There will be only Ghosts
In memory of Joan Didion
I took my walk in the nighttime today, and when I reached the edge of town I noticed a strange light southward, the clouds luminescent and orange. South is where Burgos is, and the spot above it is constantly lit up as an announcement that it is there. Before I stepped out, my partner texted me that Joan Didion had passed away. A few weeks ago, my partner texted me that she finished reading our copy of The Year of Magical Thinking. In that book, Didion describes her involuntary longing to bring her husband back from the grave. She describes how, in moments, she believed that she could. On my walk, I was thinking about how all my favorite writers had died in my lifetime. Why? There are more people alive now than there ever have been, and we are surrounded by an abundance of poetry, more than in any other time. We live in a literary Golden Age that rivals all others in history. Still, seven billion is only a fraction of all the people that have ever lived. Once we seven billion are gone, that fraction will shrink even as the population increases. New, more spectacular Golden Ages will come and pass, and the number of dead will continue to grow and dwarf the number of living and, eventually, there will be only ghosts.
This is how the passing of Joan Didion feels right now. Rest in peace, Joan.
