A girl who's already half angel

Gabrielle Bouliane was a poet, filmmaker/cinematographer, and all around badass. We were acquaintances, not really friends, but she was one of those people who blurred the line, made the distinction itself seem absurd. The kind that made small talk feel not so small. - Hey, what's up Gabrielle? - Going out of my mind, but I'm making a film, and I love all my roommates, back in school and I'm broke, but hey that's ok - last week I had a terrible breakup but I wrote a great poem about it, and you? That kind of acquaintance. That puts you at ease and makes you think, we oughta be friends.

I saw her perform a bunch of times in Seattle, years ago, and admired and was a little bit scared of her fire, her skill, her blunt smart words, and her just-make-shit-happen-and-screw-what-anyone-else-thinks attitude. And also her vulnerability. She delivered the performance at the link below just weeks before she died from a rare form of cancer. (If the link doesn't work it's on my fb page too.)

http://bit.ly/b3WBV8

She is the second woman from the Seattle circles that I know to have died from cancer this year. Both deaths I learned about on facebook, a couple of weeks after I found out (from facebook) that each woman was ill. Facebook sometimes makes me want to hide. Not just from awful news like that, but from the old attachments and rejections and regrets that surround the awful news. And from the guilt that springs from even thinking for a second about the old attachments and rejections and regrets when hello, somebody DIED, here I am ALIVE, when I had stupid cancer too and could've died 5 years ago and really, why the fuck didn't I, God, when people like Gaby and Annie are gone?

But this is a self-indulgent ruse, I know, to avoid the hard business of living.

And saying I'm going to quit facebook is like saying I'm going to quit talking.

When I clicked "deactivate your account," I knew I didn't need their cloying second-screen ploys to bring me back. "Are you sure you want to leave? X will miss you! Send X a message!" Screw X. X hasn't even written on my wall in 3 years. I'm staying on for the deaths. The births. The redheaded half-angel exhortations. For the shit that makes me stop in my tracks and wake up, and pay attention, to the people that I am lucky to know, have known, have heard or seen or touched, been touched by, for even the tiniest moment in time.

Every moment, every attachment, every rejection, every regret: everything passes. Everything goes. Only one thing continues: life. And I'd sure as hell better do something with mine.

Cause if I don't, Gabrielle's gonna kick my ass.