KyleIt is funny how, when tasked to write something about a subject close to the writer's own heart, the words - those sticks and stones which can build quite a castle when describing something distant - seem to wither and die under the weight of such a tremendously "heavy" human being. Not heavy in size, or matter at all for that matter - but heavy in a vibration-sense. Yes, writing about a close friend, or a family member, is always one of the worst punishments a writer can inflict upon his person. Why is it so difficult? The person is so close, the writer is so fond of him, and the intimacy shared between them should provide an ample wealth for some fitting narrative or a lengthy passage of prose. Yes! The night we got roaringly drunk and devoured the entire night sky, walking home with our girls and our friends, from a karaoke bar in Japantown - or, some years prior, upon our first introductions we were hugging and grasping one another while klinking glasses and toasting to laughter and good times before pedalling up and down the curves of Lombard and beyond. Or the stories that come the next morning at breakfast, after we've parted ways and gone to our respective sleeping quarters as told by Spencer or Kara who often play host to Kyle when he's in town. ("You'd think 4am would be a good time to wind down, but no, the night broke the morning and continued on!" My favorites.) Close stuff, indeed, but so infinitely impossible to commit to paper. How is it that with the sticks and the stones a writer can construct a worthy monument to a stranger or even an imagined personage, yet cannot form even the most vague and ghostly picture of a good buddy? The writer knows the inner workings of the subject, he can forecast the needs and movements, can capture harmoniously the voice, can maybe give breath to his thoughts, but no matter how "realistic" the portrait becomes, the less and less it seems to resemble the actual friend.
I find it so hard, and I try so frequently.
There was a document we started, somewhere in a spare Steno-pad back at home, that contained a cummulative list of all the amazing things Kyle has said or done - I don't think he knows about it. In just twelve months, I think it totalled some eight pages - quite a feat, considering we only get to visit a handful of times each year. Were I to simply transcribe those notes, while I am sure they would garnish some laughter and immediate fun, I know they would not even began to approach what I feel for the friend and how happy I am to call him one - and that is the exact feeling I wish to impart on the readers, those three or four of you out there. I wish to present to you his lively countenance, his beaming smile, his glowing eyes, his shining grill, his infectious way of laughing, his outbursts of pure profanity coupled with the most affectionate of hugs; I want to explain to the reader why he is such an inspiration and such a wealth of leaping excitement and I want the reader to wish they could for just a second or two dance next to him or ride a bicycle happily/desperately behind him trying to stay on his rear wheel. It's impossible, the person, my friend and brother beard, is just too large! There's a chasm that forms, and the closer the other side seems to be (where maybe a short story lives) there is always that ever-deepening gorge the two sides (into which the writer falls when attempting his jump to the other side.)
Today, on his birthday, though, I can at least sing a song. He's with Adria, and their two cats, and maybe about to embark on a night of heavy drinking followed by some cake. He's in Japan, a gigantic American Tyranosaurus Rex, demolishing the city at large as though re-enacting a scene from Godzilla. He's jumping from a second story roof into a gloriously still pool, upsetting the surface of the water with a hearty and huge plunk that will send ripples in all directions and even some swells that slap the concrete coping and spill out all over the landscaping beside the thing. He's somewhere, I don't know, but I know he's happy.
What I think I like about adulthood is at a certain point after leaving home, you start to imagine yourself as an orphan. Eventually, that lonliness gives way to an immense feeling of needing family. Luckily, at this late stage in life, we are able to pick and choose who we consider part of that group. It's grown into quite a big extended one, spanning most of the coast from the north to Vancouver and down trickling through the south to Los Angeles - and Kyle is, above all, one of the best brothers a human could ask for. If we were together tonight, we'd shake the mountains and the shine radiating from our vibrations (which are: diamonds, platinum, purple label, and the beard trimmings of god and Hemingway) we would make the city's skyline seem dim and pale.
*The photo is by Kyle's beloved, Adria - who I would also like to attempt to approximate by way of some of my clumsy words, eventually. Eventually!
