"Death," she says,

"in every moment, death by the millions is being averted. For this reason, every party must be of the highest quality." - Brian Francis Slattery, from Spaceman Blues: A Love Song

On Sunday afternoon I took this photo:

This is my picture of something happy. Two beers, two shots, two notebooks. A boy who I think is worth it. A chilly, windy afternoon but the wind left us alone in our outdoor garden, either out of consideration or because it couldn't be bothered. Our outside was calm. It was warm and still.

Usually there's a welcome storm after, sometimes one that I create myself, because you can avert death for awhile, but I've learned that  it can't be avoided. Some of us are lucky and cheat it for an awfully long time...but sometimes a car comes too fast, a plane goes down. Sometimes you find a tumor that doesn't take your clean lungs and daily yoga class into account. And what, then, the hell can you do. Death's a persistent asshole.

So we celebrate, and often. Those of us who survive: we drink, eat, kiss, hug, love. There's nothing else. We're not dead, so we'd better live, damnit, because there's a big "who knows" that looms large, larger these days, larger still at night when an able, powerful man makes an announcement that changes everything, even if we only remember it for a few weeks.

People followed this advice wholeheartedly on Sunday night: dancing in the street until well after midnight, getting too drunk and toasting a new beginning, a new era, the end of a monster. Jubilation, I mean, pure joy, streamers streaming and revelers screaming. Applause, applause, a standing ovation and pats on the back. Have another drink. Buy another round.

Usually this kind of thing is right up my alley. I can't get behind it, though, not this time, not in this way. I just can't. It's not natural, it feels like steroids, it's still too damn scary. I didn't sleep for a second on Sunday night. This is big, brazen, weighty news and maybe it's my constitution but happy is not what I feel. Relief, a bit. Anxious...oh yeah. Solemn, conflicted, confused, angry (still angry, ten years ago angry). But not happy. There's no "joy." Maybe I'm making it more complicated than it has to be. It's sort of my way.

Sometime I'll tell you about the six years between college and my move to New York. The world went crazy, my little charmed world that I used to, without prompting, thank goodness for every day as a child. As things finally settled down and I started to get my bearings, I vowed to celebrate everything. I threw parties, cooked lavish dinners that I couldn't afford, organized a birthday bar night for myself (I'd never done). I drank margaritas at lunch. I bought myself clothes. I stayed out too late.

I've since calmed down a bit. I still try to celebrate, even when it doesn't seem necessary. But it's been tempered by the acceptance and worry that come with great loss or almost-loss, and the subsequent revised expectations. I try now more to appreciate, be grateful for, love the people in my life.

I will love you, all of you, you who are still here and you who have moved on, for as long as I'm able to and even when reason's left me. I'll love you when I'm lying awake in bed with only my insomnia to keep me company, I'll love you as I'm frying eggs and making coffee in the morning, I'll love you through lunch and dinner, a beer and a shot. I'll love you as world leaders fall and others rise, as death is averted and succumbed to, death by the millions or death of one.

Of course I'll continue to have parties, because they're important. We'll have celebrations of the highest quality. I've learned, though, over the years and through the times: It's not as much about the party as who I'm there with.