Funeral For a Friend

I was supposed to write a New York Fashion Week piece riffing off of Jslow’s “Dude, I want to look like a lady” post, but I just can’t. Not in the mood.

My eyes are shot. I’m dressed in black. Who died?

Desiree’s mom, that’s who. And “Dude, I’m riding BART home from the funeral.”

I met Des on day two of my first post-college ad agency job 30 years ago. Now she’s “The Weaver”. Too long a story to explain. Actually, screw it, I’m going to.

Desiree “The Dream Weaver.” Always smiling, always chic, and always a fan of consignment shopping!

“The Weaver is short for the “Dream Weaver.” Des is a dreamer who likes to “weave dreams” and her life proves it.

She had too much heart and soul for advertising, even though she tried. Job-sharing was a thing for a while at Conde Nast, especially when talented, driven young ad-women got married and had babies and wanted to share duties at Lucky or Vogue. Des job-shared even though she had no husband or kid – actually, she WAS the kid, and wanted that time off to be one. She lived on less but experienced so much more.

She sailed half-way around the world with a bartender she barely knew. Accompanied Jane Goodall to Africa to research monkeys. Was a guide-dancer for the blind and drove the elderly to the polls in her beat-up Honda with the “PYTFWRD” plates (Pay it Forward), which was once mistaken by a hustler who asked, “Pretty Young Thing for Weed?”

Me, in what passes for funeral garb: Greg Lauren raw silk jacket, Marni bag and gladiator sandals, R13 jeans, Moschino iphone case.

Last year, she moved to Berlin with her current boyfriend, a self-described former “Funyun-eating-violinist” she connected with at a Junior High reunion she did not want to attend. But she did. She showed up. A Weaver quote: “You gotta be present to win.”

She was, and she did. She won love.

This funeral took up my entire day. I am behind on my work, my home crap, this blog post.

Which brings me back to “The Weaver.” In her eyes I see the 25-year-old me typing away in my cubicle in a sturdy Ann Taylor power suit, pulling shiny white paper through the fax machine, making meals out of free happy-hour appetizers, playing ad-league softball in the freezing fog of Rossi Park, breaking tables at Rockin’ Robin.

We were so young. Everything was new. Now we’re not so young. Instead of weddings we’re going to funerals.

But the Weaver…she still lives life where everything is new. And guess what? The next time I see her at a gathering it won’t be for a funeral, but for a wedding. Hers.