Goddamnit

Ethereal Woods

In the age of hate, this era of exclusion, he was someone still reaching out into the world to meet strangers. To talk to them. To feed them and eat with them as if they were family.

His raw nerve and ability to wage a war against mediocrity, to rise against everyday, and to stay alive despite all ache, all secrets, all mistakes was an enormous inspiration that called to me.

I fuck up constantly. I hurt people. I wreck opportunities. I run. I am guilt-ridden and grief-stricken.

A tortured orphan with nothing to lose, I was defaulted to the streets. I had no choice but to develop a genuine thirst for life and people. For their food and truths.

To know that I could drown in a flood of my own fuck ups and still come out alive, that I could still write and be read, still be liked and loved by new, different breeds in different lands meant everything.

I needed that message in order to keep going.

And now I don’t have it.

Anthony went to West Virginia and ate with my people. Without judgment and fear. He wasn’t afraid of the land that brought my heart to life. He acknowledged the poverty of Appalachia with a straight face, not pity. He talked to every person he interacted with there with respect and real warmth. Having been addicted to heroin himself, he knew not to judge those swept deep into the black crack of the opioid crisis. He kept his heart open and bright.

They needed that openness and light.

And now they don’t have it.

Every collar on every military jacket I wear sits high and strong. My boots. My flares. My vague androgyny and smirking indifference to feminine or social norms marched on.

I never quite fit in. I never wanted to. I learned not to be afraid of this because of Anthony.

The occasionally reckless, sharp shooting way that I am is in some ways entirely due to Anthony and his lean, mean message that who you are, the real meat, the cream, and the fat, is more important than what anyone thinks of it.

He imprinted this feral energy on me.

To be that true to yourself. To stand like a hammer and strike back at anything that pushes you to become anyone else. To want it all. To question everything.

I feel unarmed and unmanned. My commander has surrendered when I believed we were walking black flags.

I believed he’d live forever. Like a dream.

Or a dad.

To have lost him in this manner and know that tomorrow Anthony won’t be out in the world somewhere taking it on, striking back, is unbearable.

We needed Anthony Bourdain.

We needed his voice and his honesty. His life.