Katia the Brave

Today marks a year since we first felt the absence of my beautiful friend Katia here on earth. I miss her all the time and oh so much. Peering into the deep pool in which this day has become submerged in my memories, I see the day as it remains frozen there underneath. So many years had passed since Katia and I fell in love in college, fighting together with our friends against so many things to stay forever young; and in the years after we left school, we were all spread so far apart by life and trying to live it. I felt this distance that day, winnowing into me, hollowing out my chest as I looked around my world filled with people who didn’t know Katia, who wouldn’t understand. I think all of us who loved Katia in college felt this as we reached out to each other, sitting together on the phone in the sting of our sudden loss. We relayed who else we had spoken to from school and who else we were trying to get in touch with; it felt important to mention each others’ names as we spoke. Even though we were all so far away from each other and we couldn’t be together even on a phone call, hearing each others’ names and knowing we were all bearing this together felt like family again.

When I got home that day I rushed to find the movie Muppet Treasure Island and put it on immediately. It was Katia’s favorite movie and one of only a handful of VHS tapes she had senior semester that we had access to for movie nights. After a weekend at home that last semester, I returned to campus Sunday night to a message that we were pushing off the arrival of Monday morning and all its collegiate micronightmares with a movie night in the dorm common room. The common rooms in the Esperanza dorm were characterless and plain, overdressed in painted wooden molding like the lobby of a private Christian doctor’s office, and if you don’t know what that looks like you should say a small prayer of thanks to Selena Quintanilla Perez right now. As we filled the lifeless common room, each returning from our weekends at home, at work, or in the library, the walls of that unremarkable room began to light up with our laughter and singing and storytelling. Katia brought out the Muppet Treasure Island VHS and we delighted in our childhood memories as we sang along–no one louder than Katia, of course–and took up arms with Captain Kermit against Tim Curry and his scary vest (except that Katia would never really fight against Tim Curry on account of her earnest adoration of him). We were kids that night; young, and carefree, and so, so young.

As I watched the movie that night in the company of her loss, I clinged to each song as it played, listening closely like it might have secrets or messages from her, like I’d find more of her in the prose there or win a few more moments with her if I could just find her there on Treasure Island. And I felt her there with me as I watched, and I wept. I don’t know if she was there or not but I needed to feel like she could be, like I could invoke her or summon her with the right prayer or ritual, and feel her again. I don’t want to examine this practice or belief too closely for fear it might unravel and I won’t be able to feel her as strongly when I talk to her; for some reason it was easy to believe and to practice, and I don’t want to let it go.

I anxiously explored my photo library and social media feeds, searching for artifacts of our memories and pictures of us, frantically spelunking for the moments we have shared. I saved everything, hoarding photos and screenshotting memories. I can’t believe there won’t be any more photos of her. You don’t realize when you are living with someone that the memories you are sharing together are part of a finite list. I thought we had more time to add to the list, but now all the memories we have, all the moments and stories of us have been completed in the universe, and can now only be lost and found,

and retold.  

I’ve compiled a collection of Katia reaction memes to sprinkle memories and moments of Katia into my days and interactions that are available for download here.

I don’t even remember when Katia and I first met. At some point in college we drifted into each other’s space and began orbiting together. One day we were schoolmates and castmates and the next she was calling me “My Love” and we were getting glares from the girls from the Bethany dorms for laughing too loudly during chapel.

We were both so far away from finding ourselves and understanding our queerness, but somehow what we couldn’t find in ourselves yet we saw so clearly in the other, meeting each other in a deeper unspoken place, holding each other in intimate space. We wandered all over campus holding hands–and our palms never sweated so you KNOW it was real–and we both knew without discussion the kind of love we shared, and we were safe and sheltered in the house of our friendship.

And my, it was cozy in there.

We’d meet in our special place, which was the campus library because even though we didn’t always have cash we DID always have homework that was overdue, which meant we could live it up within library walls as much as we pleased without being officially irresponsible. Hours passed as we danced in and out of our chairs to whoever’s headphones were warbling the most significant bop at the given moment whether Nicki Minaj or Céline Dion or Celia Cruz, giggled over silly viral videos and internet miscellany, and (at some point) begrudgingly completed our homework. It was always a party as familiar faces wafted through the building and joined our little corner of the library where all the electrical outlets were. It was easy to see just how much Katia loved and was loved by simply observing the volume of people she would greet from moment to moment around campus. She had few casual friendships, greeting most of her friends as “my love,” “my lover”, darling, angel, and any number of delightful pet names that she might bestow upon you with her warm affection.

Katia warmed up the jacuzzi of gay culture for me while I was still silently struggling through the closet, before she herself had come to terms with her own spot in the queer pool party that is life. She would sidle up beside me at a computer in the library and belaboredly emote, “Will I ever be able to cope with the sheer force and magnitude of Carmen Carrera’s beauty?” and if you didn’t know who that was then sit back relax and grab a notepad because here is the K True Hollywood Story complete with important fashion moments and their latest viable social media footprint. She presented me with the drag classic To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar like I was a Mariah Carey fan who hadn’t seen Glitter yet, like it was the missing piece to my understanding of the world. When she found out just before Thanksgiving break that I had never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, she SCRAMBLED to pull together a significant immersion experience. She didn’t have that VHS, so she rented a laptop from the library and gathered other invested fans; we plugged it into the outdoor outlet on the patio outside the mail room and sat on the cement in a row and listened closely to the little laptop sounding out into the autumn night air. She deftly coached me through the whole movie, showing me when fans in-the-know sing along and sing back and improvise and dance and we’ll definitely have to go in person some time and get all dressed up and have a ball!

Katia loved music. She was always sharing her newest favorite song on the internet, letting me in on the latest music celebrity gossip, or literally singing any number of songs new or old in any number of languages, about each of which she could offer you trivia, a dance, an insider anecdote about the song’s importance in the musical universe, and a custom playlist inspired by the song’s mood that you’ll be playing all week. When Katia, our friend Ryan, and I found out that one of our friends was afraid to masturbate, we sat together in the radio studio on campus and collaborated on a masturbation playlist just for her. Ryan contributed Britney’s “Touch of My Hand,” I added “1+1” by Beyoncé and Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me” (such a sap), and Katia cracked her knuckles and blessed us with Aaliyah’s “Rock the Boat” and “Do What It Do” by Jamie Foxx, just to name a few. We delivered the playlist to our randy friend with mischievous jubilance, and wished her many happy comings and goings.

I turn to Katia’s playlists now like I’m calling her up on the phone to hear her voice. I sing along even when I don’t know the words like I’m keeping up a conversation with my old friend. I imagine when she must have listened to each playlist herself and tell her when there’s one I like in particular.

“Tampa Summers: 40’s, cigars, and ass,” A Playlist by Katia Cortés Avalos on Spotify

“Salsa Clasica,” A Playlist by Katia Cortés Avalos on Spotify

“Girrrllll,” A Playlist by Katia Cortés Avalos on Spotify

Katia is known for her thriving devotion to Ricky Martin, having received wellwishes and prayers when her dreams of marrying him were crushed by his own marriage to a man. She made it through but only because we must move on with the passage of time. When Ricky Martin came out my senior year of college and I developed an interest in his career, music, and face, I showed Katia my copy of his memoir Yo into which I was beginning a reading journey. She sprang into action with authority and care to proselytize me into the world of Enrique Martin Morales and all that he has given to us. She returned to me the next day with a stack of CDs and a lesson plan: I was to work my way through Ricky’s discography, including the music video DVDs and MTV Unplugged that were of course included in her exhaustive collection, as well as CDs by a group called La Quinta Estación because she wanted me to experience them and report back as well. I kept the CDs for way too long before giving them back of course, although I kinda wish I had accidentally kept at least one, as it all seems so far away now as I search for artifacts of our life together.

The day before we learned that Katia was gone, I was listening to Ricky and thinking about Katia, and made a promise to myself that the next time Ricky went on tour or had a residency, I would surprise Katia with tickets and we would get to live our full Ricky fantasy. I didn’t know at that time that she was already gone. It hurts to listen to Ricky now. I’ll still see him someday, and I’ll bring Katia with me on a shirt, a sign, a shouted proposal of marriage during a quiet concert moment, but for now I crawl inside her Ricky playlist on Spotify and wrap myself in it like I’m leaning my head on her shoulder in our warm corner of the library, and her spiraling onyx hair gathers about my head and scratches gently above my brow.

“Ricky.” A Playlist by Katia Cortés Avalos on Spotify

Quédate un momento, y congelemos el tiempo en el reloj,
Como un pacto eterno de amor entre los dos.
Y así quédate…
Ven quédate y abrázame.
No te vayas, por favor.

I wish I knew what happens after we die. I wish I knew for sure that she can hear me when I talk to her, that the witty responses I hear from her in my heart aren’t just my own heartbroken wishings. These confidences seem a long way off unless Bill Nye finally decides to respond to my tweets and tell me what happens next, so I am left now with a lifetime stretching before me, and no Katia, and it is up to us now.

So I talk about her and I talk to her. I tell stories about her to people who have never met her, I talk about her like she is a gospel I have been given to share, and tell of her miracles and wildernesses and light.

We have to tell these stories about each other, about Katia. We have to romanticize them, to mythologize them, to vividly evangelize what was magical about them. We are, each of us, a vibrant and complex mythology that only lives on when we are told, when we are believed, when we are shared. Katia does not text me or @ me anymore, but she lives and works in the universe because I believe in her and pray to her, I practice her and I share her with others and with you. I feel her as I write this, and it is so nice.

And so we tell of her legend to the world. We’ll sing carols of Katia every Christmas, flying through the frosty night with holiday cheer or asking the wisemen why they are always so late coming January 6 when the big party with the coquito was on Christmas Eve?

We’ll paint pictures of Dame Katia, socialite and tastemaker, unable to get back to Dolce about the dress they want her to wear to the Met Ball because she still has to get back to Versace, Dapper Dan, and Christian Siriano today before Anna Wintour sends her another passive aggressive text.

We’ll talk of Mother Katia of the Haüs of Katia, with her mansion full of queers and queens on the outskirts of Tampa Bay, where the art and the whiskey blur into the Salsa Clásica coloring the air around the house, buzzing with dance and paint and magic.

We’ll tell the legend of Katia the Brave, a Warrior who fought for love and justice, who persisted in battle against the fiercest of foes, who raged against the dark night and foraged ahead for the protection and future of her love, Eden.

I’ll tell the story of my friend Katia, who you couldn’t not know was in the room–be it expansive echoing ballroom or minute mouldy modular classroom–as her presence was announced to you before you saw her by a full and storied laugh, bubbling and raucous, traceable through its electrified air back to where it spiraled out of her chortling mouth through her teeth, parted in the middle in an iconic gap, that of a muse, every artist’s dream. Gorgeous dancing raven hair like a comic book superhero framed her dewy sepia eyes, flickering with wonder and sparkle and vim. Katia had BO-DY and could serve it hot and fresh in every season, with tits sculpted by the damn gods! When I close my eyes and breathe deeply I can smell her, the sweet scent of her sugar skin that glowed with the sun. Katia was a true beauty.

Dear Katia,

I miss you, baby.

I miss your energy in this world, knowing you are somewhere on the continent occupying space, in a house, in the car, doing things, listening to the same music as me, keeping up on the same gossip as me. Now I feel the lack of you in the world, the void you left. There is a Katia-shaped hole in the universe and we are wounded from your loss.

The world is missing your singular enchantment and spinning for want of your magic spark. It is a little less bright out, and not in the depressed outlook sort of way although maybe a little, but in that your light shone in the sky of this realm so brightly that we can’t help but search for you in the darkened trench of the atmosphere, still dripping sapphire with your memory.

I miss your laugh.

Go and explore the farthest galaxies and possibilities of all that you are, but please come back and sit with me on a rainy afternoon, I need it so badly.

I promise not to let go, I promise to keep talking. Please keep responding.

I will take you with me and we will see so many wonderful things, we will laugh so much, we will live so many of our dreams.

I will carry your soul with me and hold it in my heart until it is old and wrinkled and full of experiences with me all over this earth,

and I will prove to us both that life is worth living,

and for a long time.

Love You Forever,

Isaac.

P.S. Let me know your thoughts on Ricky Martin’s new mustache PRONTO.