I can't believe how out of touch with things I can be. This blog post from BookMadam says it, in a way: there are times when you realize that all of these people out there, who you pretty much take for granted, could one day - in fact will - just not be there anymore.
I met Paul a couple of times. He was a guest at the Writers Festival a few times while I've been working there, and he came up to the Hospitality Suite in the spring of 2009 when he was in the building for another event entirely. That would have been about a month before he was diagnosed with lung cancer, I now realize. I liked him. There are some people whose personalities leave an impression on me: not of anything in particular, just a sense of liking. He was one of them.
And yet somehow I never really get out there and talk to as many people as I have the opportunity to talk to, especially given my job. So I didn't really have any real conversations with him: I hovered at the sidelines of other people's conversations, as I tend to do with strangers. And now I don't have the chance.
Tonight I'm doing a show on Literary Landscape about local slam poet Steve Sauve - someone else that I assumed would always be around, and who I didn't know anywhere near as well as I wish I had. I let myself be both too shy or too busy or too tied up with my own stuff to get involved. It takes the swift kick to the head of mortality to remind me that people won't always be here. I didn't really get to know Paul in person, but I love his books, and his music, and they're what I know best of him.
So I wish I'd had more of a chance to talk to him, and I wish there were more of his books and films and songs to look forward to.
