Magic and Loss (to borrow a line from Lou Reed)
When I first heard this beautiful, painful and elegiac recording years ago, I was instantly transported back to a time in my life when I was very young and lost a very dear friend to suicide — I remember upon first learning of this, that I drank too much, passed out (the only time in my life I can remember doing so) and woke up crying, still trying to comprehend it.
As the years have passed, I’m still not sure that I have ever fully recovered.
Recovered as in: from the loss — from the brutal harshness of the details.
Recovered as in: how someone could suddenly just vanish from my life.
Recovered as in: my innocence felt lost to me, even more than losing my virginity in some ways, because I was now someone who was intimately familiar with death — and it felt as if — death now knew ‘where’ to find me.
I’m thinking of this now because as I am preparing to move to the UK, I am going through papers and letters, cards and notes that I have kept through these many years and geographical moves — and I came across a card from this person, a “Merry Christmas” card and I broke into tears — it felt like being swept away right back to that moment of discovery, when my dear friend Roger died by putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
