Andrew Torii.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." - from "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac

So Andrew, I'm reading this book right now on Courtney's Kindle (which is cool, but definitely nowhere near as good as an actual book) and I wonder all the time if you'd like it. It reminds me of you and I told Court that I would probably like the book because of that. You once told me, after I had given you a second David Sedaris book as a present, that you actually don't like David Sedaris and that you and I had very different tastes in books. That really hit me at the time, and now years later, I think I've finally realized why. It was because I never bothered to ask you.

I know ultimately, it would be extremely ego-centric of me to blame myself for your leaving. That is, your decision was your decision alone. At the same time, I do believe that we affect each other, that we are all intertwined. I don't want this blog entry to be an apology, but an act of me trying to be present now to you, in ways I hadn't been before, wherever you are in the world.

Maybe you have changed your name. But I wanted to call out your name in this entry, because it is the only one I know for you. And I know we are still connected, somehow.

"Continue to call each other by the names I've given you, to help remember who you are. You will get where you are going by remembering who you are."

Maybe you have completely transformed. Maybe you have shrunk, expanded, stripped away, reinvented, in ways I couldn't have imagined. All the same, you are still you. With the same mind, body, soul. Everything you set out to find that lonely dark night, vibrating with the potential of silence, was and is within you.

It's been a year. After a year, I have come to realize that I am more your sister than I knew. I am more like you than I could have dreamed before all this had come to pass. I was nervous about today. At many times over the last twelve months, dates and the counting of time has figured so emotionally in my daily. But this morning, I feel calm. All the mad hopes and fears, all the burning desires still reside within me. But I am present. To the here and now. To me. To you.