Back in the day when I was limber and shoulder pads were in, I used to cool down from ballet class to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. I am listening to it now and I finally hear music and it feels good… There, I’ve said it. Tonight, I feel good. And even as a twinge of anguish for the loss of my friend sweeps down my spine, I am drawn back into the music and with it toward new feelings of hope and anticipation for the future.

I kicked off the evening with Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game after an amazing drive to Walnut with a friend to shop for rugs, of all things. But it was fun. Then, sitting, drinking juice and eating a bowl of soup, watching him play with my dogs, talking, enjoying the weather, the sunset, I used the word “faith” in the context that I believe things are going to be okay.

I thought faith is a simple enough word, but then I use words liberally, like I’m icing a big, sloppy cake. Am I able to reconsider the words I use, know why I am using them, apply a logical thought process and be able to defend them? He wants to understand Me… No different than a reader of one of my plays.

Finish the thought, Bennett. It’s a good note.

I had a dusk-to-dawn porch light installed because she is not here to light the candle in the window. I had a motion detector light installed under the garage eave because it gets dark at night. I am surrounded by light. I am also immersing myself in noise to staunch the quiet. I would say (write) music, rather than noise, but I don’t hear it yet. I hear dry, but connected, tones that do not move me. Music used to move me… lying on the living room floor with my eyes closed, Really listening to “Hotel California”… Playing the grooves out of “Rumours”… Rerunning my “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” 8-track tape.

I wrote a play with music in January. I’ve titled it “Bender”. I wrote original lyrics and convinced playwright Karen Fix Curry to write the (lovely) music. The play started as an experiment in dialect. I determined to write three connected one-acts but they blossomed into a full-length instead. It’s about three women who discover their individual, unique voices once they finally accept each other’s friendship and themselves for who they are. It was selected by OCPA Studios for a reading on April 27, 2013 at Stage Door Repertory Theatre in Anaheim. But she won’t be there to experience it. So I’ll dedicate it and the day to her. And the next day I’ll rest, meditate and pray for the strength to get out of bed.

I mean, can you have this much stuff? Surrounded I was. Walls coming down on me. The smells of her and dust and filth. Uncluttered I am now after disposing of… so much. Yes, it’s freeing. I’m pondering, releasing, transitioning more every day. Write a play, some say. It’s too soon… feels hinky. Or is it? I do feel the stuff zooming, hiding when I turn to peer around at it, skirting my subconscious. God dammit. I know there will come a day when I sit down in the freshly laundered purple pjs she bought me from Bloomies, my first, but where she spent her young professional years shopping. Sitting in a newly painted room with slide guitar playing in the bg to cut the unnatural silence of me not yelling because she was hard of hearing. It feels usury to think about it now. The wound is too deep. It’s too soon. But i know, someday, I’ll write. And it pains me now because it means I am that much farther away, removed, which makes me madder — even as I know I’ll be cherishing, paying homage to her… It’ll be from a distance.

Charlotte, as she preferred to be called, died peacefully on March 18th at the tender age of 84. It is not my intention to be flippant in the use of “tender age” rather than “ripe old age”. My dearest friend didn’t want anything to do with old people and became as if five-years-old again in her later years. In fact, I was wont to call her Baby Charlotte, a nickname she had when she was a much younger woman, before I knew her.

Charlotte said, “I’m not going to die tonight” and I’m guessing through the sheer force of her indomitable spirit, she did survive until 12:35am on the 18th. I am devastated. Once the shock wore off that first day, I felt as if a rocket launcher sent a missile through my chest. The wound was both gaping and terrible.

She got mad at me when I got fat and grew my hair out, as I was no longer “chic”. But, in general, to her, I moved the sun and the stars. I was the smartest kid on the block. Who is going to ever think that of me again, I wonder… Who am I, if not seen through Charlotte’s eyes?

We joined households seven years ago and she was the first person I spoke to in the morning and the last person I said “sleep well” to every night. Charlotte was my best friend. She was also the person to whom I read scenes and dialogue and talked about conflict and action and plays and life and politics and animals and controversial issues in the news.

Charlotte studied at the Pasadena Playhouse back in the day, did summer stock, and moved to New York where she wore a mink hat with a black ribbon, high heels, red lipstick, gloves, and worked for an esteemed theatrical producer. Later, in Los Angeles, she worked as a casting assistant on many recognizable films and television shows.

While I mourn my friend and find myself surrounded by silence, I wonder, now who is going to read my work? Who is going to be my sounding board, my confidant, my champion, my best friend, my muse? I wonder if I’m strong enough to stand alone. I am certain she was prepping me for this day. God, I miss her.