Sunday, November 8, 2015

Sunday Memories: The Walk and the Talk


This is Leigh.


She's brilliant.

I know because on a rare free night we went to see her one-woman show.

It is a wild stroll down her memory lane, some 30-years ago, of days that crushed her heart and left her hope in rubble. 

And between laughing and crying and gnashing my teeth because HOW COME I DIDN'T WRITE THAT LINE, a light dawned in a dim brain and a memory bubbled up.

I remember a walk she took with me then.

My heart was also crushed and and my hope also in the rubble.   I couldn't trust myself to be alone and safe at the same time.  Leigh was someone who seemed so together and stable and strong enough to withstand the disaster I suddenly was so I asked her if I could for just a few hours visit with her.

We visited.  But at some point she needed to keep an appointment.  I remember us walking down Second Avenue as the light faded. I was bracing myself to get through the next couple of hours.

I don't remember the words we said.  I just remember this strength and stride of Leigh's.  I just remember wishing I could be her, be stronger than what ailed me, and so much did then.

It was now 30 years later.  I was suddenly hearing how those days for her were just as crushing as they were for me.  Only this time, in a dark theater, it was me keeping her company... 

And still, I marveled at her, marveled, and even though those days were long behind both of us, I still wanted to stride as fiercely as she did.

**
Related Posts:

Why Water Falls

Leigh Curran 

Encore: Just in Time for the the Holidays: Thanking the Problems for Being the Gifts

Sunday Memories of When This Was Normal