made it okay that I felt things too deeply and cried over the plights of complete strangers, because she did too. Who when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up always said the President of the United States, what do you want to be?

For David, who I remember at fourteen, trying to convince Anne and I that very bad music was in fact very good music. Who was so lucky to find the great love of his life in Lisa, who fought cancer so hard I thought for sure he would overcome it by sheer force of will, that it would have to succumb under the pressure of all the love that he radiated and attracted. Who wore F*ck Cancer across his chest.

For Charlie, who I remember squinting in the forest, plotting. Who was my spirit brother and my partner-in-crime and my friend. Who took care of my sister and had no enemies and is grace personified. Who lived for children and books and most of all Laurie. I remember his irreverence, his dry humor, the way I often had to pause before laughing to make sure he was actually joking. I remember sharing tiny secrets that felt so huge at the time.

Sometimes I forget they are gone because they show up in my dreams, and then the sharp blow to the head and mostly I just miss them. And I have nothing to offer anyone who is grieving except solidarity and that is not enough.

One day I hope to walk into a room with four chairs and they will be sitting there and they will look at me and grin and say Sierra! We’ve been waiting for you.