thems the brakes kid.

so the summer before i left for grad school i went up to Alaska to volunteer and be a camp counselor. pretty tame for 'going up to alaska'... i always did regret my choice not to gut fish or something for the summer. it just turned out to be one of those insanely memorable times anyway- like any time at camp i guess. just amplify that for 2+ months- we had a crazy/militant director, there were coolers of hash and booze hidden in the forest, we got eaten alive by mosquitos, the nearest civilization was literally called 'the north pole' where the wendy's there was always christmas, we had a rickety suburban, the counselors were all making love matches... one ended in marriage a year later, the wedding i went to, in colorado, and they're still together 6 years later. the other ended in an on-again/off-again romance. the next (cary)- her words "i am not going to spend the rest of my life with him. period." typical of my life i had no love match but picked up a younger brother named tim (above) and his match was annie (also above). the on/off agains. while most of the time was spent as prototypically as possible- contemplating my life alone- canoeing on the calm waters as an eagle soars overhead-alone, to watching a double rainbow to staring out of a broken tent- alone- getting eaten alive by mosquitos- alone. while not ruminating about my poetic self standing on the abyss of the future alone i was counseling tim. he was a hot-head and i loved him like a brother- i heard all about the difficulties of his fathers approval, his mother, their life in minnasota, how he wanted to be a musician, how his father wanted him to be a doctor, his love for annie, our shared hatred for the director- i helped him cook for a few weeks (since he was the chef), listened to his music- went on reckless outings with him and meng- if he hadn't been such a stoned latently hostile asian i suppose he wouldve been my match, but mainly he was getting stoned in various empty cabins... alas. alone.

this is one of my favorite pictures because it's so quintessential. it tells a story i think. and volumes, even if i didn't know them. perhaps a bit sentimental. i kept in touch with them for the first couple years- with at least 5 of the counselors i made friends with. and then it dwindled down to 2- the married couple in montana. the last i heard of cary was that her boyfriend was taking her on a hot-balloon ride over the mountains, and i lost touch with tim completely. but i always wondered about him, hoped he was doing well- wondered if he and annie decided to stay together. and then the years back in LA passed and i wondered about all of them very little- you know those treasured mental snapshots, played over and over- certain moments. if that. so then,

annie finds me on myspace. i generally can't stand myspace but must love and cherish it for reconnecting me with 2 long lost friends. one from college and the other from this camp. i asked if she kept in touch with anyone and behind that 'anyone' was a certain name. tim. and i was so so glad to hear from her. because she was a great fun girl.

turns out though, tim died. apparently he'd been in a horrible car accident, they'd broken up 8 months before and she'd had and refused a chance to see him- he recovered from the accident only to die after he was released- not from an overdose of the pain medication, as thought, but because of a heart defect he'd had since birth. undetected. he died 3 years ago, last month, alone in his apartment. and i sit shocked and realize how much i wondered about the future of friends i let go, or let me go, or we just got cut adrift, and you never think that their lives ceased as you go on thinking about them and imagining them. but his did. and there's no more wondering what happened to him or where he is or what he's doing. and then the platitudes about borrowed time, all of it, borrowed time.

and so thems the brakes kid. that's life. and here's to remembering him just as he was.