My friend Mark Gorrell died yesterday.
It wasn’t unexpected. Mark had been fighting lung cancer for some time, and sometime in 2010 it became clear he wasn’t going to win. In January the City of Berkeley had the good sense to say nice things about him while he was still around to hear them.
A couple months ago Ron mentioned that she and Joe had seen him out at the Farmers’ Market, looking considerably the worse for wear but recognizably still Mark, cracking bad jokes and generally irreverent. I made a decision to call him, and then I didn’t.
It’s too late to do that now, and I’ll admit I’m feeling something in between remorse and sorry for myself on that score.
Mark was an ardent admirer of Zeke, who loved him right back, and that says a fair amount right there about Mark’s character and judgment. Actually, his whole life says a lot about his character. If you’ll pardon one incredibly overworked cliche nested in another one, if you look up “Think Globally, Act Locally” in the dictionary the entry would have Mark’s picture there. Or it should, anyway. He was born in Reno but Berkeley was his home, and he worked to make his home a better place for decades. He helped manage one of the first curbside recycling programs in the country, fought for greener zoning and city planning, and generally spent more time as an unpaid activist than he did in his architectural practice. I think it’s probably safe to say that if it wasn’t for Mark, Berkeley would have had a trash incinerator on the East Bay Shoreline for the last 30 years. He’d probably flinch if he heard me say that, too, and claim that people like Dan Knapp and Kathy Evans and such did all the hard work.
That was Mark’s genius, honestly: working with groups of people and keeping them going. This wasn’t always easy. I met Mark in 1989ish, when I got involved in the Ecology Center in Berkeley, and in those days the meetings were often long, inefficient, and frustrating. (Not pointing fingers. I know I contributed my share of all three.) Mark would keep the meetings’ tone light. Sometimes he would keep it too light. I remember one evening thinking I’d strangle him if he told one more joke while we were arguing. Now I’m thinking he was probably smarter than me about how to approach that particular meeting.
Mark shaped my desert-rat-ism in no small measure. He was a huge fan of Pyramid Lake, of the Eureka and Saline valleys, and I always meant to wangle a spot in his Suzuki Samarai on one of his trips. We never did see the desert together, which seems really stupid in retrospect. When my ex- and Zeke and I were planning our first trip to Pyramid Lake, he drew us a map freehand of the lake and its surround, remarkably accurate for not consulting a source and with details a commercial map would never have had: the rough locations of canyons with petroglyphs in them; a stretch of road marked beyond-be-dragons style with a 4-wheel-drive buried up to its running boards in sand. That was twenty years and six moves ago; I have no idea what happened to that map, but I wish I had it here right now in a frame.
For the next seven-eight years after he and I met, while I was burning myself to a cinder editing and publishing the Ecology Center’s house rag Terrain, Mark — and his amazing, wonderful spouse Nancy — were always there for content, technical help, design consults and all around cameraderie. The guy was steadfast. Not so much me. The last time I talked to Mark might have been a decade ago, I realize guiltily, around the time our friend Millie Ketcheshawno died. Maybe we talked since then. I don’t know. I know for sure I haven’t talked to him since the divorce, because he performed the wedding ceremony and I don’t remember giving him any grief about the lifetime warranty, which I definitely would have.
I can’t believe I let those years go by. I’ve told myself that the lesson I’ve needed to learn is to let people who aren’t really friends slip through my fingers, to let go those who aren’t good for me. Turns out I need to learn the complementary lesson as well. Not getting in touch with Mark over the last decade was a stupid mistake, and I’m not feeling particularly wise at the moment.
Especially given that this last week has been a demonstration — not that I should have needed another — that I have some really wonderful people among my friends. I need to start letting you all know that I know that, and I’m sorry when I’ve fallen down on that important job.
Also: none of you are allowed to die from here on out. That’s it. I’ve had it.
Thanks for sharing this Chris. It’s been even longer since I heard one of Mark’s bad jokes.
Ave atque vale, Mark.
I’m sorry, Chris. And I know that feeling of regret all too well.
So sorry to hear that, Chris. He sounds like a really awesome guy!
Talk to him ; he`s in spirit , but he can hear you .
Appreciate the thought, Jim, but no, he’s not and he can’t.
Oh, and anyone else wanting to comment in kind should read this first.