Tall, confident, outgoing, big smile, she breezed into the dark pub where Bay Area OSers were celebrating the first anniversary of Open Salon.
"I'm DakiniDancer, Josie", we shook hands, then hugged, exchanged a few words, I'd already been there a couple of hours and was getting ready for the long dark drive back to Sonoma, so we barely interacted that night.
Within the week I had a pm from DakiniDancer:
"I wish I had had a chance to talk to you more fully at the meet up. I had to work late. That was fun, wasn't it? I'd love to get together with a fellow Pagan, and OS'er sometime."
We exchanged real world phone numbers and email addresses and kicked back and forth the idea of getting together. Josie was just up the road a piece in Santa Rosa, OS regular Stellaa also lived nearby, and we thought we'd try to make something happen.
Within a couple of days, I got another pm:
"April 30 is my birthday. My friend Bonney and I are going in to the City to see "The Dragon's Gift: Sacred Art of Bhutan" at the Asian Arts Museum, around 2 pm, and then going to dinner, hopefully at the Limon Rotisserie at 21st and South Van Ness around 5:30 pm . . . You and your beloved are very welcome to attend either/or. Let me know soon please, as I have to call the restaurant. Many blessings to you dear Roy."
Risa and I decided it sounded like a lot of fun and an excuse to have a date in the City, something we hardly ever do, so I RSVPed.
It was a beautiful day, Risa and I arrived at the museum and began browsing through the art treasures. Shortly after we got there, I spotted Josie with her friend Bonney, we exchanged introductions and small talk and then quietly enjoyed the exhibit together for a couple more hours. It was stunning stuff, tapestries, carved wood and cast metal figurines, videos of sacred dances performed in Bhutanese temples, a full altar complete with chanting monks who accompanied the show on its tour, the first ever display of Bhutanese religious art outside the country. It was a fascinating display depicting the assimilation of local gods and goddesses into a rich Buddhist pantheon of boddhisattvas, with Padmasambhava, the guru who introduced Buddhism to the Himalayan kingdoms, at the center.
Josie had picked out a Peruvian restaurant in the Mission District for her birthday dinner. None of us had been there, but she'd researched the place online and was optimistic that it'd turn out fine. She was right. The food was new to all of us, very reasonably priced and just delicious, ceviches and spit-roasted marinated whole chickens with typical Andean side dishes, washed down with good imported Peruvian beer. Chris Gutierrez (SirenitaLake) joined us for dinner and sparkling conversation.
It felt like the start of a really good friendship. As it turns out, it was the first and last time we'd spend together. It was her birthday, but she did the gifting, the gift of beautiful art treasures that Risa and I wouldn't otherwise have made the trip for, the gift of a terrific restaurant, the gift of her presence and her wonderful friend Bonney.
Last night, suffering with the lingering aftermath of a flu, I got out of bed at 3 am to fix some throat coat tea in the hope that it would relieve the scratchiness that was keeping us both awake, and while I waited for it to steep, browsed out to OS to see what was going on. There was the message from hyblaean-Julie. I couldn't believe it. Joan and catamitebastard had already responded, it was real, I took it back to bed with me, told Risa, drifted back to sleep with Josie on my mind.
This is part of what it means to be a community. We will suffer the pain of losing each other, just as we gain new members and new connections, just as we support each other and congratulate each other on achievements small and large, commiserate and comfort each other, teach and argue and reason and delight and sometimes fight each other.
It's worth the pain of losing Josie to have known her briefly. May she dance on in our hearts and memories.
And wasn't that a great last post?
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Comments
thank you are adding more depth to a person I only knew from pictures and words. And her last post was magnificent. Peace, my brother.
Which, I'm confident we'll do, though I kind of doubt it will be in San Francisco.
Thanks for this lovely tribute Roy.
Namaste.
I mourn with you in your loss and I'm sure she will never be forgotten by any of us. She often PM'd me with words of encouragement. These were unsolicited, heart felt and loving words on staying true to who I am. I know she certainly was true to who she was and who her spirit continues to be. Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful story.
Dance on, Josie!
and I hope your flu is better SOON!
All of us touch each other with our writing. Josie's last post was as sincere as anything else she did. She will be missed by us all.
Yet we all came together and expressed our grief. I found it just as difficult for someone to die I had never met as someone I knew from down the street in my neighborhood. Every single one of us matter. Every single one.
Josie and I share the same birthday, so we always found time to celebrate together and talk. She told me what an great evening she had on her birthday - the museum, dinner, friends. Thank you!
Very classy stuff. To honor such a woman is an honor itself, no? She gave you all the gift of making beautiful prose and poetry....expression....
it took her death for this outpouring, bu t tha t is what used to be known a s elegies eulogies, etc. Used to be a High Poetic Mode. Now a sappy greeting card. No t on OS tho. Our s dont go down without being noticed and loved anew... jaemes e
Online relationships still have the power to surprise me. The distance seems safe. Until an absence is noted, an announcement is read...a *friend* is lost, where there was only supposed to be an acquaintance. When the grief comes, it bursts through the monitor and makes itself at home. The protective distance was an illusion; the community is real.