I can't remember how we met. Or why. He thought I was a narc at first. It took a while before he realized I was just some crazy chick connecting with him through cyberspace. Paranoid and angry, but bright and tuned in. He seemed to trust no one and had little reason to. I could fucking kill all the assholes in his life that fucked with him when he was a kid. And we wrote a lot before his time in Kandahar and during. He was an embedded journalist there. He said the craziest things to me and for some reason, we kept writing each other.

That year, May 2006, he sent me a birthday gift from Kandahar (even though my birthday wasn't until January). He had printed out everything we had ever written. Then he took an Afghanistan pizza box, cut out 2 pieces of cardboard from it and bound the cardboard and writings with heavy grade wire. He covered the barbed wire with clear plastic tape and then he stuck it in the mail. Just like that. No box, no wrapping, no nothing. It arrived intact, grease-stained and all. Fucking awesome.

I started packing for NY a few days ago and came across this book. It's scary, because its contents are insanely personal and probably incriminating in many ways and it was shipped internationally. Yesterday I started reading through it again, laughing at how fucking nuts both of us were, in some ways totally different and in some lonely and sad ways, the same. I saw him log on to IM for a minute and was going to say, "No way! I was just looking at our book!" But I didn't. Instead, I cruised his website briefly, stopping momentarily on his art to wonder if people really appreciated how fucking awesome his portraits are. This was YESTERDAY.

For the last few hours, I've been packing a box, filling it with books, trying to fit Shooter's gift somehow without the barbed wire cutting anything. Like a nightmare round of tetris. Procrastinating, I jumped on twitter simply to read, Caleb "Shooter" Schaber, R.I.P. I called the poster to verify if it was true. This was 2 hours ago. I am sad to say it is.

Now I sit here with this fucking awesome book on my lap. This fucked up three-month window into the lives of two crazy people craving substance. Wondering why I would be struggling with this book for 2 days. How weird is that??? Horrified at how Shooter must have been feeling.

I don't pretend to truly know him. His joy, his demons. Our lives overlapped in this way for only a brief period. Occasionally over the years, we would catch up though instant message. But it matters to me. Tremendously. And I still can't figure out how to make a dent in the eradication of suffering. Fuck.

I'm so sorry for anyone that loved him.
I'm so sad that life just keeps happening.
We matter so little. We become memories.
We become dust.

Shooter and I sent each other music sometimes and Mazzy Star's "Into Dust" seemed to be our anthem.
We would meet eventually in the days leading up to Burning Man and of course on the playa.




Typed out and taped onto the front cover of the pizza box was this poem:

Insane Kid's Story Book

You are warm
like whispering syrup
arms of golden snakes
smell of many caves.

I drink and I sink
into you
Tumble over head
Delightful immersion
In shivery warmth
At ease in your
Paradise jungle
Among splendorous
Words
Wicked and wonderful

I can explain to no
one else
The summertime aura
Of cherry blossom wine
Lightly stepping
through concrete
chambers
of man made sun.


Shooter may have been many things
but let it be known he was also a poet and an artist.


If you want to rest, then rest in peace.
If you want to fly, then fucking fly in peace.
Either way, Shooter, I hope you finally have some peace.

Into dust...
Love,
Solar