I am typing this after watching the movie Roadrunner.

I met Anthony Bourdain once, he was on tour and did a show in Vancouver. By that time, the episode about Panama had been released, and I jokingly said he had to redo it because he spent more time filming a pile of cocaine than tasting the food.

I didn’t really *know* him. But whatever he was seeking, that feeling is too real to me.

That scene with Iggy Pop, I wanted to let out a loud sob in the theatre.

Iggy has seen it all, lived it all…but feeling LOVED? Wow, there’s nothing like it.

And we know, deep down, that this was the reason why Bourdain is gone. He never allowed himself to feel that, to receive that.

Here I am, wishing this could all be a movie, so I could jump into the screen of those last moments of his life and…

…and what?

I just got it.

You were the first misfit who built a bridge for me to see in real time. You were odd, you were you, and you were praised. And that seemed like hope. We had options. Those of us who want the same, feeling normal in a world that you constantly want to detach yourself from.

It wasn’t enough. I get it now. I get why it wasn’t enough. You were chasing ghosts. I understand how elusive your chase was.

We could have drunk ourselves into a comma, contemplating a line or two of a Bukowski poem. NOTHING FILLS.

FEELING IS TERRIFYING.

I no longer have a choice though. In comparison, I got off the mad race with a slap on the hand and a $50 fine.

You were beautiful.

You were a romantic.

And no one teaches us how to carry this shit without breaking.

Without becoming numb.

Without wishing someone could wipe our wiring and give us a new programming that would make it all seem…bearable.

I still have a long way to go, or who knows, it’s just A WAY. I don’t know the length.

I think I figured out how to keep the essence and get rid of the rest.

I think I figured out how to love the darkness without being engulfed by it.

I think I figured out how to look at l’appel du vide and feel tenderness for it.

I think I figured out how to walk amongst my demons and not let them become a label, a curse, inescapable destiny.

THIS will never go away. But I don’t run away from it anymore. This is not me. It is the air I breathe and it is also an illusion. I wish you could have seen that. You were so good at holding ambiguities.

I am learning what the fuck the light is all about.

I am learning to let the light in.

I am learning that I can hold this outpour of emotion and not drown in it.

I am learning that everything about this is good, sacred, necessary, human. It is so beautiful it hurts. It hurts because I’m a mangled scruffy animal who stopped resisting and fighting its own nature. I stopped fighting the cage of my own making. When I did, the door opened. And I got out. But I’m still getting to know the reflection in the mirror.

What is this enraged beast going to do now? Who is she now that she doesn’t have to run and fight the ghosts?

Mind you, I have only escaped one box. I’m painfully aware of that. Except this knowledge doesn’t crush me anymore. It is my fuel.

I wonder though if I am still being naïve and a dreamer.

Maybe in 30 years I will understand you.

I hope that I don’t.