"so i got that goin' for me, which is nice"

Albuquerque 1991, a location on the space-time continuum now blowing around my memory like the Siberian Elm seeds lately clogging up the curbs and culverts of this city, was an odd year, wasn’t it? For me, it really was an odd year, even more so in the metaphorical sense than in the mathematical. Though it was another year of many that I have spent here, it was too a year of radical changes and awesome events.
The first two-thirds of the year I remember best.
In my own part of town, near the university, it did not get really cold until the end of January. There were patches of ice on the sidewalks near my house and near the apartment of my friend, Kenneth W. Seward. Seward was a lighting designer whom I worked with at the University of New Mexico. I had recently graduated from Art School and worked at Keller Hall, in the department of Music. Seward studied in the Theatre department and held a part-time job at the concert hall. We had become good friends, collaborating on multi-media projects, discussing literature and music, generally encouraging each others reading and art-making.
Ken was dying of a brain tumor. At the end of the previous summer, he had come into my office and complained of numbness in his hands, a bad thing for a manipulator of lights and electricity. I suggested he go to the student health center. One thing then led to another. By mid autumn he had been diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a deadly type of cancer.
By January he had lost the ability to walk and therefore, to work. His parents were in California and he had become estranged from them because he was gay. He had loads of friends in Burque though, and everyone pitched in to help him. We all took turns keeping him company, taking him to UNMH, and finally, feeding and bathing him. When his parents finally arrived to make peace in February, I resignedly noted that his father looked more like him than he did.
Ken died in early March and they had a great memorial service for him in Rodey Theater.
I kept a picture of him on the crew bulletin board at Keller Hall. In the picture he looked young and full of life, holding a crescent wrench in his hand.
Soon after he died, I broke up with my long time girlfriend. She was a classical musician and played the clarinet. We had drifted apart during Seward’s illness.
Spring came, though and it was warm again and the grass was green at the duck pond. I kept busy by painting large abstract pictures and managing the concert hall. Sometime in April or May of that spring, the news went around the Fine Arts Center that the Dalai Lama was going to be visiting the university and would be speaking at Popejoy Hall.
I knew a little bit about the man. The organization Friends of Tibet had rented Keller Hall twice in the recent past and had brought around a group of touring monks. These followers of the lama performed traditional dances and chants. Also, my room-mate, David Sonenfield, a graduate student in Art History, was a devout Buddhist. So, I was hearing quite a bit about Tibet and the Dalai Lama and Buddhism at that time.
Somehow, it came to be that the Dalai Lama and his entourage needed a place to camp out before his speaking engagement. These were in the days before UNM renovated the Fine Arts Center and much of it was a rambling old place. That included the Popejoy Hall green room, which was mostly a place where the technical crew hung out.
Owing to the fact that Keller hall was a genteel venue where chamber music was performed, that green room was chosen. It was clean, well-furnished and looked out onto a small garden. I remember when I informed my boss of this decision, he did not know who the Dalai Lama was.
“Huh”, I said, and began to make preparations.
When the day arrived, the Dalai Lama was driven to the loading dock in back of UNM art museum, in a limousine. He was accompanied by advisers, members of Friends of Tibet, and a small press corps. Though he had recently won the Nobel Prize, he was not nearly as famous as he is now and the issues surrounding Tibet had just begun to creep into the public’s consciousness.
He was immediately whisked to the Keller Hall green room, where different dignitaries came and went, presenting him with fresh fruit and prayer shawls. Sometime during that late afternoon, I noticed that there was an empty space on the couch next to the lama, so I went over and sat down next to him.
He looked me over and said, “You are brave! Then he put his arm around me, said something in Tibetan to the monk sitting next to him and continued, “Don’t worry, he said, everything will be fine”. He laughed a deep and happy laugh then motioned to one of his advisors and the two got up from their seats. The lama needed some time alone, to eat and meditate, the advisor told everyone in the room. The Dalai Lama then retired to the downstairs lounge in Keller Hall. Later I was allowed to join his procession over to Popejoy Hall. I didn’t have another opportunity to speak to him, though. He and his followers left soon after the event was over.
The rest of that spring and then the summer seemed to zip by that year. I finished an important painting and welded together a sculpture that held a bit of Ken’s ashes inside of it. I got a tattoo from the legendary J.B. Jones. In August, David and I decided to rent out a room in the house we shared. The ad we placed in the Daily Lobo was answered by a group of exchange students from Britain. They were named Rachel, Jo and Kirsty. Two of them would end up living in the house. The third would eventually lead me to the place where Nepal borders Tibet, to a river that climbed up a long valley into the kingdom of Mustang.