Sticks and Stones and Broken Glass and Shells and Rusted Metal and and and and
Making an altar for Theresa starts simple: her
plants, a mirrored box of rocks, waterworn wood, a yoni symbol, a sun,
nailpolish ... and then I'm cramming things onto the surface, more rocks,
more driftwood, a toy biker babe, a flying bird, all of it in that moment
seeming like it HAD TO be there. And then I remember her apartment full
of things she HAD TO keep with her, rocks and rushes and dried plants charged
with her valuing of them, like I HAVE TO keep bits of shiny paper and rusted
metal for art supplies. That density of things that matter
was so much Theresa, passionately filling her life with people and doings,
and treating the everyday as sacred.
Time spent with Theresa was rich. She was often rushing off somewhere but once she got there, she let time stretch out
and enjoyed who she was with and what she was doing. We drove out to Durantz
Lake, swam across talking about triathlon training, then ate hummous and
pita while we read our Tarot cards and the sun dried us. She introduced me
to blue nail polish, saying it made her feel good to look down at her bright
fingers as she typed and remember that there was more to her life than
her job. She kept me company while I was housesitting and neither of us
wanted to be alone. She was a delighted testing ground for Jacqueline's
new tattoo pen before a Pride Parade, letting me decorate her however I wanted
and keeping our less decorated friends waiting. I can see her standing
in the field at Fishermans Wharf tall and smiling in her seethrough dress,
looking free and happy and gorgeous, watching the crowd.
I loved talking with Theresa. She was intelligent
and aware and proactive, common sense and fanciful. It used to drive me
crazy that she would talk in pieces of unfinished ideas puncuated with "blah
blah blah" - so smart, so able to see the whole, to put complex ideas into
something obvious and persuasive, but letting herself look like she
didn't really know what she was talking about. She thought with her mind
and heart and body and soul all reaching for solutions. She made room for "yes"
wherever she could. We talked about love and loss and frustration and beauty
and change and what to have for dinner. We talked about how to be our
kind of woman, loving who we loved, honouring our bodies in a world that
wants us to be ashamed. We shared fears and doubts and brilliance and audacity.
She loved to be outrageous, loved to be looked at with appreciation, loved
to wake desire, push limits. She followed herself. Listened to many, but
followed her own thoughts, did her own will.
She handed her apartment over to me last April
telling me it was a good place to heal a wounded heart. On blue nights
I'd think of her making a special place for herself at the table where
I pile books and art supplies, and I'd clear myself a space to eat my dinner,
light candles and feel connected to her. I've been missing her like crazy,
waiting for her to come home so we could talk some more, play some more, applaud
each other's daring, paint each other's nails. There's no one else like
Theresa.
Our friendship grew in intense hits between times when one of us was out of town or busy with other parts of our lives. It
grew like a weed, tough and
