Thoughts of a Colorado Scorched Nihilist.

The fire had scortched her heart like it had seared the hillside.  The trees stood like black sentinels overlooking her downhill valley drive toward money.  Black sentinels that reflected the scar she had experienced in mentally giving up everything, yet winding up losing nothing.  They reigned on the horizon, and reminded her of the futility of it all.

Nothing felt better than being in the FJ.  Driving in the FJ made her feel in control, ready to drive away from any harm that came at her.  She could think in the FJ, knowing it was hers, her big blue ox, taking her into the forest, to remember her origins.

She loved her woman.  She loved holding her at night, hugging her tightly as her body became more toned - she could get closer to her lover's core as she lost weight, and it made the love linger longer in the morning.  The morning would come, bright with anticipation of newness, of birth, of hope, only to be dashed by chasing the money to give to a landlord and the debtors who don't care.

Death didn't seem like the end in nature the way it felt in the cultural construct of the mental framework of neurons derived from years of social conditioning.  She looked at the sentinel trees, lonesome in their death, yet their sacrifice gave more life to the understory, and the grasses and shrubs had already begun to fill in.  Death gave new life.  She thought of that, recalling a week prior releasing her father's cremains on the tundra.  His ashes lingered there for a while, defying the wind, and then dispersing to provide new carbon to the alpine.

Tomorrow she would have to return to the concrete palace of her monetary need.  She did not look forward to it.  She hoped it would be different, that something positive would happen, that the monotony wouldn't be as painful or as empty of meaning as the morning drive felt.  She hoped it wouldn't be hurtful, that kindness would discover her, that compassion would dance in her heart and she would remember the joy she had in lovemaking on her weekend.

Her lover's health concerned her.  She looked at her silent sleeping lady, curled up with the black cat stray who had chosen her, and wondered if she could ever provide the economic stability needed to make her lover not hurt so much physically.  She couldn't think of anything but to go back to school.  She wanted to provide for her beloved, for her beloved was the kind of soul-family that is so  perfect it defies logic and science.  It was a phenomenon, and it was to be treasured.  The cat placed his paw on her arm as she typed, and the silence of his love and her lovers arm wrapped around her waist was all she lived for.  It was divine, if there was divinity at all.

On the dusk drive not too many evenings ago, she saw an owl.  The owl looked right at her and her lover, as if to burn it's intense energy into them.  The owl healed the burn caused by the fire; it reminded the women of unity, of the greater picture.  But those symbols fade into the grey of concrete and cash and debt, and soon they were afraid once more.

The woman had woken this morning to the image of her beloved being t-boned in the corolla.  The corolla didn't have adequate protection from those kinds of impacts.  She received the call, coming from her in-laws, who the State had deemed next of kin.  She didn't even know her beloved hadn't made it into work.  She held her crumpled and cold body in the morgue, her tears falling on it's hard lifelessness.

What is the purpose of life?  To torture the soul with the hope of eternal love?  To taunt the inner child into believing it isn't broken?  All I know is that my beloved and my cats mean more to me than money, more to me than happiness, and more to me than false dreams of a broken childhood.

Lessons In Losing A Father.

My Dad used to help me write all my papers. It didn’t matter what age I was or what grade I was in, each paper was important in his eyes. Each paper brought my dad the ability to be the teacher he always was; each paper was a lesson for me to become a better writer under his tutelage.

I was always a procrastinator when it came to writing. It never really mattered what it was about, I’d wait until the last day or two to write it. This even happened with a 20 page independent research paper in college. No matter what, I couldn’t get inspiration to write until there was intense pressure. This was difficult when it came to getting help from my dad.

I can’t count the times he would be up with me helping me the night before a paper was due. He’d often type what I had written shorthand for me, and help me with grammatical errors and shortening of my verbose wording. There’d be times I’d be writing, and he’d go to bed and ask me to wake him up when I needed help with the editing - sometimes I’d be waking him up at 2 and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I’d have a panic attack, and he’d help me calm down and write a couple sentences to get me flowing, and I’d flow into my own words with those initial footholds.

In those dark hours before dawn, Dad would sit in our basement in his robe, the coffee-machine percolating upstairs, going over my paper and telling me what I needed to change and what I didn’t need to fix. Sometime’s I’d object to his editing, but he usually had a logical point to the editing, and it helped me see my writing from a different perspective.

When the paper was complete, my dad would often let me go to bed and sleep in, and he’d call me in as sick until the paper was due, or he’d let me come home early sick after turning it in so I could get some sleep. I got to get rest, but he’d get dressed in his dapper suit, put on his Polo cologne after his shower, and head to work. He’d work until 6pm, and then come home on not much more than two or three hours of sleep. He’d go to bed at the regular time, and get up and do it again.

I never really saw all of this as love or sacrifice until he was gone. I never understood how tired he must have been until I hit thirty and realized how vital sleep is the older you get. I always thought he was editing my stuff because it sucked and he was disappointed in me. I’d feel that way until I got the A-grade, and then I realized I wasn’t so bad after all, and that he was just helping me get better.

I haven’t been able to endure a college writing course because of Dad’s help. All other writing-specific teaching has been empty and boring for me; it doesn’t really challenge me like Dad did. Each time I try to take one, I find the holes in the teachers opinions and tend to drift offline. Since Dad died, the classes remind me of him, and I get overly emotional with the grief I’ve never seemed to heal. I’ve dropped out of three lower division writing courses, and intentionally received an F-grade due to an utter lack of drive in completing the one course I stuck through. I tested out on these courses with my SAT/ACT scores, but somehow colleges always find a way to squeeze the students of more bucks when it comes to core requisites.

A big part of why I am writing this blog is because of Dad. He was an exceptional poet and a great writer, and he taught me all I have really held onto in writing. He was into the wordage of what he wrote, and he’d often write with words that I had never heard of. One of Dad’s most cherished possessions was his Oxford English Dictionary. Their station in our house was in the restroom or on the table where my dad would have his coffee. I’d catch him going through it weekly, reading aloud the words to memorize their meanings. He loved the English language.

Several days after he had died, he visited me. I was crying in the bathroom, unable to get out of a bath that had diminished from hot to tepid. I had to be back in college in two days to make my Boulder rent, and I didn’t really have it in me to be a good student then. I felt his soul enter the bathroom, and heard him say, Jenny, don’t make the same mistake I did; do what you love to do, pursue your dreams, and you will be all right. You will make it if you follow your heart. You will be okay. I am so proud of you. I love you so much, I will always be here.

I can’t really explain the logic or science behind that experience, but those words have guided every choice I’ve made since then. I don’t really like institutions or science without conscience, so I stopped studying at CU and didn’t finish my degree. I don’t really enjoy a life without creation, so I started chasing the dreams I wanted to chase, like blacksmithing and drawing and writing. I’ve been living off the inheritance I got from my father’s death, and it wasn’t ever as big as some folks thought, but it was enough to let me find out what I wanted out of this life and try to myself again. Most people don’t know what they want at thirty, but I do. Most people don’t take the time to listen to their heart, but I chose to. I had to because of the hard lesson of death. I had to listen because of my dad’s sacrifice. He died after living a life to fill the needs of others, and he lost himself along the way.

So, what lesson can be gained from reading about the experience of one who has lost a parent? Remember to not sacrifice yourself for the sake of your security or your families security. Remember to grieve when you need to and not to bury it - you deserve the time you give yourself to grieve. Remember that some actions parent’s do seem like disrespect, but they are really done with loving intent, and parents haven’t really been parent’s before. Remember to choose whatever it is that fulfills your higher purposes and aims, because at the end of life, if you don’t, you will regret it with every fiber of your being.

I love you, Dad.