It is at this point that I must fast forward
a bit, with the promise that I will return to the narrative I started in
Istanbul. After having spent two months squatting
in Berlin, and beginning a PhD program in Belfast, I decided to return to New
York in the summer of 2009. I left
Queens University Belfast because although my supervisor, disability studies
scholar Margrit Schildrick was great to work with, the school did not meet my needs . I found Belfast too small and I was out of
control. I accepted an offer from the
New School‘s PhD program in philosophy and I got ready to move back to New
York.
My experiences in New York are not the focus
of this narrative, but nonetheless I must outline a few of them because they
were very important to the reason I set out travelling again in 2011. When I got to New York, I went immediately to
meet my friend Halil, who is a very wise but somewhat reclusive man, at the
Pakistani Tea House in Tribeca, New York.
The Pakistani Tea House had been one of my favorite places to eat in New
York, and I had spent many long nights there drinking chai and discussing
existential questions with Halil. I
caught up with Halil and then I went to move in to an intentional urban
community I had found on Craigslist before I left Ireland. This turned out to be a completely disastrous
experience. Later moved to Passout Records, which was a punk rock record store
in Williamsburg Brooklyn.
At this time at the New School I had the privilege
of attending lectures by many prominent philosophic figures such as Simon
Critchley, Judith Butler, Jay Bernstein and Richard Bernstein. It was during this period that my mother’s cancer,
which had been in remission, took a turn for the worse. My mother had mesothelioma, which is an aggressive
cancer of the lymph nodes caused by exposure to asbestos, and this cancer is
almost always fatal. I was shaken up
really hard by this news. My mother was definitely
the strongest person I have ever known and I learned to be strong in my life because of her
example. Throughout my life, my mother
had encouraged me to be strong enough to do my best and to have the courage to follow
my heart and be myself. After I had my
accident at age three (where I suffered a head injury the caused my cerebral Palsy)
and was in a coma for a month I was diagnosed with a 90 percent chance of never
walking and talking again. It was she who refused to follow the doctors suggestions to put me in
the kind of institution were people don’t improve and it was she took me home
and re-taught me everything herself.
When I went home for Christmas, I fully expected
my mother to die in a couple of weeks. I
tried to make the most of the time I had left with her. The holiday was nice but it was sad. I tried to be strong for her, but I felt like
I was falling apart.
After I returned to New York I got some
really good news. My mother’s cancer had
gone into full remission and she had no detectable traces of cancer. She then decided to move to Belize and I welcomed
this decision and supported it. My
mother had always wanted to travel more and if anyone deserved a new adventure
and some relaxing time in the sun, she did.
I both loved and hated New York. I loved the pulse of the city, with its rich multiculturalism
and unceasing energy, and I loved that in New York you had the possibility to
have truly surprising experiences at any moment. I hated on the other hand, the extreme pressure
to succeed that drove New York, with its hyper-capitalism, which seemed to exert
a physical pressure on everyone who lived in the city. Being back in New York, I felt that I had
lost all the confidence that I had gained in my sexuality during my European
travels and I was very lonely. In New
York I went on a couple craigslist dates but nothing really panned out except I met a woman that I dated and had sex with a couple times but
she turned out to be too needy and possessive for me to handle.
I was pretty lonely but I had a life that I
loved. I would attend lectures and write
papers that would open me up to new possibility of thinking. I was increasingly drawn to political
philosophy that focused on issues of social justice, responsibility and
community. The philosophers that were important to me at this time
were Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt, Derrida, Judith Butler and Simon
Critchley.
At this time I was also heavily involved in
the punk scene and I would go to a concert almost any chance I had. It was during this period of my life that I
made the most friends, and I have kept in touch with many of them. I would go to many different kinds of punk
show in New York and I was friends with a lot of people. I would go to New York
Hardcore shows, crust and raw punk show and even folk punk shows. The crowd, however, that I felt the must
affinity with was the Latino political punk scene. In New York there were punks from all over Latin
America from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico and Ecuador and they were all
united. I found the punks in this scene
to be the most welcoming, positive, have the best sense of humor and to take
politics most seriously.
In late May a catastrophe struck. My brother, we found out, had become addicted
to heroin. My mom immediately flew back
to Oregon and in in a routine checkup she found out that her cancer had
aggressively returned. I immediately
took a leave of absence from the New School and flew out to Oregon. We had a nice visit and I tried to be strong
for her. I did not know how long she
would live and the prognosis was not good.
Nonetheless I held on to the false hope that she could beat it and that
she would go into remission again. I
returned to New York and planned to visit later in the summer.
During the summer of 2010, I was a complete
wreck. I was wasted all the time and was
getting into a lot of fights. I was
completely broke, living off of dumpstered bagels and it was oppressively hot and muggy. My mom had been moved to my sister Laurie’s
house in Nebraska and it was clear she was getting worse. I called her nearly every day. Thing went on like this for weeks when my
Laurie informed me that my mother had taken a turn for the worse and that she
only had a week at most. I was absolutely desperate and completely broke. I asked my sister, who had a little bit of
money, if she could fly me out but she refused.
My friend Dani agreed to help me out.
I then asked my sister if I could stay with her but she said it was not
possible. I called my Aunt Laura and
asked her if she could put me up in a hotel. She agreed to do this and I would
leave in a few days.
This was the last time I would ever see my
mother and I knew it. My mother was bed
ridden at this time, so I just sat by her bedside and talked with her, watched
TV with her, fed her and held her hand.
She would make jokes, and we would talk about memories, and I told her
how much I loved her and appreciated her.
She was on a lot of drugs at this point and the line between reality and
fantasy sometimes got blurry. When we
were watching a game show, she asked me if we could go down the stairs to get
closer to the stage. I tried to savor
the time as best as I could and let her know all the love I had for her.
I left early in the morning after four days
and got on my flight to New York.
Somehow I found the strength to spend the flight finishing philosophy
papers that I couldn’t finish in the spring.
When I got to New York, I went to Dani’s apartment in the Lower East
Side. I did not want to spend the night
alone and I really needed to be with a friend. Dani and I were sitting drinking
and talking when Dani received a call from my sister as my phone had stopped
working just before I left for Nebraska.
My sister told me that my mom had passed away that afternoon. I wept bitterly and Dani tried to calm me
down. We decided the best thing to do was to go to my favorite bar, the Mars
Bar. Dani came with me and the bartender Amy who is like a sister to me gave me
free drinks all night.
During the five days between my mom’s death
and the funeral in Salem I completely lost it. I was completely suicidal and
was having panic attacks in the street. I felt disembodied and unstable. After the punk’s picnic that weekend in
Greenpoint Brooklyn I drank too much and I passed out on the sidewalk in the
middle Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint.
Luckily my Russian Rastafarian friend Alex found me, took me home in a
taxi, and smoked cigarettes and talked with me until I calmed down.
When I went back for my mom’s funeral to
Oregon, I stayed with my Mom’s husband because he was also losing his mind and
I felt he needed to be with someone, and because he was the only person in the
family that I knew would have something to drink at the house . It was nice to see everybody but it was very
sad. My sister Laurie brought her family
from Nebraska, my sister Lizzie was days from giving birth. My father’s
birthday was in the same time I was there.
My Aunt Laura, who I was very close to, also came to the funeral. I don’t really know what else to say about
the funeral. It was the last time I saw
anyone in the family and it was good to see everyone, but I was overwhelmed by
irreplaceable loss.
When I got back to New York, I was dangerously
suicidal, depressed, erratic and full of rage. I felt that I had lost my whole
world and the one person who truly understood me was gone forever. People would get angry at me for not moving on
and I would get furious with them and stop being friends with them. I do not regret this. I did not need friends who would be there in
the good times and would not be with me in a time of crisis. Life has moments of devastating loss and mourning
can often take a very long time and the only way I could possibly bear it was
by acknowledging the greatness of the loss and seeking to hold on to my mother’s
memory. I did not want to forget and
thought that getting over it too quickly would be choosing to forget her.
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