Warren Zevon

I’ve known this for a very long time.  I’ve even told a few people, but it didn’t really prompt me to take much action on it.  To my credit, it’s hard to know where to start on a grieving project, which is what I feel like I have in front of me.  So I suppose I put it on my Virgo to-do list, as if it is something I can tackle like organizing the basement (I’ve been notoriously slow on that, too).

Anyway, here’s the thing: I never really fully grieved when Warren Zevon died.  Yes, I cried.  Yes, I talked about it, and still do in comfortable contexts.  I’ve written about it a little.  But I also compartmentalized it – put it away in some corner of my brain where I could access it nominally and even feel sadness, without having to really walk through the fire.  This has done a lot to block my movement through the other huge losses over the past decade.  I believe it’s done damage to my ability and desire to write.  I don’t know how deeply it’s worked to obscure my ability to be effective in life overall.  I wonder what it’s done to my accessibility as an authentic, flesh and blood friend and lover and seeker of Spirit.  I’ve got to write through tremendous grief build-up to get to the other side of Emotional Rehab Mountain.

It has been exactly 10 years today that I received the call from my dear friend Nancey:

“He passed.”

Those were the only words she needed to say for me to understand immediately.  I’m glad I heard it from her, one who really, really got the essence of this man & his music.  Last night, she was the one to remind me of the anniversary.  Earlier this year, I’d thought a lot about the looming date, but filed that away too, leaving it to wait in line with the process of grieving itself.

I had the amazing luck or karma or whatever to grow up to actually get to know this intense and brilliant man whom I idolized since I was 12.  There is just as much rich life-stuff in knowing and understanding and learning from the letting go.  It’s just not the easy part.

Back when I was allowing myself to remember the date, I gave some thought to what to do about this 10th anniversary.  I tried to push myself to write some major article or even a book with stories of WZ as a major factor.  One of the things he encouraged me to do is to journal daily.  I’ve hardly lived up to that.  The best way I can pay respects today is to start to remedy the reasons why.  Ready or not, it’s finally happening.

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