In the midst of packing, unpacking, planning optimal loft layouts, and strategizing freestanding wall options that don't require permits from the city (which has led to strenuous all-nighters involving the construction & joining together of several tortuous inventions by IKEA - namely PAX and EXPEDIT), I quickly jumped on the computer yesterday morning, bleary-eyed and wondering how we would make it to the big move day on Saturday. What to my wondering eyes did appear on Yahoo News? Dana Reeve's death.
Now.
I didn't know her personally. I did not spend a lot of my daily life until this moment thinking about her. Sure, I thought of her when there was a primetime interview I happened to stumble upon about her & her husband and all they were doing for those suffering from paralysis. The lobbying for stem-cell research. Yes, I thought of her for a more extended period of time after this death. I even, truth be told, thought about her a lot when I heard she was diagnosed with lung cancer a year and a half ago. But then I forgot about her. As we all do. Because we go on with our lives and our little dramas and the minutiae that seems so relevant, but is, in fact, so not.
Here I am, deciding which danish modern lamp might blend nicely with my mother's old kilim rug, worrying what this combination might say about who I am, wondering if it conveys the seriousness/playfulness of myself as a woman, as a writer, as a human being. Unsure if it will set the right tone at dinner parties. I am playing with my new washer & dryer because I have never had a washer & dryer and because I can finally use quarters for their intended purpose in LA -- parking, not laundry. I am actually feeling pressure about some of the paint decisions. So much so, that I wake up at night thinking about it and I get distracted by the endlessly subtle permutations of steely-gray-blue-gris paint finishes while I am at work and supposed to be, yes, working.
And Dana Reeves graciously lived her life, supported her husband immeasurably through very difficult times, was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his death and has now died of that cancer at the age of 44.
Shame on me.
