AC/DC

I recently learned that Ed Clark passed away of AIDS in '92. If you're just arriving, please scroll down to the first post and read upward. This blog is personal and solely from my point of view. Its purpose is to honor this uniquely creative gentle artist who changed my life.

"Love is just acceptance."

- Ed Clark

[In this photo: Bob]


That Summer of '71, before Ed moved in, the tenant upstairs Bob used to come downstairs and hang out. He had a black cat named Eldridge (after Cleaver) who had a terrible sense of balance. We'd sit on the veranda talking while Eldridge would try to walk along the railing without falling.


Bob had a one-topic mind: sex. "Come on, Marlan," he'd say, "I can help you lose your virginity." Bob was a nice guy. But that was it. I'd sooner have busted my cherry with Eldridge. But Bob was relentless. One night he launched into a monologue that went:

"I've done it in a bed...in a car...on the floor...in a swing...on a stairs...in a closet...against a wall...in an alley...in a theater...in a rocking chair...in a parade...on a stage...in a helicopter...sitting on a fence..."

Instead of turning me on, it only made sex sound less than exciting. As if the "done it" referred to the tying of shoelaces instead of making love. I tried to imagine fucking Bob in a swing. What was the point again?

I mentioned Ed and Bob's reaction stunned:


"Do I know Ed Clark? He was my roommate sophomore year. I had this girlfriend Melissa who loved to screw. You know that Simon and Garfunkel song Cecilia? Well, I swear to God we were in bed and I got up to go to the bathroom and when I came back...Ed was in there with her getting it on!"

Was the story true?

Well, Ed and Bob confirmed their ex-roomie status after Ed moved in with me. Then one day while the three of us were in the laundry room, and I was sitting on top of a washing machine, Bob came up and kissed me while Ed was loading the dryer. Then Bob looked at Ed and said:


"Remember Melissa?"


Ed howled.


I had a theater professor who told us bisexual men like to share women (e.g., Look Back in Anger). Was Bob bisexual? I don't know. I don't think he was with us when Ed took me to a party where most of the guests were gay. As the hour grew late, Ed turned to me and said:


"You should go now and I'm going to stay and I'm not coming home tonight."

I was ignorant of the customs of gay men, but Ed's announcement didn't horrify me as it would have when I first came to Tallahassee. Did I feel rejected? It did hurt; but he made it sound like sleeping with a strange guy would not disturb our home life. And it struck me that it was something he had little control over.

Ed spending one night out with a man meant little to me. However, Ed calling me a few weeks later to say he was spending the night with Barbara...that was something else.


By the time I met Barbara, she was a legend in my mind. Ed often quoted her with the same reverence the Pope reserves for the Mother of God. The black and white photograph of her that had hung on his wall had been taken by a fellow art student majoring in Photography named Coleman. When Ed returned to finish his degree in the Fall, Coleman photographed him for an erotic series of nudes.


Ed described one of the erotic shots before I actually saw it:
"I am standing next to a bed with wrinkled sheets. Afternoon light coming in through the window next to me. The penis is still erect but not fully engorged."


Erect but not fully engorged...
I never asked how it got erect in the first place. It could have been any number of ways that didn't require the photographer's help. Maybe Coleman gave his subjects a pile of porn and sent them to the bathroom for a while. I decided not to ask.

After I finally met Barbara, one day we were talking about Coleman whom I had briefly (a diminutive man with an air of ironic dead seriousness, not unlike Andy Warhol). "We were walking along after we first met," Barbara told me, "and I asked him if he was a homosexual and he said yes." I was flabbergasted. Just the thought made me laugh. "You asked him?"


"That's how I am," Barbara said. "I just come right out with it."


I seem to recall Barbara had a New York or Chicago accent, and I think she was a Jewish girl from Miami. Gloria, my second roommate, was a Jewish girl from Ft. Lauderdale. Both shared an ultra-sophistication and a gnawing ambition. But where Gloria had been harsh in her projection of sexuality, Barbara appeared easy and secure in hers.


Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river...I can never think of that line without thinking of Ed Clark's Barbara.


That summer we lived together, Ed eventually decided it was time for me to meet Barbara (and maybe vice versa, I don't know). The first time, Barbara wasn't quite home yet and we waited in front of her sweet little studio apartment that was at below-ground level and attached to a larger house with its own entrance. It had a small bed that Barbara would lounge on and a couple of chairs for visitors.


Unlike Leonard Cohen's Suzanne, Barbara's place was nowhere near water, but she did feed visitors tea and oranges that came all the way from China. She had me at first glance--making an indelible impression--a delicate-boned elfin young woman, carrying a bag of groceries and wearing an unbleached muslin Mexican wedding shirt. As in the photo I'd seen on Ed's wall, her straight light brown hair fell just to her shoulders.


If I had to compare her to a well known film actress, I'd pick Helen Hunt in "Twister."


I wish I had taken pictures of Barbara. It's strange that I didn't, since I even have a photo of a dog swimming across a lake in Tallahassee. Perhaps I was intimidated. She had been photographed by an expert.


Who the fuck was I to think I had the right?


The only photo left that might even hint at her cool, is one of me copying Barbara's look. Taken after I moved to Boston the following year. I'm wearing a Mexican wedding shirt but it looked tighter, shorter and more appealing on Barbara's compact flapper body.


No matter how hard I tried to mimic, I remained more flatterer than imitator.

[Photo by Leonard Warren]


Back to our first meeting. So there we were waiting for the legendary Barbara when she strode up with a bag of groceries and sunny greetings. She took us inside and proceeded to pull out the treasures: Government Issue butter in a huge jar. "Look at all this butter!"


I had no idea butter was so valuable, and this was the first time I'd ever heard of the government "making" butter for distribution. Barbara explained that her boyfriend had cut his hand at work, and his disability qualified him for Welfare food. She showed us other similar goodies and suggested we have a feast.


Barbara declared she would make chicken soup.


"You can make the dessert," she told me. Maybe because I'd brought her some of my famous Betty Crocker banana cake. Or maybe Ed mentioned my fondness for baking (I had learned to bake bread too.)


Ed looked Barbara over and mused, "You ought to weigh a ton, you're so into food. How do you stay so skinny?" She answered: "I've never liked sweets. I like radishes and pickles. Crisp, tart things."


And I was to bring the dessert.


Ed joked that with her stunning cooking skills, she ought to move in with one of the lesbian professors of Art. "You'd be Alice B. Toklas and she'd be Gertrude Stein."


I'd never heard of either. I waited until I moved to Boston and a book review entitled From the Little Old Lady Who Brought You Hashish Brownies (a review of Toklas' cookbook) drove me to finally read The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by her genius partner/wife Gertrude Stein.


Barbara put aside the groceries and sat on the bed with her back in the corner of the wall and her legs crossed while we sat perpendicular to the bed. She had a casual but energized way about her that made me feel at home while simultaneously cowed by her.


"Do you like my new gypsy belt?" Barbara asked, thumbs hooked into the leather belt around her narrow hips, twisting it back and forth to show off the lilting etching of a vine that danced across it. (I got one like it a couple years later.)


When we returned for the "feast," Barbara served the chicken soup with a side of Kosher dill pickle. During the meal, she repeatedly urged us to "Eat the soup, now take a bite of the pickle." Because the dill complemented the soup.


It was the first time in my young life that anyone had ever illustrated how two unlikely things might go together.


Barbara didn't dress up for the feast. She wore a denim shirt with metal studs across the pockets and jeans. "I just put these studs on myself," she announced to Ed when we walked in. Ed cracked wise about her having a thing for studs. And then -


"Studs are wrong," Ed said with a sweeping gesture, he added: "I see you in...diamonds."


"No. Studs are better than diamonds," Barbara shot back with a straight serious face. Her voice flat with emphasis. If she absorbed his worship, she gave no indication. Or was Ed the "diamond" they both referred to? Barbara had a boyfriend but she was also on a kind of sexual odyssey, welcoming various willing attractive men into her bed for one-night stands.


In the days before seeking sensual freedom might kill you.


Sensuous is the word I would use to describe Barbara. It was a word bandied about in the 60s. In the dorm, the how-to book The Sensuous Woman by "J" had been passed around, and we girls had giggled over the "whipped cream and cherries" suggestion.

If the Angel of Death hadn't arrived in the 80s to imbue sexual freedom with anxious horror, such books would still be considered gospel among young girls eager to try their wings. But at that moment, in July of 1971, sexual freedom was synonymous with "freeing your soul."


As an artist, Barbara had a thing for pregnancy. One of Barbara's lithographs depicted a pregnant woman kneeling or sitting on the floor who appeared to be vibrating within concentric circles of energy. The lines of the woman were amber and the rest was white space.


Like Ed's art, Barbara's art evoked spirituality and transcendence. Creation itself was as meaningful to them as the subjects they chose.


One day when we were alone, I examined on Barbara's wall a shadowy black and white photograph of a very pregnant nude woman lounging in a hammock, perpendicular to its lateral lines--her long arms stretched out, holding the hammock's sides. The mound of her stomach visually paralleled the mound of her curly head behind it. While I admired it, Barbara said:


"Can you imagine how relaxed she must have been? In a hammock."


Can you imagine?


Barbara had a way of asking me "Can you imagine...?" As if something had been unimaginable until that moment but now worth contemplating above all else. She once told me about a pair of mind-blowingly beautiful sisters--regal, tall with olive skin and long black hair who had both been the lovers of Leonard Cohen.

They were supposed to be so stunning that you felt like falling to your knees in their presence.


"They did thing with makeup nobody else would dare do, but it made them even more beautiful," she told me. "They gilded their eyelids." As if that were the height of luxury, sensuous delight, and fuck-all nerve. "Can you imagine, Marlan...painting your eyelids gold?"

Barbara took a coffee table book of Klimt paintings off a shelf and introduced me to his vibrant ethereal images. The excess gold in them. How beauty could be achieved and how we could copy it. She pointed to her mink-colored eyes and said, "You have eyes with color. Beautiful green eyes. If I had your eyes, I would paint g-r-e-e-n..."


She said the word green as if my eyes could be imbued with magical powers if I painted this color around them. Barbara wore no makeup, and I sensed she was trying to fix me up. The days of my black-dyed hair and careful mascara were over. I wanted to look as good without makeup as Barbara did.


Despite my heroine worship, I resisted her makeup suggestion. Until I lived in Chicago in the mid-70s where I spent my days pursuing a career in acting, and did try gilding my lids with gold-green eye shadow. But by then Barbara was no longer around to give a thumb up or down.


One day Ed and I found Barbara running around the studio with a script in hand reciting: "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! It's 6 o'clock and the master's not home yet!" She kept repeating the lines from Skin of Our Teeth over and over. It was for a scene in an acting class. It turned out that she knew some folks from the Theater Department. So we had that connection also.


I was thrilled when she gave me one of her pieces. It was a print of a charcoal life drawing of two nude women. They were faceless and their genitalia non-existent so there was something androgynous in them. And they seemed to be floating in air like matching bookends with space between them as they faced each other.


"We were supposed to only draw the shadows," Barbara explained. It was sexy and I really wanted it. As it happened, Barbara had some prints and she signed one and gave it to me.


For years that drawing hung on my wall from Boston to Canada to Chicago to San Diego--until my 80s L.A. then-husband eventually objected because he thought it depicted two gay men having sex.


Update
A couple days ago, I received a note from Ed's mother thanking me for the photos and letter that I sent her upon news of his passing. I'd asked if she knew where Barbara was and she wrote back that Barbara sends her a Christmas card every year from Washington. "They wanted to get married but I asked them to wait until graduation. Then she married someone else."




Blogger's Note:  Memory vs. Truth
After I wrote this post, I purged my files of diaries and letters about my relationship with Ed Clark. Some match my memories, some don't. Others fill in blanks. One thread runs through all the episodes and communications: our inability to say we loved each other at the same time. I said it first and he shrugged. Then he said it years later long-distance and by then--as always--it was too late.


When I decided to quit college and move to Boston, my diary reports:


"Ed called my idea 'crazy.' He said, 'You need a break. Stay in Tallahassee. Work. Go back when you're ready.' He gave me many reasons to stay. Except the one I was waiting for: 'Because I need you and love you.'"


But I'm getting ahead of the story. The next post will simply be my diary from the time covered so far. Please remember it's the breathless writing of a 19-year old in the early 70s. 


In all my writings, there's not a word about Woodstock, Jane Fonda, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, or any of those iconic stylemakers who rocked the worlds of my fellow students. That Ed Clark was pursuing philosophy and Eastern mysticism while listening to Bartok and Beethovan means he was pursuing what seekers pursued during that time. He was more Alan Watts than Abbie Hoffman. More Timothy Leary than Tom Hayden. More Allen Ginsberg than Bob Dylan.

Sink Holes

I recently learned that Ed Clark passed away of AIDS in '92. If you're just arriving, please scroll down to the first post and read upward. This blog is personal and solely from my point of view. It honors this unique and gentle soul who changed my life forever at the first "hello."

"Love is just acceptance."

- Ed Clark

Four months after we met, during Spring Quarter, Ed moved back home to Jacksonville and whatever ground I'd gained under my feet thanks to our friendship began to slip away. We wrote to each other but the unsent letters still in my files:


Dear Ed:
I wish that I could meet you again someday when communication would not be so difficult. What is difficult about communicating for me? Fear of rejection. And what have you shown towards me? Acceptance. I miss your hungry drive for knowledge--not to acquire book learning, but an Answer. 
"Why do we go on?" I asked.
"Why not?" you said. 


Why not?


In Ed's absence, I took a break from philosophy and focused on politics, volunteering at a Socialist bookstore where I met Nick. Nick was cute and blonde and sweet and masculine. Easy and polite. He really liked me and got into the habit of picking me up mornings to drive to Leon Sink where we'd skinny dip as innocently as Adam and Eve before the serpent.


I was still a virgin but getting naked with guys seemed okay in the Woodstock sense of the word. It was a time when young women were encouraged to "go natural." I stopped wearing the makeup I'd learned to carefully apply the year before, and let myself gain weight.


The sink holes south of Tally offered the best free fun around. An Internet site informs me that most were closed for a while, but a few are now open again. They are still popular spots for swimming au naturele.


This Leon Sink had a rope that you could grab and swing yourself over the lake-like water before dropping down into the deep water. Here's a photo I took of a fellow student during a chaste outing with other suited friends a year earlier.

When I wrote to Ed about Nick, he wrote back that a nice guy like that was "a chance to come out of your shell." That response stung a bit. Not just the confirmation that we had no reason to possess each other in a vice of commitment, or the possibility that Ed himself was most likely dallying with whomever, but I also read it to mean:


"I tried and I give up."


Then in June he wrote:
Dear Marlan,
I’ve been caught up in things.  Quit one job and am looking at another.  I’ll find out Monday.  If you like Fromm, read Rogers On Becoming a Person or anything by Abraham asalow.  I’m still reading Nietzsche’s Just God, complete works on Zorasthutha, Good and Evil and a few others.  I’m fascinated.  I’m listening to Bartok and Mozart for pleasure.

My art is dwindling, but otherwise all I need is a good stone.

You should have more confidence.  A person’s merits are in their sincerity.  Have faith in your sincerity and it will carry you well.  Most doubts and fears are baseless until you act on them.  Trust your insights and desires.  They are your closest guides.

Love,

Ed

P.S. – I just reread your previous letter.  Down?  Relax.  Decide on small goals and a determined field of inclusion.  Enjoy what you do.  Get out of any situation that you do not enjoy by the simplest and most direct method, no matter the cost lest it be worse.  Or if it is worse, stay where you are till opportunities change.  They will in good time.  Then be happy, love what you can and broaden your interests and activities to the limits of your capabilities.  Be sincere, inquisitive and relax as often as possible.  Dream sweet thoughts and explore your imagination.  Go wild with pleasant winds and sweet fragrances. Enjoy yourself and those you can.  Imagine the world you want, then find out how to model it.  If it changes in the process, all the better.

That summer I decided to stay in Tallahassee and take a couple classes. I now had wheels, thanks to my dad selling me his Rambler, and I moved in with three female students in a large old 2-story house. My room was the smallest with a window facing the veranda. The only place for the bed was right under that window.


The whole upstairs formed a separate apartment and held four college-age guys. One of them named Bob took it upon himself to come down during our first week and say, "Last night I saw a peeping tom looking in your windows." The more we got to know Bob, the more likely it seemed that the peeping tom was probably him.

Missing Ed like crazy, I played Carole King's Tapestry album over and over: You just call out my name and I know wherever I am, I'll come runnin'... Then as it turned out, one night Ed did call out my name but I didn't have to run because he was just outside my window. I don't recall how he moved into my room. There couldn't have been much discussion.


Our relationship shape-shifted. He was now on my turf.


I didn't have to take him off the pedestal; he jumped down. Willingly. In retrospect, it was probably the best thing for his depression. Like me, he enjoyed hanging out with people as much as he needed solitude. We didn't listen to classical music and look at his artwork anymore. I was seeing a "new" side of Ed--the Valdosta, Georgia/Florida boy who was now "in town" and no longer living on the edge of it.


Gone was the naval-gazing contemplative Ed, and in his place was a sweet, fun guy with a teasing way who adapted quickly to house activities. The other girls had boyfriends who stayed occasionally, so I didn't think it was a big deal that Ed lived there day after day. He helped my actress roommate with her lines, fixed the screen door when it broke,  cooked meals (introducing his famous experimental "vanilla steak").


There was no tension. Our personalities fit as easily as we did in that little bed. His June letter turned out to be prophetic. One by one that summer, we fulfilled Ed's "recipe" for happiness:


1. Be happy, love what you can and broaden your interests and activities to the limits of your capabilities.  


2. Be sincere, inquisitive and relax as often as possible.  


3. Dream sweet thoughts and explore your imagination.  


4. Go wild with pleasant winds and sweet fragrances. 


5. Enjoy yourself and those you can.  


6. Imagine the world you want, then find out how to model it.  If it changes in the process, all the better.


Our lives quickly filled up with friends and fun.

Be happy, love what you can and broaden your interests and activities to the limits of your capabilities. We took short road trips with Ed at the wheel of my car. If Ed had said, "Marlan, I'd like to drive this car off a cliff with both of us in it, and we'll both survive because the car won't have a scratch," I would have said: "Go ahead."


Occasionally he did drive the car off a country road--rocking and rolling like it was a Jeep over rough terrain--with me sitting serenely next to him. When I took the car home on break, my dad was upset because I forgot to add oil. Thankfully, he never knew it could have been so much worse.


Throughout these experiences, I remained an observant passenger while Ed drove both literally and figuratively. He opened new worlds for me, but these were now on the Mundane Plane. Which is really where we needed to be at this juncture in our young lives.


Enjoy yourself and those you can. Our first excursion was a berry-picking expedition. One of my friends knew where there were wild "blueberries" growing, so we gathered some friends and took off to pick as many as our buckets could hold. My Columbian friend Suzy came with us at my invitation.


Here's Suzy playing on a rocking toy at an outdoor mall during our Freshman year.

Suzy was having a mad affair with a married older guy. On her dorm-room wall was a big poster of a couple locked in a Tantric sex position with the caption: "If you love me, please don't leave me." She had cheered me on when I went to NYC and booed my return as cowardice. We'd already been to D.C. and back in her car before I met Ed. Now she lived off-campus and came running with a bucket to get those berries.


My first roommate Debbie also joined us. A native Floridian, she soon set us straight: "These aren't blueberries. They're huckleberries!" Huckleberries Schmuckleberries, Ed made an amazing cobbler out of them; boiling the berries with sugar until they were thick as preserves, and dressing them with fluffy cobbler crusts. I was as impressed as if he'd pulled a rabbit out of the stove.


I didn't come from a home where cobblers were simmered on the stove. My dessert world came out of a box and in that regard, I was completely self-taught. In my eyes, Ed's cobbler was further proof of his genius.


Go wild with pleasant winds and sweet fragrances. 
We visited the sink holes often. Always with friends. Always in the nude. I don't remember drugs being connected to those times, although we did come across some kids younger than us sitting on some rocks around a sink with the unmistakable aroma of marijuana in the air.


Ed used to get a big kick out of a middle-aged guy who would show up, pickup truck motor running behind the shrubs where the cars would park. We'd hear the truck and scramble to get our clothes on. Then we'd head for our car and pass him, saying good evening. Ed believed the guy was a voyeur. "It's awfully nice of him to let us know he's out there and give us time to get dressed while he watches."


Nothing disturbed my equilibrium that summer. As long as Ed was there, I felt no harm could come to me.


One night Ed drove us to the Big Dismal. A recent Internet search confirms that the Big Dismal is a sink hole not for the faint at heart. Graphically it's all about the vertical. Cliff-like steep rocky sides lead to the water below that lacks both shore and a discernible bottom. There must have been a moon that night or we would have killed ourselves. I'm not an adrenalin junkie--far from it--but I went right in with the others.

Photo by E. Kosman

Treading the dark water, I felt the primordial power of the Amazonian vegetation above me. There was something prehistoric about this sink hole, wild and dominating. The silky sweet feeling of water against my skin merged with the pleasure of floating with friends in a bottomless pit.


If anyone had anything clever to say while we floated in God's Bathtub, I don't recall any bon mots. The memory is full of Silence. And maybe a teeny bit of fear that there might be snakes in the water.


One by one, we climbed out. As I made it up to solid ground, I felt a beach towel being tenderly wrapped around me from behind. And Ed's arms holding me.


In that moment I felt so loved. And surprised.


His gesture made swimming nude suddenly sexy. Opening his arms with the towel behind me so I couldn't see him and then moving in to wrap me up in it...made me feel admired and cared for.


When all is said and done, the keen pleasure in that embrace remains while the memories of orgasms that came later with others have faded.

Imagine the world you want, then find out how to model it.  If it changes in the process, all the better. Two players danced at the edge of our summer scenario: Bob and Barbara. They actually held the keys to Ed's AC/DC sexuality. Their imparted knowledge and history with him would give me a sharper image while in some ways blurring it.


I'll cover them in the next post.


A NOTE ABOUT THE SINK HOLES OF TALLAHASSEE:
*My Internet search today just now turned up a list of those sink holes south of Tallahassee, evaluating each one and cautioning that many have been closed to the public for some time and a few have reopened.

Days of Tao and Acid

Ed Clark, Jr. died of AIDS in '92. 
If you're just arriving, this memoir starts several posts down. 
Please scroll to the bottom and read upward.

I'll just do it.

It was early evening when I swallowed the tab and set out across the campus in search of something to do and maybe someone to help me through it. Diane had procured it for me but then refused to assist me with my first trip.

I ducked inside the campus theater where an "experimental film" flickered on the screen. The disjointed fast-moving images struck me as a hilarious, reflecting the absurdity of Life. I laughed until the people in front of me turned around to glare. They must know I'm tripping. I got out fast.

Outside on the campus, the drug was definitely kicking in. Hyper-reality began to wrap itself around me. I wrote in my diary the next day: The grass looked like movie grass. I didn't know then that it was almost a rule that when a person trips, it somehow invites weird stuff to happen. 

A girl I'd known in the Freshman dorm came galloping up on a horse, followed by two horsemen. She paused in front of me, hair lifted by the wind and we talked for a moment while I tried to act normal. She told me that she now lived on a ranch. Then she rode away.

All my reading told me that someone who is after a higher consciousness experience should have a "guide." So I went off in search of one. Ed's place was too far away for me to consider. I tried a woman I knew from a scene study class who lived in a nice townhouse a few blocks off campus. She was sophisticated, grounded and she'd tripped before (as most folks that I knew had claimed).

But when I got there, she had visitors and she told me the next day that I'd walked in and said: "I'm tripping." She asked me to come inside and I said: "No. Thank you. No. Thank you." And left.

I began the long walk along the highway to Ed.

By now, the acid was starting to peak. I hardly knew my own name. It was like being inside a dream with melting colors and sensations that ebbed/flowed. I stopped and looked back at Tallahassee behind me--the FSU fountain and the Capitol building stood out in bold relief as if newly sculpted and painted.

I remember thinking that this is not a good idea.

I did manage to find Ed's place and thank God he was home. He opened the door. "I'm tripping," I said. "It's my first time." He just said that's great and took me inside.

Upstairs we sat on his bed while he rolled a joint so he could get near my wavelength. I kept trying to tell him what I'd been through but he kept interrupting: "Did you think I wouldn't be home?" "What time did you drop?" "Then you must have peaked a half hour ago, you should be mellowing out...Here this will help."

He took me on another tour of his artwork and this time I could notice subtleties as he guided me through the colors and shapes and hidden meanings. We sat listening to Moonlight Sonata and this time the music was visible as it floated through the room. I was convinced he was getting what I was getting. 

I had made a dangerous journey to safe haven and I was with a man who understood in ways nobody else had ever understood me. That was all that mattered. 

In the morning, Ed said, "Your first trip. Tell me what you got out of it." But words failed. I'd learned that tripping meant not being able to contemplate anything but the NOW. The senses take over consciousness and the rest of life seems unnecessary. And that you don't actually leave on the trip. You end up being more in life than ever.

And it turns out that just existing without agenda can be an exquisite pleasure.

That's what I wanted to say. I don't recall if I was that articulate.

We were in his living room. He was sitting in an armchair facing me on the couch talking about his art. "I can't draw," he said. "Lithography doesn't require that much drawing skill. Here I'll show you what I mean. I'll draw you. Hold still." I held still, excited that he was actually drawing my portrait with pastels.

At first he wasn't happy with the result. It was all orange and brown, kind of one-dimensional. The he said, "Wait a minute..." and he got some white acrylic paint which he brushed onto the face to create dimensions and cheekbones. Very pleased, he was startled at his own prowess.

I was flattered. Did he actually want me here? Then he wrote a title at the bottom and signed his name.

Lily of the Dark

Lily of the dark. But which dark? The one inside my head that I was trying so hard to light up? Or Ed's own darkness that he waded through day after day as he waited for his own private Godot? I'll never know. My self-esteem wasn't high enough to believe the latter. So the caption stung a bit. But we were both pleased that it turned out so well.

For years after I left Florida, Ed would ask me to take a photo so he could make a slide for his portfolio. I could never get a photo to come out right. So I never sent it. The one thing I feel guilty about. An artist friend in San Diego called it a "fucking Mona Lisa."

The next post will cover that other "tripping" that we did after I moved off campus and my father sold me his Rambler as we eventually moved into the Lighted World of friends and adventures.

To be or not to be

If you're just arriving, this memoir starts several posts down. Please scroll to the bottom and read upward.

In the weeks that followed our first meeting, I would occasionally show up at Ed's door. Neither of us ever called. He accepted my visits as if he'd invited me. As I described years later:

I sat on his blanket-covered couch and sipped his company. There was much he would teach me and much I  would never understand. He spoke of having shut himself off from friends and enemies in that shelter that had become my frequent haunt. With solitude as his lover, he spent each day reading and dreaming. 

Perhaps he needed an undemanding audience. I was reticent and adoring. On the other hand, he was sharp enough to see that I was walking miles to his place in the frosty air, and that I could be bold. Perhaps he admired that boldness.

We'd get stoned and listen to an album of classical music entitled Our Greatest Hits--sometimes playing the Moonlight Sonata over and over. One night while Beethovan's notes stretched and wound around us like taffy, I was trying to remember an actor's name: "James...James...? What's his last name?"

"Shhh...just wait."

I waited. And as the music came to a close, it popped into the clear space of my head: "Coburn."

We smiled at each other. Just wait. Relax. Let it come. 

I loved his ramblings, his clownings, his musings. One night he stood under the arch that separated the living room from the hallway and recited To Be or Not to Be. When he got to "Aye, there's the rub," he rubbed his butt against the gas heater and added: "And it feels so good!"

There was a girl next door--a student--who was attracted to him. She lived with her boyfriend who was a bit older. Ed mused that they seemed to be getting it on a lot: "He must be well hung...I am not well hung, but I have big balls." 

One night the girl came over and asked him a lot of questions about his sexuality in front of me. Clearly I exhibited no more sexual threat to her than if I'd been a pet poodle. She said, "I asked you before if you're gay and you didn't answer."

I don't remember the exact words, but I remember he sidestepped the question. He launched into a rap on the meaning of the word "gay" and how homosexuals had adopted it so they could apply the definition of "gay" (i.e., fun-loving and upbeat) to themselves. Out with the gloomy homosexual and in with the happy one.

This girl's prying suspicions tapped at his Pandora's Box and I didn't pursue the subject after she left. He rarely spoke of other men, but he did talk a lot about Barbara--the intense beauty in that photo on his dining room wall.

On the wall of his bedroom, Ed had another photo of Barbara taken by the same photographer (an art student named Colman). In this photo, Ed and Barbara are leaning against a white wall next to each other looking towards the camera with insolent sexuality. She's petite next to Ed. Maybe five foot two to his five foot four. Ed's shirt is open all the way. Both wear jeans.

I envied them. It wasn't jealousy I felt. It was pure envy.

From my diary:
Pain had twisted his passion into relaxed mockery. All because of a woman. They had not been lovers for some time now, yet her name refused to leave his lips. It was easy to see that this self-inflicted hermit--despite the wry smile and large philosophical talk--missed her. Each of his sentences had her memory in it. He didn't have to say "This reminds me of her." Yet, when her name finally forced itself through those mocking lips, it sounded casual but strongly reverent.

He often reminisced about being in bed with Barbara for a week. They let their classes slide while they slid up and down each other.

I spent the night that first night and every time I'd visit. After all it was very late and I couldn't easily walk back to the dorm. There was no self-consciousness about it. Most likely because we were stoned. But still...

It wasn't at all romantic. Ever. Sensual yes. Romantic no. He'd give me one of his shirts to wear to bed and he'd be buck naked under the covers. It was the first time I'd ever been in bed with a man, and even though I melted at his touch, I resisted.

In another lifetime, this is the one thing I'd do over. Looking at it now with enough sexual experience under my belt to last a hundred lifetimes, I suppose my refusal to "have sex" probably enabled us to grow as close as we eventually did. Ed's attempts didn't end there. But even after I was no longer a virgin, after college, something held me back.

AIDS would not appear on the scene until 10 years later. So it wasn't an issue.

It was primarily his sexual bragging that kept me from surrendering when we were in school. I didn't need to be compared to his "nemesis." I didn't want my sexual awkwardness to disappoint.

That first night he cuddled and stroked me until I suggested we get some sleep. Of course it might have occurred to him that I was inexperienced. As time went on, we seemed to enter a Gentleman's Agreement: I didn't question his sexuality and he didn't ask if I was a virgin.

Ed had a talent for touching. He introduced me to a sensuality that was probably more of a turn-on than if I'd let him pound away. He liked to hold me for hours until I could feel every last muscle in my body let go. And we'd drift in and out of sleep that way.

Back at the dorm after that first night, as I settled down to the horrific gassy meal I shared with Diane every night (a disgusting mess of canned cream soup, rice or noodles, with canned veggies heated in a popcorn popper that Diane called "GLOP"), I told her that I'd spent the night at Ed's. She asked how he was as a lover. I fudged the answer.

Respect for each other as artists grew over time. The first time that he actually regarded me as an artist was when I walked in ranting about how hard acting was: "I don't want to do it anymore. It tears me up inside."

"Then that's exactly what you should be doing," he said. "Do the thing that tears you up inside."

That wraps this post. But a postscript:
Ever since Ed's mother told me of his early death from AIDS, I've felt driven to write this memoir. But I've also had twinges of doubt. Maybe I'm just whacking off, enjoying a literary form of cyber-necrophelia. Then today while wandering Hollywood, I ended up at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery in Barnsdall Park, and stumbled upon a series of lithographs and a documentary entitled "Four Stones for Kanemitsu" which records in detail the laborious, meticulous genius that is required to make a lithograph.

Lithography was Ed's focus as an art major. I used to watch him work at it after he went back to finish his degree. But I had no idea how damned difficult it is. Maybe I'm just losing my mind as I close in on the latter part of my life and reflect on all that went before, but while I watched that documentary, I could feel Ed right next to me...saying in my ear:

"Keep going. Keep going. Do the thing that tears you up inside."

DOORS

First Meeting: Part II (continued from last post)

We ended up at Ed's home after his Tao Te Ching performance piece in the Tallahassee woods. It was a townhouse/duplex set far back from the main road that led straight to FSU. Borderline rural.

It should have been Ed's senior year, but he'd dropped out and was living like a retired hermit artist with his lithographs and paintings, a collection of classical albums and no TV. I was living in an all-girls dorm where they'd given me 3-day-house-detention the year before because I was up all night hanging lights for a play and had returned past curfew. I was sharing a small room and carrying a bucket to the showers.

He had no job. No car. His parents in Jacksonville must have been footing the bill. There he was with all the time in the world to pursue whatever he wished. There must have been more to the story. Later on, he had to see a psychiatrist to get a military deferment on the grounds of "depression.".

On the way there, Diane told me about Ed's art which she'd seen when they picked him up.:  "He's got one that's all vaginas."

"Well, that's half of it," Ed smiled.

Soon we were standing in his dining room studying the litho in question (entitled "Doors"):

(Sorry it's not a great shot of it. I'll correct that soon.)

The Dude said, "I see a couple of penises..." And I said, "Or mushrooms...like Huxley's Doors to Perception?" Ed chuckled.

Diane flirted with him in her caustic way.

Diane: What sign are you?
Ed: Sagittarius.
Diane: Oh no! Not Sagittarius. I can't handle Sagittariuses.
Ed: What sign are you?
Diane: Scorpio.
Ed: Scorpio's are my nemesis!

He pointed to a black and white photograph of a beautiful young woman with long straight hair sitting in front of an antique Underwood typewriter, intensely staring into the camera. "Barbara's a Scorpio. Barbara is my nemesis."

When they got on the topic of Women's Liberation, things took a turn. Ed said, "Women need to get their own heads together first before they can make social change as a group." Diane ran to the kitchen, grabbed a broom and knife, and came back to demonstrate what she'd like to do to him for that remark.

I was laughing, but his words had sunk into me. He was right. I'd been looking outside myself for the answers. I needed to look within. Get my own head together.

The Dude took an apple from a bowl, but Ed stayed his hand. "Wait. Stop. Sniff. Really take in the fragrance. Now bite into it slowly. Stay aware of the taste...the texture." He waxed eloquent about the need for awareness as the pathway to "higher consciousness."

We only use a fraction of our brains but our potential for personal power is so much greater, he said.

"Meditation is the key."

I wanted this. I wanted what he was talking about. When I woke up that morning, I didn't. But now I did. And I would seek it for the rest of my life.

In the months to come, I pursued Ed's company as if he and his home were life preservers floating at the edge of the disorienting sea that I called "college."

Not only did I find him almost unbearably sexy, but he was a Seeker. Just like me. I didn't know I was a Seeker until that moment in the Fall woods when Ed gave me my first taste of Eastern mysticism.

In the months and years to come, I would read what he read. Books like Handbook to Higher Consciousness, Doors to Perception, The Master Game, Damien, and philosophers like Nietzsche and Descartes.




Neither my childhood nor my stumbling adolescence nor my "theater years" included the concept of  "Seeker." But Ed opened this door for me. And I walked right through it.

In the beginning, as I mentioned, it was all about refuge. And yes, attraction. Attraction so overwhelming that I could hardly stand it. But I'll cover that in the next post.

Sex, Drugs & Tao Te Ching

Ed and I met during Fall quarter at Florida State University, 1970. I was in my sophomore year. In a very short time at college, I'd acquired much knowledge on what was "wrong" with me. The year before had elicited hectic changes as I careened through my theater major--starting college the summer after I finished high school.

The Theater Department was dog-eat-dog. The level of sophistication among the actors and teachers was at such a caliber you would have thought we were in New York City and not in a smallish college town.


Here's what Tallahassee looked like then:

My first roommate Debbie was a hippie chick who became a major activist with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) before the summer was over.

My second roomie Gloria was "in theater," like me. She was a hot number who urged me to lose weight and my virginity. Here's Gloria saying: "How about a picture of me screwing a tree?"

Gloria bet me that she could lose her virginity first, and she told everyone we met. One older guy said with a sly humorous smile, "I could arrange for it to happen at the same time."

I dyed my dishwater brown hair almost black and shed pounds because Gloria claimed that pudge was my "safety margin" so I wouldn't get hit on by guys. My new "look" ended up attracting a handsome actor 10 years my senior who was about to be married. It also attracted a drop-dead gorgeous bisexual young man. His interest confused and distressed me. I confided in a friend:


"He-he's a QUEER!"

This will give you some idea of the darkness from whence I came.

I found his attention flattering but was unable to piece together an understanding of his sexuality. Bottom line: I didn't quite believe his compliments and desire to hang out. Looking back, I think he just wanted a friend. And his openness and affection paved the way for my receptivity to Ed who would show up the following year.

[The "New Me" - Photo by Suzy - Forgot her last name]

The following summer, I stayed with my aunt in NYC and got into trouble with my family. Eager to prove that I most certainly did not want a "safety margin," I overdid it--and my prancing flirting ways led to family scandal. My aunt accused me of having an affair with her daughter's husband. Wrong wrong wrong. But my dad believed it and so did everyone else. I returned home to Florida to finish out the summer. But my confidence waned.

I returned to FSU in the Fall, no longer looking "dazzling," and feeling depressed.

Enter Ed Clark, Jr.


At the start of my sophomore year, I was hanging out in my dorm room with my third roommate Merle when Diane called from the downstairs lobby and asked if I'd like to go get stoned in the woods with her and a couple guys. I said sure. One of them turned out to be Ed.

First, a few things about Diane:

Diane counted herself as a member of the counter-voice to all the mod artsy 60s folks who ranted about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. That was the voice of the Radical Political Movement made up of anti-Vietnam War protesters and hip leftist students.


We met through a mutual friend, Betsy. It was Betsy's birthday and I brought a coconut cake that I made to her room. Diane happened to be there with some grass, so she stuffed towels under the door and lit up a joint. We got stoned and ate the whole cake.

[Betsy (L), Me (Center) and Diane (R)]

Betsy kept saying how great the cake was. I said that I was surprised because most people don't like coconut. She said, "I don't. But this is really good!"


Diane reacted to my naivete instantly. When I said I never heard of Phil Ochs, her brown eyes got huge: "Never heard of PHIL OCHS?" And later: "Marlan...Did you just say 'COLORED PEOPLE'?"

Diane was Jewish and dowdy in a hip kind of way with shaggy brown waist-length hair, Army-Navy clothes, thick glasses and thick lips. I was intimidated by her knowledge which amounted to sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll...as long as it was "Politically Correct."

That sophomore year, I would visit Diane's room and pick her brain on those topics. All traces of my New York City bravado had disappeared. I grew less and less secure about my looks. And perhaps Gloria's assumption that I needed a "safety margin" was now true.

I joined a Women's Liberation "rap group." It opened my eyes to the darker side of sex and women. In the elevator one day, I encountered my neighbor who told me that she'd just had an abortion. Pretty soon I was spending more time at the Socialist Party tables at the Student Union. Boys my age were coming back from Vietnam in body bags. I saw the film "Easy Rider" and took it as Radical Gospel. I tried to copy the easy chic of hippie/yippie women like Jane Fonda.


But I was actually feeling worse about life.


The theater department was still there but I wasn't getting roles anymore. I was forced to do tech stuff which I sucked at. Gloria no longer spoke to me since we had a falling out. My new roommate Merle was studying to be a social worker and she was in love with a young man who was a music major and possibly bisexual. So we spent a lot of time talking about that.


"So women love men," Merle said. "And men love men. Because men are great, I guess."


Back to Diane. And Ed. 

So I go downstairs and there she is with two guys around my age--probably a couple years older. One of them has dark hair, fine pale skin and John Lennon glasses, and is seated at the piano in the lobby playing what sounds like classical music.


When he stood, I asked what he was playing. And he said, "I just like to play around on the piano. Making up stuff." He never had a lesson. Of course that was Ed Clark.


We headed out to the woods. Maybe it was in his car. Tallahassee had awesome wooded areas far away from civilization (probably full of condos now). And sinkholes that behaved as lakes even though they had no bottom. The terrain boasts red "Georgia" clay (since it is basically "Southern Georgia.") and gets seasons (no snow but the FSU fountain would freeze over every winter).


The blonde guy with us is a little on the goofy side. He seems to know Ed pretty well and he's the one who presents us with the joint and gets it started from hand to hand. We stroll through the autumnal woods with its pretty leaves and crisp air, and during those moments I'm keenly aware that this is something I'll remember for the rest of my life.


Ed lights up a cigarette after the grass and the other guy starts saying, "Do it. Do it, man. Do that thing." And that's when it happens.


Cigarette in hand for gesturing and with a teasing smile, Ed begins to speak softly in a kind of verse. The words aim to provoke food for thought. What he says sinks into me with its obvious Truth and Mystery. I've never heard anyone speak like this, and yet I feel that I've always contemplated its meaning.


He weaves a bit forward and back to emphasize certain words. Almost acting out the prose. Pausing intermittently to let the dude nod and say, "Yeah, yeah...okay. I think I get it. But wait..."


The verses goes something like:

He who stands on his tiptoes does not stand firm.

He who stretches his legs does not easily walk.

He who displays himself does not shine.

He who asserts his own views is not distinguished...

The softest thing overcomes the hardest.

That which has no existence can enter where there

is no opening.

Advantage belongs to doing nothing. With a purpose.

He finishes. I am smitten.


I had no idea he was quoting from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. I thought he was making it up, but I still would have fallen hard because back in the car, the Dude asked Ed: "What about Love, Man?" 


Ed shrugged. "Love is just acceptance." 


Words that would change my life forever.

------------------------------------------------------------------
All photos on this page by Marlan Warren except where otherwise credited. Copyright Marlan Warren. No part of the above text or photos may be copied or reprinted without express permission of the author and photographers.

A memorial for someone who deserves to be remembered.

Rowing on the corner, making mighty time;

You know, it’s hard to define, your body in your mind.

Rowing on the corner, trying out the line;

You know it’s time to lean, whatever you may find.

Rowing on the corner, looking up to find;

You know it’s hard to find a gentle man of mind.

Rowing on the corner, making up the sign;

You know it’s hard to mind the limits of your crime.

Rowing on the corner, looking up behind;

You know it’s hard to see what’s making up your mind.

  

                  - Ed Clark

Ed Clark, Jr. was a philosophical Sagittarius born December 5, 1949. Passed away April 1992 of AIDS in Orange Park, Florida. B.F.A. in Art from Florida State University. Artist. Playwright. Beloved Friend and Son. 

No one in my life ever made a deeper impression or changed my life so radically. I have never loved anyone more easily than I loved Ed. The purpose of this Memorial Blog is to honor him. To give him a place on the Internet as a kind of "tombstone."

We met in Tallahassee when I was a sophomore at FSU, lived together briefly, had some incredible adventures together, and remained close through letters long after I left Florida. I last saw him in Los Angeles in '84. He showed up out of the blue. My then-husband is homophobic and because I'd informed him of Ed's bisexuality, my then-husband waited out our visit in another room. 

I'd just started classes at USC and Ed wanted to see me dance, so he accompanied me to my dance class.

Eight years later, he would be dead, and I would have no idea until 20 years later. 

I've searched the Internet for years, and finally found an indication that he might be living at home. So I called and here's the conversation with his mother (a Steel Magnolia-type beautiful lady now in her 80s):

Me:  Can I please speak to Ed Clark, Jr.? 

Mother: Ed passed away 20 years ago!

Me:   I'm so sorry, Mrs. Clark. I didn't know. We went to school together at Florida State. I lost touch, but we were very good friends. I met you and your husband a couple times.

Mother: Well, my husband just passed in September.

Me:  Oh I'm sorry to hear that. He was a wonderful man, I remember. It must be so hard for you.

Mother: Yes.

Me:  Um. Could you tell me how Eddie died?  (His parents called him "Eddie")

(slight pause)

Mother:  It was AIDS.

Me:  Oh no! No! How terrible. I'm so sorry. I have some other friends who died of AIDS. We just didn't know...We had no idea back then. (slight silence) Could you- could you tell me where he's buried.

(another slight pause)

Mother:  Orange Park Cemetery. He was cremated and his ashes are scattered there.

Me:  Do you have any of his art?

Mother:  Oh yes. He never sold anything.


***************************************************************************
I can't find his obit anywhere on the Net. Maybe there was one way back then and it's just not online? I can find his father's obit (career Navy man who saw action in WWII, Korea, etc.) on the Orange Park Cemetery website. 

Perhaps my need to honor him may come off as rather excessive or obsessive (my friend Tom tried to ease my grief with: "Everybody dies."), but I feel the need to make this memorial and honor his life, who he was. 

Below is the letter I mailed to his mother today for Christmas/New Year's--a packet that included photos from our college days in Tallahassee, Florida, and a photo of a portrait he did of me, which I know he didn't have.

I include it on this site not just for Mrs. Clark, but for all mothers who might be tempted to feel shame at how their sons died, especially if it was from AIDS.

Here it is:

December 21, 2012

Dear Mrs. Clark:

We spoke on the phone last month. Your son was a good friend of mine at Florida State University and we kept in touch for years after I left school and Florida.

 Eddie and I met at FSU in ’70, and although I lost track of him after my marriage in 1984, he has a place in my heart. I still have some of the letters he wrote me over the years and your address in Jacksonville.  It didn’t occur to me to try to find him at your residence until an Internet search indicated that he might still be living with you.

I apologize if my call might have been abrupt or startling; but he has often been on my mind and I have been trying to find him.

I’m also sorry to hear of your husband’s recent passing, and pray that your family is surrounding you with love during this difficult holiday season.

We met a couple times, and I remember you and your husband.  Eddie brought me to your home once, and on impulse decided to cut my hair.  I sat in a chair in your backyard while he cut my hair.  You and your husband watched, saying:

“We hope you know what you’re doing, letting him near you with a scissors!”

But I had a lot of faith in your son. (P.S. – You can see that bad haircut in the photo of us together.)

In ’72, I saw you and your husband again. It was in Tallahassee in ’72, and I had been taking summer classes at FSU. Eddie came to visit with you both.  You brought the most delicious prune cake or maybe it was plum?  I’ve been looking for the recipe ever since!

I deeply regret not knowing about his illness and not being able to be there for him. 

The last time I saw Eddie was in ’84 here in Los Angeles, but I had just gotten married and we didn’t correspond after that.  My then-husband and I moved a few times after that.  I divorced in ’94.

I’m writing to tell you how much I admired your son, and hope you will accept my praise for raising such a wonderful man. 

Eddie was the sweetest, most gifted, intelligent man that I’ve ever known. He was not only well-read and a deep thinker, but an excellent artist and he knew how to have fun.

He stayed with me in Tallahassee one summer, and we used to go on outings with our friends. I’m enclosing a couple photos that I took from one of those outings. One is from when we went out to the woods to study outdoors.

Another time, we organized friends to pick huckleberries and Eddie showed me how to make cobbler afterwards.  We also did crazy things like dying thermal underwear. In one of the photos, Eddie is wearing one of those tie-dyed tops.

One time I came home from classes and my roommates were laughing because they’d found over-ripe bananas in the freezer, and were trying to figure out who would do such a thing. Eddie said: “Well, it couldn’t be Marlan.  She’s far too rational.” But it was me.

My whole world changed when I met your son.  His approach to life was serious and questing.  And he was honest, straightforward and loved to laugh.  He was never mean or over-bearing with anyone.

We met when he was living at th`e edge of town in Tallahassee. He was already out of school and hadn’t yet finished his senior year.  I had never met anyone like him.  And I still haven’t. He was one of a kind.

One day we were sitting and talking, and Eddie was saying that he didn’t think he could draw well. He said, “Here, I’ll show you.”  And he drew a portrait of me that was so good, he couldn’t believe it. I’m enclosing a picture of that portrait.  An artist friend of mine said it reminds him of the Mona Lisa!

I also have a lithograph of his that I find very beautiful. He only made 3.   A visitor saw that lithograph and said, “NOBODY makes only three!”  That’s how Eddie was.  Humble, when you got right down to it.

When we first met, he used to visit me in my dormitory and he had to wait downstairs.  While he waited, he’d play the piano. It sounded like classical music.  One day, a mother of a student heard him and said, “You play beautifully!” He said, “I never had a lesson.  I just make stuff up.” And she said, “But my dear, you MUST take lessons!” But he was already good.

I’m aware that after college, he had difficulties settling into regular life.  And his letters sometimes talk about how hard he was trying.  I visited him in Florida after college – can’t remember if it was in Tallahassee or Ft. Lauderdale.  He was dating a nice woman. And it was great to see him.

I remember the day he put vanilla on steak as an “experiment.”

He came to visit me when I lived in Boston after I left Florida. Then I came back to Tallahassee for a summer. But I decided to go adventuring with a friend to Canada…and never returned to live in Florida.

I relied on his wisdom and his sensitivity. Over the years, I wrote him many letters about my life as I traveled and lived in different cities. Years later, he sent me a packet of my letters and said, “I want you to see how much you’ve grown.  How much you have to be proud of.”

And he had written responses on them, making up for when he hadn’t written back in some cases.  One line that struck me was when he wrote: “I hope in time you’ll come to see that Growth – true Growth – comes with ease and not pain.”

Here is another quote from a letter written while I was still at FSU in 1971:

“You should have more confidence.  A person’s merits are in their sincerity.  Have faith in your sincerity and it will carry you well.  Most doubts and fears are baseless until you act on them.  Trust your insights and desires.  They are your closest guides.

Relax.  Decide on small goals and a determined field of inclusion.  Enjoy what you do.  Get out of any situation that you do not enjoy by the simplest and most direct method, no matter the cost lest it be worse.  Or if it is worse, stay where you are till opportunities change.  They will in good time.  Then be happy, love what you can and broaden your interests and activities to the limits of your capabilities.  Be sincere, inquisitive and relax as often as possible.  Dream sweet thoughts and explore your imagination.  Go wild with pleasant winds and sweet fragrances. Enjoy yourself and those you can.  Imagine the world you want, then find out how to model it.  If it changes in the process, all the better.  The spice in any cake is added.”

I feel very fortunate to have known him, and news of his early passing is tragic.  My prayer is that it was a time of Love and Forgiveness for all who were present, and that he went peacefully.

Mrs. Clark, I would welcome anything you’d like to share with me about your son. And at the same time, I respect your privacy.  I just wanted to let you know how deeply sorry I am for your loss.

Best wishes for your Christmas and New Year,

**********************************************************************************

Note: I had some trouble writing the first draft and left it for a day. I might not have gone back to it so quickly except last night I heard a radio program while I was making dinner, about a new film entitled "Pariah"--about the stigma LGBT kids suffer their whole lives. And I felt Ed nudging me...JUST DO IT.