I am not ready to write about the death of Hunter S. Thompson.
And yet, I feel this intense pressure to speak, to explore my feelings about a personal icon, to ask questions and make connections and, in so doing, expose the darker, sharper, rustier, less aesthetic parts of myself that I prefer to keep locked in the basement.
Why do I struggle with this post?
Maybe because suicide has touched my personal life - more than once.
Maybe because the endless speculation in blogs and magazines, newspapers and radio shows, has touched a nerve.
Maybe because I am never very good at dealing with death.
Push-button publishing is a wonderful thing, but sometimes, I feel like it rushes me to contextualize and digest, eulogize and memorialize, before I am ready.
This much I can say: The Hunter S. Thompson that mattered to me - the one who changed journalism forever - has not died. It is the Hunter S. Thompson I will never know - the man - who left us last night. And that loss does not belong to me.
His influence on writing will live on, so in a sense, I have not lost anything at all.
Still, I am sad.
Some posts that touched me today: