Left-over Thai food and a can of Rockstar....

I'm not sure I can ever see those things again without thinking of you. Your desk has been vacant for several weeks now, but I know it's not like when you went to Australia. Even so, for the first week or two it really felt like everything was waiting, just waiting, for the right moment when you'd return. I know that that is not a possibility, not reality, but I don't like to think about it. My stuff has started to cross the Line of Demarcation that we arbitrarily set between our two desks. I feel awkward about it being there, but I guess you won't mind too much. Oh, I thought about parking my bike in front of your desk chair the other day. I hope that's ok. I know you thought my bike was pretty sweet, so I'm glad you got to ride it a few times, even if those were just short trips up to the grocery store for some caffeine to keep you going.

They left your stuff in the office because I wanted it that way. I'm not sure what I'll do when it's not there anymore. I'm the only one who sleeps under her desk now. When they initially went to move your things, they had to ask what your pillow and blanket were for. For sleeping under our desks. Duh. It made me smile; I think you would have, too. There are still sponge animals and dinosaurs yet to be born, and I think you left some tea and instant soup under the water cooler. I thought about buying a pack of spong safari animals and pouring hot water over them all at once. It would look pretty cool, and you would have laughed.

Remember when you and Dave took Rob's chair (the one with arm rests), taped "Phasers / Warp Drive / Earl Gray, hot" on one of the arm rests, and put it at my desk? You were always game for the office pranks. Your laugh was so distinct. I can still hear it, actually, in my memory, and I wonder why I never documented the ridiculous stuff we used to do in the office. I would have had a lot of incriminating photos.... It's funny, really, how the quotidian things in this life are so often taken for granted. And how, just as often, we make that same statement when they are no longer the same. You would think that somewhere along the way the human race would learn and culturally evolve a step or two.

I miss you, Sky. You challenged me to think differently almost every day, and--in so doing--you made me a better person. And how did I thank you? I don't think I did, really. You were my fellow eco-crusader, deep-thinking sociopolitical revolutionary. I loved your t-shirts and (I think) you dug mine. (At least I know you liked my wind farm shirt that said "Intelligent Design" under a bunch of modern wind mills.) We talked and we argued; we laughed and we listened. You were perhaps the best officemate I could have ever hoped for. (And secretly, I was totally psyched when Marcia said I was going to be in an office with you and Dave...how could it possibly get any better?!) You were, in short, an exceptional friend.

I feel guilty, too. After all the times I talked about my depression, my anxiety, my own brush with the darkness of the human psyche, my thoughts on medication, my struggle to deal with suicidal impulses in close family members....HOW COULD I NOT HAVE SEEN THOSE THINGS IN YOU? I've gone over days and weeks again and again -- I know what it's like to be sensitive to the collective pain of the world, but why couldn't I see it in you? You would think that, given my own personal experiences, I of all people would be attune to deep, numbing depression in others. Was I too far gone into my own problems to see pain in the people around me? I don't know. I just don't know. Before I left for Goldschmidt, I noticed that you had distanced yourself a bit from the rest of us, but I didn't know it was worse than normal. I remember thinking, while in Germany, that I was looking forward to being back in the office. There had been some talks you would have found interesting at the conference; I almost emailed you about them. I also realized that there are some things I like about America, and I was looking forward to sharing those thoughts with you, just to see what you'd say.

I want to make a difference with my life, affect some change in the world. How many times I romanticized my future while sitting in the office, I do not know. That plan hasn't changed; it's just been modified in a way. Remember when I had you and Crystal, Willy and Susan over for dinner, and you were totally shocked that I had made an entire main course just for you because of your vegetarianism? At the time I didn't see why you should be so shocked -- it's the sort of thing friends do. But I'd like to think, in retrospect, that maybe that gesture mattered a little more, that maybe it was a bit of light or hope (in lentil-loaf form) for humanity: hey, sometimes we do little things that seem like nothing to us but really, REALLY, matter to other people. I'd like to believe that. In and around the department, people are getting together a little bit more, talking a little bit more, thinking a little more broadly about life (the universe, and everything) these days. It's your fault, you know.... : ) I think you'd like that.

[amy]