knowledge

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The first time I met Ana Helena we were standing in the backyard of 19th Street as experimental films were projected in the kitchen behind us. She was on a tear because she had just encountered the Jenny Joseph poem about aging. Despite the chaos around us, the punk show in the basement, the  drunk characters lurching around the yard, what I remember best about that night is Ana Helena repeating over and over at top volume “I will wear purple whenever I fucking want!”

Our friendship grew out of the shared view that life is for living, and that you have to make an effort every day to create the world you want to exist in. Ana Helena has been a brilliant friend ever since, as we separately moved away from Portland and around the world.

Ana Helena is also the practitioner who restored my sense of smell, a dozen years after my doctors told me to give up hope for a cure.  The world doesn’t always smell good, but I am grateful beyond measure to have that knowledge.

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