It has been a year since I originally wrote this post. I hope you’re resting, my friend.
I have a treasure trove of voice messages on my phone.
The deep base - the basso profundo - with a jolly and yet lamenting melody, recognizable anywhere.
Even across the span of decades, through the crackle of distant cell towers, and the nagging beeps and echos of city life.
Terrence Williams
The gift of this man was his song. The resonance within him that absorbed the surroundings and played it back.
We met in August of 2001 at Colorado College, when he was one of those “full time employees” who is barely older than their minions, in charge with a handbook missing more pages than remained. He taught me to scaffold risk via Liberating Structures, possibly before this canon of work was a thing.
He invited us to think and feel as ourselves, then partner up, and then ‘fourple.’
Fourple.
I remember this word vividly, as my staff reenacted the salient moments of our training, and I was selected somehow to portray Terrence.
The lesson, now, in the wake of his passing feels vibrant, like a mountainside charged with ozone.
“Be with it for a moment, but do not stay alone with it.”
Do not stay alone with it.
Tell a friend. Maybe two. Ok, three, just to be sure.
Fourple.
Most of the rest of our time in proximity has faded into the background of my ailing memory, but then in 2018 our friendship began, from the most unlikely of circumstances.
2018 was my year. I cracked out of my shell and was reborn in an awkward adolescence I bypassed the first time around. At 37, I took the stage under the expert guidance of Kristina Hall and aired out my demons to an audience, and a camera. I remember walking off that stage, having experienced a direct transformation. I left some shit on that stage, in those lights.
I left my darkness behind.
Terrence saw this.
From that point on, we corresponded first in text and then via the melody of voice. The pandemic gave us more opportunities for substantive conversations about life, death, dogs, siblings, and the great honor it is and the deep challenge it can be to hold the massive heartache of the communities that surround us. We spoke at length when my person got sick, and sometimes in the early mornings on my drive to the hospital. He asked for my insights on some of his work, and offered his expertise and lived experience with my team at White Lotus during a time when we were painfully aware of how much work there was for us to do.
First, he shared with our yoga team, and then he and a colleague helped us move through the embodied experience of who and what we were. I was in a Starbucks in Glenwood Springs, moving through the embodied pain of racism while some really emo 90’s music played on behind the scenes.
I didn’t record these conversations, out of respect for the personal transformation that was made possible, but oh, do I regret that now.
Oh, oh, oh, do I wish I had captured more of that song so that I could show you, rather than attempt to glue together his memory in font alone.
Now, my memories exist in some lovely messages and a voicemail box, and my friend is in the everywhen.
Here, but not.
Here, but not.
So I’m telling you now, and I’ll say it again, the repetitive baseline of the song of Terrence:
Be with it for a moment, but do not stay alone with it.
Akaal, my friend.
Your song lives on in me.