Visceral Memories

Alice would have turned 41 this Saturday, March 26, and we're planning to fly the butterfly kite in commemoration of her birthday. In the meantime, I'm feeling like writing, so I'm going with it, gratefully.

So much happened during our recent visit to Los Angeles, I'm still struggling to organize it all.

One moment remains with me more than others, and of course it has to do with Alice. Upstairs in my mom's home, L was headed to the "girls' bathroom," then stepped in. I followed after her as she was closing the door. I still tried to walk in, regardless of her effort to slam the door, and in a flash I was 8 and Alice was 9, on the other side of the door, keeping me out.

Except it was 2011, and L was pushing the door closed, on my face. I accepted it, and walked away, sulking, as I typically did back then.

While I miss Alice incredibly, I don't miss the frequent scuffles we had, where I was usually blocked out. My recollection is that Sophie or Alice forever excluded me from their activities, as was their prerogative.

And now L reminds me what it felt like, with one swift shutting of a door.

Surprise at the Cemetery

During my recent sojourn in California, I was intent on visiting Alice's gravesite. Wow, it sucked hard to write that, "Alice's gravesite." When again did that happen? And what the f`ck happened, exactly? Also, why? In some ways I'm still beside myself in shock, and yet this trip to Rose Hills didn't feel the same as past visits.

Exiting the 605 freeway, I saw a couple of flower peddlers along the road, and through the passenger window I looked carefully at their bouquets. I wanted to buy one, but they had carnations among the flora, and Alice didn't like carnations. They were too pedestrian, not special enough. She inherited this sentiment from our mom. So instead I went to the shop outside the cemetery gates, selected a diverse assortment of stems, and asked for an arrangement to be made. It turned out pretty.

I was going to commune with Alice, solitarily, and try to feel her presence. When I arrived in the general vicinity of her burial site, it took me several minutes to locate her tombstone. What relief I felt when I finally found it. In a true surprise, there were fresh flowers already in the container at the foot of her grave. I took a picture, above. I thought of a couple of people who may have been there the week of March 7, but I couldn't be sure. I was touched that someone was thinking of Alice, right alongside me.

In terms of communicating with her, vocally all I could muster was "oh, Alice." I reflected on how life has changed since September 2006, and imagined beaming these thoughts up to the heavens so she could hear me.

I thought I would cry, but I didn't. Over time I've come to know Alice as not being alive, and that thought is rather matter of fact inside me, it can't be argued. It's been there for four and a half years now.

So I sat on the grass for 20 minutes or so, and took in the blue sky, the rolling hills, and the lush grass all around. It was almost pleasant, I hadn't had this kind of warm solitude for many months. I reflected on how I had Alice to thank for this moment. Which is totally tragic, and I'm back to how f`cked up her death is in the world.

Later that weekend, I videotaped a short interview with my mom about her upbringing, for posterity. During the conversation she referenced Alice, and how nobody ever thinks of her. I asked how she knew this? She said if whoever is thinking of Alice doesn't tell my mom, then they're not thinking of her. How plainly ridiculous, I thought. People can think personal thoughts and not share them with anybody; this doesn't mean their thoughts don't exist.

And still, I knew well my mom's wish to know the comfort of other people's memories of Alice. I suggested we had to look harder to know that people still remember Alice.

The flowers at Rose Hills are a perfect example.

A picture of both bouquets side by side, as I left the grassy knoll, above left.

Free Ways

Driving in Los Angeles on a recent visit to California, I was struck by how much life there is on the freeway. When I lived there, I took it for granted--along with everybody else--that the freeways were actually free, meaning you don't have to pay a toll to get on or off them.

On these roads was where Alice felt the most free.  In whatever cute car she drove, she would freely crank up the volume on her stereo, force her foot onto the accelerator and speed through the state's arteries to her destination.

And while most people drive in solitude like Alice often did, I saw an inter-connectedness among drivers on the highway that I never felt before this visit. Every person at the wheel is aware of her place in the lane, and must pay close attention to the location of other vehicles around her, to the extent that everybody is doing this dance of merging into different lanes, changing speed, accommodating others while moving closer to where they're headed. Driving can actually feel social in this way. 

So I'm struck, so to speak, that Alice died on the freeway, amidst so much life on the roads. She was a social California girl, so it's poignant that way.

This post is feeling kind of heady to me, a little less heartrending, going on 5 years of her physical absence in my life. So moves my grief, upward through my body.

I was talking with my father at one point during this visit, and he said, "She crashed two cars." I was reminded that Alice did crash my father's beloved 1974 beige Dodge Colt, right outside of our high school circa 1988. Plus the totaling of her damn Jeep makes two wrecks. We then talked about what a terrible driver she was.

"I miss her," he concluded.

Image of the Los Angeles freeway via