grandpa

I was just in washington for my bio grandma’s funeral. I barely knew her. It was more of a loss of what could’ve been than what was. 

But this week my grandpa died. Not unexpected, but still a shock. 

He was not perfect, but he was what was and I knew he loved me. 

Here’s some words about him:

82 years old this week. He made it to his 60th anniversary a few weeks ago as well. He attended his last reunion straight out of the hospital and it may have been his best one yet. He played cornhole, bullied my aunt into cooking his famous clam chowder, and rode his scooter around like he was 64 again and stole someone else’s. He started these weeklong family campouts something like a million years ago where we all get together somewhere in Oregon and play cards, cook amazing food, and just spend time with one another. I don’t know how many reunions he’s been to, but of course he was at every one that I was able to be at: organizing, barking at kids and cooking clam chowder his way: bacon grease and butter. He made the best salmon, too, glazed in brown sugar and baked to perfection. He loved to cook for people and he loved to eat good food. I’ll forever see him at my grandma’s dining room table: throwing down cards, his kids sitting around him. that loud lenardson laughter roaring so big that we all had to learn to yell to be heard. what an honor it was to finally sit at the adult table and play cards with them all of these past few years. for sure, he wasn’t perfect: this gruff old navy veteran who apparently used to love to dance. but i’m so thankful for the years I got to know him and for the family he’s left behind, for all of those who were able to sit around a table together with him and toss our quarters in one last time. he called me last week: “thank you, i’m glad you made it and i love you.” and I didn’t realize it then, but i’m really so thankful for that last goodbye.

I’ll be headed to his funeral tomorrow. 

Too much loss. I also sprained my ankle this week and had covid a couple weeks ago…. So, running has not been really an option to deal with it all. Thank goodness for my art…

bio dad

 “You feel victimized?”

He looks at me with pity. Patronizing. As though feeling victimized was just the saddest thing I could be, having been abandoned by my biological father at three. His empty face giving me judgement instead of remorse. Never mind the world I have created for myself. Never mind the beauty and love I put into this place. I have woven a network of friendship and connection, something this man will never have. I have built a palace of hope and possibility compared to the shanty of a life he lives in: sick and alone. He fuels himself with delusions; Reality twisted and fragmented into his mosaic of truth, caulked together by the lies his mind tells him. 

Somewhere out of the insanity, he does speak words of kindness: they are laced in pretention, as though he’s gifting me approval. The audacity he wears to even think I need that from him. This is the trouble with frank; his half truths, one image drawn over another so intricately that the two become one. In the same breath, he compliments me and on exhale says his very words have changed the world. He thinks he can walk around in other people’s rooms, see into their lives, and read their minds. I will myself not to ask what he sees in mine just as strongly as I close my lips and swallow words of accusation or argument. There’s no point. 

He is happy he says, alone with his books and god. He prefers it that way. People are too complicated. So I note to myself, I will not hold onto guilt if I don’t come again. 

1st visit in 14 years

 We create our own reality. We live in whatever space we build for ourselves. We are responsible for our future, perhaps not our past. We choose the avenues that we walk down and who we become. We spend our life building the house that we live in. 

I sit here staring at the man who is responsible for all of my empty places and most of my broken pieces, who has never showed up, and I realized he has been shattered into a million pieces by this life and his choices. He is ill and alone. He is empty. And yet: What power to walk away and leave such a large hole. And here I am, trying to mend what? Trying to find what? I want to take my money and light it on fire. Catch eyes with a stranger, wrap their arms around my body and pull them into me. Pour myself a drink, and then one more, and then one more. Shake myself free from anything good because I don’t deserve it. I want to gouge out whatever part of me carries part of him. He is a stranger to me, yet holds my soul under water. His grip squeezing out any peace.  This skeleton, this shell. A mere outline of a greater story of could-have-been. Perhaps it was out of kindness that he stayed away from us all, knowing his brokenness had sharp edges, knowing they would pierce the soft, smooth skin of his children. 

Flying Time

 I know it’s been so long. Reading through these stories is inspiring and yet cringeworthy in some cases. I am amazed by how much time has passed. How different I am. How much I am the same. Some posts make me want to write again. Some posts remind me of how many memories are just going to forever be missing because I stopped my writing. There are some little pockets of goodness sprinkled throughout. Could they be collected and turned into a mini memoir? Perhaps a book of poems? 

How to compile all the years into one post. Impossible. I read of the hunger for life and adventure and her heart is the same: always wanting for more, always dreaming. 

At this time, I am learning to be an artist. After 13 years of nursing, I have taken the last 9 months off (not exactly by choice, but more by circumstance) to pursue this original dream. Perhaps the fear of failure squashes my ambitions the most. That or my subconscious fear of fraudulence: Imposter Syndrome represented authentically. Was my dream of creating and being an artist just something bigger to hold onto? A shining light I pretended was there to make the shadows of life seem more tolerable? 

I read: The only thing separating an artist and everyone else is the desire to create. Talent, so they say, is something you practice, not that you Have. 

What a perspective, but one I’ve always told others. “You could do this too if you put in the time”. I could see on one hand how it seems to take away something from the artist by suggesting that “anyone can do it” so perhaps it’s less valuable? But on the other hand…who else will take the time to put their dreams out there for the world to love, criticize, take, admire, to have… Honestly, not to toot my own horn, but this path takes more bravery and strength than I realized. I have to believe in myself despite all other perspectives because even the words of my admirers don’t heal the cracks of insecurities. 

I do want this, despite what you may think, despite my faltering along, my hesitations, my insistent delay of growth….I want this.

To follow my art and creative adventures:

          @fiberandglaze on instagram

           www.fiberandglaze.com