Phil 1

My uncle Phil, my dad’s youngest brother, died 15 years ago last Monday. He was on a flight to California from New York to meet the rest of our family for the wedding of his oldest brother, Bill, who has also since passed. When the plane landed, Phil did not get up from his seat - his heart had stopped beating somewhere in the sky. He was 44. 

Phil was very small, very beautiful, incredibly funny. He was a performance artist-writer-director-choreographer-best friend to many, many. 

After he died, I became the keeper of Phil’s many boxes of ephemera - diaries and photos and postcards and newspaper clippings. Charts made in colored pencil. The boxes are bursting with confession, love, fear, anxiety, desire, mortality. There are pens and pencils left in half used notebooks, glitter falling out of envelopes, love letters of every kind, and a lot of pain. 

Phil lived in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis, to which he lost many friends and lovers. He was also brutally beaten and hospitalized one night, walking home to his apartment. The police report and X rays are in the boxes.

Before I knew I would be homebound during these months, I was already staying in my parent’s house in Seattle, reunited with the boxes of all my family’s dead. I had hoped to spend some time with Phil, as well as with his mother/my grandma, Anne. Both were prolific documenters of self. They also had a lot in common, and a very difficult relationship.

Only in the last few days have I had the patience to sit down and start to sift. It’s slow going. 

I’ve been really missing Phil, and wondering what he would have to say about this moment. He makes me laugh so hard. And while each uncovered layer feels precious, I am also trying to cull, or at least give new life. For his benefit, and mine.

Here are a few collages from one attempt at a “trash” pile, and one of his charts. 

More to come, I hope.