“My son forwarded to me the nice things you wrote about him…Your thoughts made a dad very proud of his son” is maybe the best compliment I’ve ever received as a direct result of my writing.

All of that to say: If you’ve written something for someone, about someone, in memory of someone, share it!

With them if you can, or with those who love them. I can guarantee you’re going to make their day when you do. Unless maybe what you wrote about them is a biting diatribe. Maybe keep that to yourself.

——————-

He was the first adult male friend of mine who didn’t talk in circles and called me beautiful and worthy on a regular basis. He was also the first mental health professional who had ever befriended me. He was hilarious and outgoing. Friends with everyone and yet he always seemed to walk alone. I would have spent all day with him, every day. I wasn’t the only one.

He was also the first relationship I ever had with a male friend that would never turn even slightly sexually tense. He was attracted to men, and had been all his life. The son of an evangelical minister, his sexual and personal freedom had been hard-wrought, and hard-won. He still maintained a working familial relationship with most of his family members, though sometimes he spoke of them the way you might speak of a pebble you’ve been forced to carry around in your pocket, something familiar and light enough, but slightly annoying, inescapable.

He was bright, intellectually razor-sharp, and deep-feeling, perpetually and intentionally burdened by the weight of his own decisions, and the weight of those he listened to for a living. I never paid him to sit in front of me, although I could have for the invaluable advice he bestowed upon me almost accidentally whenever we spoke.

To this day he remains the most honest person I have ever met. The type of honest that routinely knocks you into your own subconscious when you’re not paying attention, while you’re sitting there laughing with him, amused and engaged and merely attempting to keep up with his wit and verbal banter.

When I miscarried and was subsequently dumped by a man who the week prior had proposed marriage, he didn’t hesitate to warmly embrace me, and then moments later offered to drive to Montana to vandalize his house. I laughed through hot tears, my face buried in his shoulder, my mascara splashing quietly from my eyelashes to his dress shirt. I knew he meant it. I knew he would have driven the three-and-a-half hours across two mountain passes just to spray paint profane and holy things on the weathered sides of walls that weren’t his. Because within those walls something that belonged to him–something he understood and appreciated and loved–had been soiled. A friendship, and a woman who was once strong and self-assured, now lying in shattered pieces on an embarrassingly dirty floor.

He saw a portrait of who he wanted me to be, and saw the mess of paint I had allowed myself to be reduced to, and he never for a moment judged me on either canvas. I don’t know how he did that, how he managed to be so completely and consistently unbiased. I just know I am forever grateful for his color blindness, for his inability to see me for the wreck I was. He saw me shattered, yes, but he always believed I would rise.

I believed because he did. And for awhile that was enough.

——————-

*Post title from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, and “Little Gidding” specifically.

I started high school in a brand new Honors English class, and took AP English (and History and Biology) until I graduated, which took care of ensuring I was perpetually assigned a hefty reading list, both throughout the school year and during the summer, too.

I liked it that way; I loved those lists. “Required reading” lists helped me find some of the best fiction stories I’ve ever read in my life. Some of the best books I’m sure I will ever read.

Awhile back some friends on Twitter were listing books that changed their lives, and I made a mental note to revisit the topic in more detail than 140 characters would allow.

So which (fiction) books changed my life? So many of them. But first and foremost were these:

1. & 2. The Secret Garden and The Velveteen Rabbit. Let’s start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.) These were the first two books I ever remember reading with my grandmother, and two books that shaped the way I looked at the world.

The Secret Garden had me convinced I was going to find an old door to which I would find an old key and I’d open it and walk straight into…Narnia, or someplace equally more fantastic than a secret garden I would probably have to weed. While I did routinely daydream about finding Narnia (Under my bed? Nope. Maybe under the stairs? No. Hmm…In a hole I could dig from the backyard?), I did verily love reading about that secret garden, and how non-cranky it made Colin.

The Velveteen Rabbit, which started as a story I loved, later became the first book to give me nightmares and make me look wearily at the impressively massive collection of stuffed animals occupying my room after I read the book when I was older (and more prone to imagining my toys coming to life at night). Toys coming to life when I’m asleep did not make me believe in magic or whimsy, but rather, made me believe I should lock all of my toys in a wooden chest and place my heaviest books on it, thereby stifling my toys’ abilities to wander about unsupervised in the middle of the night. The Indian in the Cupboard? More bad sleep juju for Kerri.

3. Phantoms, by Dean Koonz. I was twelve and a half, OK? Cut a girl some slack. I promise my choice in reading materials vastly improved as I kept reading. My dad died when I was in the 7th grade and among his things I found a Dean Koonz book. I’m not sure if Phantoms was the actual book, or if I just went and picked the first one I could find, but knowing my dad had at least entertained the thought of reading one of his books made me curious enough to want to read one, too. So I read Phantoms, and it’s a story I can still vividly recall to this day. It would have made a really compelling film, I remember thinking. Apparently someone else thought so, too. (Ben Affleck and Liev Schreiber? Annnd, added to my Netflix queue.)

Book Nerdery Rabbit Hole: Phantoms led to Sphere (below), which ultimately lead to Pet Sematary** (WHY, Kerri, WHY?), and a super brief Stephen King phase, wherein I realized he was a talented and prolific powerhouse while simultaneously realizing I didn’t want to read books that provided me ample nightmares about dead pets and children coming back to life, or rabid dogs who hold you hostage in your car, or cars with homicidal tendencies themselves, or a girl sharing my name (different spelling, thank you Mom and Dad) who is relentlessly teased until she goes all terrifyingly telekinetic on her entire high school. (Given my thoughts on The Velveteen Rabbit, you can probably also guess how I felt about The Tommyknockers (WHY Stephen King, WHY?).)

4. Sphere. The first and only Michael Crichton book I’ve read, but an amazing one. This book was The Abyss and Phantoms all in one psychologically thrilling underwater package. This was also the book that expanded my vocabulary by leaps and bounds because I read it in the 8th grade and refused to read past a word I couldn’t readily define. And because Crichton likes to use big words. At least when he’s telling stories about scary scientific sea exploration he does. (Having never read any other of Crichton’s novels I suppose I can’t adequately vouch for his range in diction.)

5. Go Go Gadget Grisham! OK, so that isn’t an actual title of a book I read. Though I would most likely read a book with that title, even if it was about mid-nineteenth-century accounting policies or the history of dental floss. From 7th grade until starting my freshman year of high school, I read nearly every single book John Grisham had written at that point in his writing career (which ultimately ended up being his first eight novels). A Time to Kill (based on a true story Grisham witnessed while working as an attorney in Mississippi) was my favorite of them all. Though surely harrowing in places, it was such a dynamic and emotional story, and so well-told. At the time I had no idea it was Grisham’s first-ever novel, as rather than chronologically, I read his books in the order of whichever-I-could-get-my-hands-on-first. Realizing (years later) that A Time to Kill was his debut, I remember being shocked, and quite impressed.

6. Interview with the Vampire. One of the first books I read in my aforementioned Honors English class, this book appeared on our summer reading list and I chose it to read and report on the first week of my freshman year of high school. At the time I remember thinking what a strange selection this was for me, as it was my very first vampire-centric novel (and perhaps then unsurprisingly my first bout with Anne Rice), but noting my Koonz/King/Grisham phase, I think maybe my choice was a bit less surprising than I originally thought. I remember this book being interesting and bizarre, and while I haven’t read another Anne Rice novel since (and don’t know that I ever will), this story paved the way for diving into a diverse and intimidating reading list, and is one that’s stuck with me over the years. A fact, I’m sure, aided by the presence of a pasty Brad Pitt and an even pastier Tom Cruise (and hi, Kirsten Dunst in her first big movie role!) in the film version.

7. Sense and Sensibility. My most favorite of all of Austen’s works, this book is one I’ve read multiple times, and one I would tell anyone leery of or intimidated by Austen to read. It’s such an engaging story, with perfectly lovable (and deplorable) characters you’ll swear you know even while the entire story is happening in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.

8. & 9. Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies. More high school/AP English reads, and the two I really did love from start to finish, and back again. I’ve read Heart of Darkness three times, and Lord of the Flies at least as many, and I find something new to appreciate about the story and the storytelling each and every time I read them.

10. The Virgin Suicides. One of the first books I ever read that wasn’t on a required reading list. And the first book I ever read after arbitrarily choosing it from a local bookstore based almost entirely on its cover. I would be highly rewarded for stumbling onto Eugenides. (I proselytized this book to everyone I knew in college, that’s how much I loved (and still love) it.) But this method of choosing books would come back to give me literary indigestion later, and has since been altogether abandoned. If you haven’t read this book, I highly highly, oh so highly recommend it. It’s definitely dark, but perpetually visually stunning, and Eugenides employs one of the most interesting frame narrative techniques I’ve ever read.

11. As I Lay Dying. My first and favorite Faulkner, I didn’t read this until junior year of college. I know a lot of people who have read and verily hate this book, and I can’t pretend to understand why. I still think about this story, recounting particularly interesting and/or grief-stricken scenes, and/or laughing at the name “Darl.” As I Lay Dying showed me how much I enjoy characters who get their own chapters to tell me their stories. It’s unreliable narrating at its finest, and I love it.

12. Moby-Dick. I don’t even know where to start singing the praises of this book, except to say it’s one of the most interesting and allegorical stories in the history of ever. Is Melville crazy long-winded? You bet he is. Is he going to tell you all about whales and whaling and seafaring and Queequeg? Until you want to stab him with a harpoon, probably. But I can’t help myself; I just dig Melville and his nautical themed pashmina afghan storytelling. He’s a sailor after my own heart, and I will forever be grateful one of my most beloved professors in undergrad was herself a Melvillean scholar, and petitioned the university to teach a class solely devoted to him. (His short stories are also some of my favorites.)

13. Harry Potter: Books 1-7. (That would be all of them, for those who haven’t yet been baptized in the goblet of fire.) I honestly can’t remember exactly when I read the very first book of the (literally and metaphorically) magical Harry Potter series, but I know it was all due to my lovely cousin Frances, as she had stumbled on them before I did and was tearing through them as literature lovers are wont to do. I was hooked from moment one, and stopped sleeping to read these stories about three little kids who stumble into a world of magic and friendship and mail-delivering owls, and remained happily hooked through books two and three, and into four, which quickly became the (longest, and) my favorite of the entire series. Book five made me want to throw it across the room on multiple occasions, so despicable and perfectly evil was Dolores Umbridge, and I don’t know that another book will ever make me cry as hard as I did when (SPOILER ALERT) Dumbledore dies, and the last book? The last book is why people comparing the Twilight series to anything Harry Potter are (on drugs, yes, and) will find their comparisons perpetually full of the brown stuff if they’ve actually read both series (which, yes, I have, somewhat regrettably when it comes to Twilight). J.K. Rowling, aside from being a much more creative and dynamic storyteller (and better writer) than Stephanie Meyer, also understands characterization, and how sometimes, to get at the real heart of the protagonist, and thus the heart of the story (and to get at the heart of the reader), some characters have to DIE. There is just no way around it, but Meyer (ANTI-SPOILER ALERT) can’t even come close to pulling the proverbial literary trigger in any of her books. See also: It’s hard to care about a BIG FINAL SUPER IMPORTANT BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL when three and half books of anxiety and “character building” leads to…ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. But, I digress. Vampirically. Suffice it to say Harry Potter et al. will forever be beloved literary characters, and for good reason. And that’s all I’ll say before this delves into five-paragraph-essay territory.

Book Nerdery Bonus Round: Recent Favorites

Neverwhere. This was my second book of Gaiman’s (the first was Coraline), and I somewhat stumbled on it after reading and loving Sunshine (another interesting pseudo-vampire novel) based on a trusted literary friend’s recommendation. Gaiman had written a blurb on the back of Sunshine, and I was curious about who he was, and what he wrote. I absolutely loved Neverwhere, and devoured the story in less than two days. It was the first for-adults novel I’d found in ages that featured just the right amount of magic, whimsy, and impressively creepy bad guys, and I found myself smitten with both the story and the storytelling, with both the villains and the imperfect heroes attempting to outrun them.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians. There are five books total in this series, and I’m pretty sure I have Kali to thank for ever finding them in the first place. These are like Harry Potter meets Greek myths, and they’re SO MUCH FUN to read. Some of the fastest books I’ve ever torn through, and some of the most memorable re-tellings of traditional Greek mythology, thanks to author Rick Riordan. If by chance your only experience with these stories is the somewhat recent film adaptation (I don’t know what that screenwriter was smoking), I beg you: Ignore the movie and run to your nearest library and check out Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief. The movie is horrible, gets most everything wrong, and attempts to squash the first three books into one movie. Fail, fail, and more fail. But the books really are equal parts entertaining and educational, especially if you’re in need of a Greek mythology refresher course. And I mean, who isn’t really?

————–

So tell me, which fiction books changed your (reading or otherwise) life?

What are you reading now?

————–

*Post title is a quote from Arrested Development. One of my favorites, as it were.

**Actual title’s spelling. Everyone calls it “Pet Cemetery” but for whatever reason that’s not what King called it. Probably just to give me nightmares about misspelled words on top of nightmares about…everything else.

Theresa Marie (aka babycarrot sister) in Korea:

A moody Cannon Beach:

The beach (almost) directly across the Pacific from Cannon Beach, otherwise known as Naksan, South Korea:

Iggy is not a fan of having his picture taken. This is one of those rare shots I was able to get without him looking down, or around, or otherwise just walking away while I’m in the middle of snapping a shot:

Erin! and her umbrella (ella ella):

Lunch break reading with Kate’s Dread Crew:

Angella! in Vancouver:

Hans! in Vancouver:

Jen! in Vancouver:

Indeed:

Found art near PSU in Portland:

Reading The Monster At The End Of This Book with Meggan and her wee Wesley:

Iggy loves Angella, Exhibit A:

A particularly snowy day in Yangyang, South Korea:

Blurry me:

Lest you think I was deprived of good, old-fashioned illustrated fun, here’s a fairly comprehensive (see also: long, but entertaining!) list of the shows I did watch as a kid:

The Littles

Does anyone else remember this show? PLEASE tell me you remember the little elven-like people who are little (yes!) and wear buttons on their overalls because…buttons are little too! (Umm…)  I can’t for the life of me remember what the show was about per se; I think oftentimes it’s just them, The Littles, running from cats and trying not to end up on the underside of some human’s exceedingly large sneaker. And I’ll be honest in admitting that looking at that picture now is making me think that maybe The Littles were a little creepier than I remember them being. Apparently one of those guys up there is named “Dinky.” Yeah. I have no idea.

I do remember once trying to explain this show to someone who clearly had not seen it, without being able to remember they were called The Littles, and without visual aides, and blurting out, “You know, the show with the little people who wear buttons!”

*blank stare*

*crickets*

*buttons*

Inspector Gadget!

Oh, how I loved Inspector Gadget. And Penny! And the way Chief Quimby would pop out of the most random places (like trashcans!) to deliver important crime-related messages to Inspector Gadget because (GET THIS) this was before email even existed! I know, right? How did we LIVE?

The better question is how would Chief Quimby’s typed or hand-written notes always self-destruct after Gadget read them? Flecks of dynamite in the ruled paper? Radioactive ink? Detective magic? (Oh hi, welcome to my brain!) It’s a mystery. But rest assured that moments after this scene depicted below, Gadget throws the crumpled note back in the trashcan and KABOOM! Chief Quimby is on fire! No, literally. Oh, but wait, now he just looks burnt. And a maybe little annoyed. Not on fire though, so, there’s that.

This show was like the original Mission: Impossible. But with gadgets! And villains with monikers like Sven Vinceton and Pierre LaChop! (Also: Rattlesnake Bart! This show was GENIUS, I tell you.)

It was also where I’m assuming Mike Myers concocted his much beloved Dr. Evil character (Is Dr. Evil much beloved? I seem to remember that movie being quoted quite a bit), as evidenced (to me) by the following visual representation of Dr. Claw, who is Gadget’s primary nemesis and works for an evil organization called M.A.D. (Not to be confused with M.A.D.D.)

My favorite gadget of Gadget’s? Probably Go-Go-Gadget ‘Copter, followed closely by Go-Go-Gadget Ears.

Jem and the Holograms

I had such fond memories of this show before Google searching, memories of oh so hip hair, and of hot pink star-laden makeup, and microphones, and the sheer power possessed by the fearless women of rock n’ roll, and then: “Wait. Why does Jem look like Barbie on ecstasy?”

“And wait, how old were these girls supposed to be?”

And then I stumbled on a picture of the Misfits, Jem’s arch nemeses in girl band form, and remembered without Wikipedia’s help that the girl on the left in the picture below (Stormer!) was my favorite character on the show because she’s the nice, super sensitive girl stuck with the mean girls, and I loved her white hair, and…

…she played the keytar. Awwh, yeah.

He-Man and She-Ra

I mean, those names alone still kill me. I can’t think or read or say “She-Ra” without overly emphasizing the “Ra” like you would while round-house-kicking or judo-chopping someone, as in: “Hi-yah!” “She-Rah!”

Add the fact that they’re twin siblings from the planet Eternia, a planet whose primary power source originates from Castle Greyskull (“By the power of Greyskull,” anyone?) and you have the framework for an epic children’s cartoon with the girliest looking superhero ever.

“Tremble before my super chic bob!”

She-Ra(h!) also had fabulous hair.

Though her outfit? Downright ridiculous for fighting villains. Speaking of villains! He-Man and She-Ra definitely topped the creep charts with their bad guy.

Dear Skeletor: You still scare me. And why is your staff topped with a ram’s skull? Um. Never mind. Have a nice day, Skeletor!

The Chipmunk Adventure

This wasn’t a T.V. series, but it was one of my favorite animated movies as a kid, and if you have never seen this movie (and thus have no idea why I’m professing to be fond of anything chipmunk-related), I’m going to herein suggest you stop what you’re doing and head to YouTube, where I’ve selected a few clips to make my points about why this movie still makes me as happy as it did when I first watched it so many years ago.

Chipmunk Rationale, The First: The Girls of Rock N’ Roll

Did you watch the video? Did you laugh? I can’t stop laughing when I watch that video (Theodore exclaiming, “But my cous-cous!” at the beginning is probably my favorite part), and the rest of the movie is much the same: The girls having a sing-off with the boys in some exotic locale while they collect dolls they have no idea are filled with either diamonds or cash. (Kids, don’t try this at home! Wherein “this” mostly means “smuggling.”)

Aside: Could Brittany (the sassy one in pink) wear some more clothes and maybe shop shaking her booty like Beyonce? (Or, does Beyonce shake her booty like Brittany; aha!) Because hi, I think she’s supposed to be like 10. Also, hi, SHE’S A CHIPMUNK.

Chipmunk Rationale, The Second: Wooly Bully

“Worry Burry!” says Chief Man Boobs.

In conclusion, this movie has around-the-world action, chipmunk karaoke, and characters as hilarious as the idea that three pint-sized chipmunk “boys” or “girls” could operate hot air balloons by themselves.

My Little Pony

My Little Ponies were toys first, a T.V. series second, and a movie third, and yes, I am herein stating for the record that I loved all three.

I mean, really, how can you go wrong with talking (and flying!) magical horses with names like Whizzer, Masquerade, Magic Star, and Cherries Jubilee?

My personal favorite pony? Lickety-split, of course.

And does anyone remember the biggest evil in Ponyland? I give you, the Smooze:

Think The Blob + Hexxus + purple = the ponies will stop the smooze with sparkles!

Rainbow Brite

Did I mention I had a thing for horses as a girl? As in, I wanted to watch shows about them, and collect figurines of them, and learn to ride them, and give them awesome names, and braid their rainbow-colored manes, etcetera etcetera and on and on, until I finally had to learn to stop being so obsessive about equestrian-related everything.

Rainbow Brite’s horse (Starlite!) was not only way too big for Rainbow’s wee frame, but he was (metro-sexual, OK, fine, and) BEAUTIFUL, and had a STAR on his forehead (as all of you with eyes probably already noticed) and yeah, I JUST LIKED HORSES, OK?

I also liked the Color Kids (one for each color of the rainbow; are you seeing a theme here?), friends Rainbow rescued once upon a time and who are now in charge of all of the world’s colors.

Patty O’Green was definitely my favorite Color Kid, and not just because of my fondness for the (admittedly awful) Patio O’Furniture St. Patrick’s Day joke I somewhat recently shared via Twitter.

But wait, it gets better. The resident bad guy in Rainbow Land? MURKY DISMAL.

“My name’s Murky. Yes, that’s right: Murky Dismal. Anyway, I’m here to steal diamonds gold power your soul THE WORLD’S COLOR SPECTRUM.”

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

As much as I myself love to exclaim, I’m admittedly twitchy about that exclamation point in the title of the my favorite and longest-running cartoon featuring ghosts who aren’t really ghosts, even when they clearly must be ghosts. A question mark would appear to be the proper punctuation of choice for a question like, “Where are you?” but apparently the writers were just too excited to care.

Everyone knows Scooby-Doo, right? And the lovable albeit clueless and perpetually famished Shaggy? (Come to think of it, Shaggy and Scooby might also be a metaphor for legalizing marijuana.)

They were my favorite for many reasons, not the least of which being their ability to find ginormous sub sandwiches and various condiments in every single fridge in every haunted house they visited. I’m pretty sure one time they even found pancakes.

And of course my favorite character that’s not really a character at all, but is a big, green, hippie crime-fighting machine: The Mystery Machine!

Sweet ride, Fred.

“You mean this van is a tad effeminate and will probably ensure none of us have intimate relationships until we’re thirty?”

The Rescue Rangers

(No, not the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Who do you think I am?) (And I just realized: chipmunks again! Hmm…quite suspect, I will agree. But these chipmunks wear fedoras, bomber jackets, and Hawaiian shirts so…)

OK, fine. I can’t really explain why I loved this show, but there was a plane! And adventure! And an Australian mouse named Monterey Jack!

And again, they all look crazy in retrospect! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

The Smurfs

This list could never be complete without the Smurfs, or les Schtroumpfs in French (thanks! Wikipedia), the much beloved cartoon commune of blue creatures “three apples tall” who skip to and from their daily tasks while singing “tra la la la la la, tra la la laaaa.” Also, they are probably a metaphor for legalizing marijuana.

Again, the plot of the show? Pretty non-existent from what I can remember, but I do love Wikipedia’s (completely unbiased) reporting on Smurf language:

A characteristic of the Smurf language is the frequent use of the word “smurf” and its derivatives in a variety of meanings. The Smurfs replace enough nouns and verbs in everyday speech with “smurf” as to make their conversations barely understandable: “We’re going smurfing on the River Smurf today.”

The Snorks

These snorkel-propelled underwater sea creatures were pretty much just aquatic rip-offs of the aforementioned Smurfs, but with characters sporting names like Governor Wellington Wetworth and Dr. Gallio Seaworthy and a “supporting villain” (Oh, Wikipedia, I really do love you) named The Great Snork Nork, I’m discovering a renewed desire to remember what all the snorking was about.

—————

OK, so now it’s your turn. What were your favorite cartoons as a kid? Someone PLEASE tell me they’ve heard of The Littles. PLEASE, for the sake of buttons.

Oh, and if you need me, I’ll be over here smurfing on the River Smurf.

Instead, he’s forever 39, or younger, as most of the pictures I have of him, and my favorite pictures of him, were taken long before that last year.

Pictures like this one, even though I was apparently too psyched about the leaf pile to open my eyes:

And this one, of my dad rocking a fun run in Spokane:

I found this one just this past year:

I love that we’re both sporting Member’s Only jackets.

This is my dad and grandmother on Easter Sunday, 1983 (I would have been one):

This is a scan of a Polaroid I still have, taken nineteen! years ago, on a beach of one of my favorite places on the planet:

To this day it’s the one and only time I’ve ever been buried in the sand. And thankfully one of the only times my dad rocked a mullet.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you.

You see, I’ve been a lover of the ocean, and of all things aquatic and nautical-inspired, ever since I can remember.

My love for sea-faring-everything might very well have been fostered during the myriad spring breaks spent exploring quaint coastal communities in and around Port Ludlow, Washington. Some of my fondest childhood memories spring forth from days spent poking my curious face into every trinket shop in downtown Poulsbo and downtown Bremerton, carefully selecting bracelets laden with sparkling gems found in nearby sand, wondering about the sharks who gave up their teeth for necklaces while peering at tiny sailing ships in tiny bottles  and cheerfully collecting polished shells to keep in my pockets.

I still vividly remember late afternoons spent beach-combing for mollusks and buried treasure on Bainbridge and Whidbey Islands; a morning studying tides with my aunt Joy until she happily selected the perfect window for clamming in Port Angeles; the way saltwater smelled on my skin hours later, still stuck between my toes.

Until I reached my second year of college and realized a simultaneous double major in Biology and English Literature was going to be next to impossible without first learning how to clone myself, I very much wanted to be a Marine Biologist. As such, I had spent many a day-dream envisioning a life led on the ocean floor: mining murky water for mystic and illicit meaning; diving for clues to uncloak the mysteries of marine mammals; marveling daily at the miraculous design of oceanic ecosystems.

Though I know it to be much more than a fairytale career, I still find the possibilities, and the idea of a seascape workplace, endlessly fascinating, crashing waves to me as tempting as a siren song.

It’s little surprise then, that when I was properly introduced in college to one Mr. Herman Melville–author and sailor and self-taught know-it-all concerning all things leviathan and nautical–I fell into deep literary smit. I was fortunate enough to study under a bona fide Melvillean scholar at my university, and was able to take an entire course focusing solely on Melville and his collected works. Soon after, I read Moby-Dick multiple times, followed by every piece of his writing I could get my hands on, including his short stories (which are some of my favorites), and his collected poems.

I was surprised and thrilled to receive an email from a fellow Melville fan while I was in Korea (Hi! Scott), with references to Moby-Dick related awesomeness, my very favorite of which was a project entitled One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick, and the fact that the artist (is super creative and talented, yes! and) knew to hyphenate the title, Moby-Dick (though you never hyphenate the whale, Moby Dick) made me want to give him a literary fist bump. Is there such a thing as a literary fist bump? There should be.

I’m verily smitten with the entire project (which is at this point, still ongoing), especially page 153.  For those of you lazy selective link clickers, this! is page 153 (image © Matt Kish):

The line from the text he took for this page’s inspiration, which also doubles as the piece’s title: “Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints — the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.”

—————

In other quasi-nautical news, last Thursday I attended a (n uber-talented) friend’s art opening, her photography part of a three-point collaboration with two local Portland artists (Hey Jolby!) to ultimately create fifty works of original art, all sea-faring and pirate-esque in nature.

If faced with choosing one official favorite or walking the plank, I think I would have to go with “Treasure of Calypso”:

I was also quite taken with “The Death Coast”:

And “The End”:

(All images © Ashely Forrette & Jolby)

The exhibit is called Sea Legs (and is showing at the Together Gallery until March 20th), and I loved the show enough to seriously plot how I could somehow move into the exhibit space, so I didn’t have to walk out of it without every single piece tucked underneath my arm.

——————

Thus, we come to the end of this, our maritime digression of sorts.

Happy! March, ye land lubbers.

Post title is referencing a lyric (“I’m on a boat and/It’s going fast and/I’ve got a nautical-themed pashmina afghan”) from The Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat,” which, yes, I’ve probably watched six-hundred times, and yes, still makes me laugh, every time.

Oh! And I have a post up at Work It Mom! today, talking about how to deal with difficult bosses and colleagues, and my Print Of The Week is up on Style Lush, too!

Awhile back I used it for the title of this post, wherein I was posting about the 5 Worst Ways To Die, Cinematically-Speaking, and today I thought a modified version of the same title would do splendidly for the question I’m about to ask all of you.

(Remember I’m asking it in my best exaggerated drunk British intonation, which makes it more charming, OK?)

Once upon an October Bethany sparked a trip down my personal Halloween memory lane, my pillow-case full of candy in tow, after she requested stories about a particularly awesome/silly/memorable Halloween costume of yore on a giveaway post.

Instantly I remembered that one year, when I was in 8th grade I think, I went trick-or-treating as a “Dead Farmer.” Not just a farmer, mind-you, though I did indeed rock some blue and white vertical striped overalls and a straw hat, but a DEAD Farmer, with much emphasis and fake blood on the “DEAD” part. I even carried a plastic hoe covered in fake blood around with me all night long. Because apparently I had an farming accident and thus: dead farmer. (My costume unwittingly doubled as a PSA about the importance of safety around hand-held farm equipment! How very farm progressive of me!)

Needless to say it was the best of all my most ridiculous costumes, and the truly tragic part is I don’t think I have any pictures of my costume that year. Which could, of course, very well be a blessing in disguise, but part of me will always mourn for the laughter that photo would have created. Laughter no doubt directed AT me, which could then have been added to the laughing I am already doing at myself.

The only perk of the entire ensemble was that it was a WARM costume, and in the city where I grew up, warm is more than key, it’s mandatory.

(If you want to see some of my more photographed Halloween costumes from yesteryear, I would highly recommend this post. Apparently, I was a big fan of the The Pumpkin face.)

Now it’s your turn! “And no non-participating around these part, neither,” sayeth Dead Farmer Kerri.

I LOVE costumes, and hearing about costumes, and laughing at your costumes, and so here’s the part where I turn the proverbial blog mic over to you, and you tell me the Halloween costume from your past that you love to hate.

Or maybe, you love to love it. But the point is, it’s horrible, or just horribly awesome, and you want to share it with the Internets. (Bonus points for any and all pictures of said horribly/awesome costumes.)

Ready, set, costume (over) share!

OK, OK, so you all want incentives for embarrassing yourself on the internet, right? (I do, too.) So the winner of the best most horribly/awesome costume over share wins some pretty paper courtesy of yours truly. Game ON.

Strangers looked at me with tears in their eyes. Teachers spoke gently, pulled me aside before and after classes to offer condolences. “Was there anything they could do?” they asked a little too loudly.

I despised their gentleness. I abhorred being special in the way I now was. Every teenager wants to be recognized, to be noticed, to be praised for exceptional test scores, for record-breaking attendance, for unparalleled athletic ability. No one wants to be the girl without a father.

I wondered silently why my mother had made me go so school as the flood of unwelcome well-wishing rushed onward. The notes, the awkward hugs and abundant pats on the back, the hideously designed “While you’re grieving” cards. All of it a cruel, unfunny, pathetically maddening joke.

I wore my grief like a badge I had not earned. I smiled wryly as classmates who once ignored me now looked on, interested. My best friends had little to say. Their mothers had advised them to be calm, to be quiet. I wanted to scream, to slur profanities like sloppy joes across the cafeteria, to kick and fight and flee every wayward glance that sought to canvass my grief.

I was twelve, almost thirteen. No one had taught me how to lose my father.

I would have sooner kicked someone in the shins than cried. I wouldn’t realize I was allowed to feel anything but sorrow until college. Someone kind, a Professional, would tell me anger is normal, to be expected. One of many phases I would be forced to traverse on a rocky road to healing. That Monday I felt mostly nothing. I walked around wrapped snugly in a fog of stoicism rising from somewhere deep inside me I didn’t create and couldn’t find. I wasn’t accustomed to everyone staring. And there were questions. Too many questions to which I had no answers. Not then, not yet.

He is dead. Yes, he died. Drowned. No, he was a good swimmer. I don’t know. No, no funeral yet. Maybe. Mike. His name was Mike. Michael Francis Ladish. He was thirty-nine. Yes, five sisters. Well, four, actually. One of them identified his body. Hypothermia, they said. He was my father, ‘the deceased.’ What does it matter if he’s being cremated? I DON’T KNOW.

Years later I would forge a conversation in my head while my mother and I drove across the river where my father took his last breath.

“Mom, you know you shouldn’t have sent us back to school the day after he died.”

“I know, dear. I thought it would help.”

“You only thought it would help you.”

“I know, dear.”

In 2003 I transferred colleges mid-degree. It was simultaneously the most heart-wrenching and best thing I have ever been forced to do. I won’t take any credit for making the decision on my own, because it was verily made for me, and I fought the eviction notice passed down to me from the parents that be with every ounce of determination and vitriol I had in me.

After much weeping and literal gnashing of teeth, I eventually lost the last battle, and so I succumbed to packing up everything I owned–too many clothes and twice as many books–and saying goodbye to everyone I had come to know, and many I had come to love, during my three years away at school.

The second I was “home,” I knew I really wasn’t. I missed all of my friends, the people I had grown to rely upon daily, the faces I was used to seeing, the house I lived in with 40+ other women; I even missed the mostly inedible cafeteria food.

I missed the weight room, the pool, the track. I missed always having someone there to talk to, to laugh with, to be walking out the front door at the exact same time I was, to walk somewhere I was already headed.

I was “back home,” and yet I felt even more alone than I knew was possible.

I kept in touch with everyone for awhile, and visited once, but it got harder, and we all got busier, and of course we all already know the end of that situational equation without me needing to finish it. Life never stops to catch its breath when you are trying to. When all you need is some time, some quiet, some realization of who you are and where you’re headed.

I needed some time, some amount of refocusing on me, who I was and where, exactly, I was going. I needed a brief sabbatical from the nonstop movement, from the nonstop pushing and pulling in my head. Like so many of the collegiate bound, I didn’t know who I was upon starting my university-laden education, because I had never really taken the time to self reflect, and, what is more, I was confused about who I wanted to be. I didn’t know how I felt about polarizing issues, and I was afraid to let myself be myself and do and feel and experience things I wanted to without guilt seeping in from all sides.

One of the few things I did know was that I had made myriad mistakes in attempting to get where I was going, and I couldn’t exactly remember where that actually was.

I left a large part of myself shattered in pieces and still wandering the campus grounds when I left Willamette a year and a half before I was set to graduate.

That was five years ago. Just recently I’ve been discovering which of those pieces are worth recovering, and which are better left lost.

——————————-

We all lose pieces of ourselves as we walk amidst this life, on this earth with so many we love and who love us. With so many who never really loved us, who couldn’t, or didn’t want to, or gave up trying before they even started.

In the art of losing I am no different than anyone who lives, no different from anyone who has ever traversed this earth and I know that. I know we all lose, that we all too often love someone who doesn’t love us, who simply can’t. I know that we love people who return the affection, but that sometimes when we cling to a hope of permanence, it evades us.

I know, too, that sometimes that permanence stays. Maybe just for awhile, and that’s enough. It’s enough to keep us rising out of bed each morning and moving forward. It’s enough to push doubts and insecurities below the surface of ourselves, to smother the fear of loss in the sentiment that another person knows you–really, truly understands you–and wants to stand by your side for as long as you’ll have them, for as long as they are able.

If losing has taught me anything, it’s that it matters to know you aren’t alone in walking through your own personal graveyard on a daily basis, yourself the accumulation, the perpetual compiling of all your successes and losses.

It makes a difference because your personal graveyard is suddenly brighter, less quiet. It’s never any less real, but in my experience it becomes more bearable. And, maybe, on a perfect day, you can look around and notice wildflowers are blooming where thorns once entangled the peace you planted next to the promise of a life that allows you to heal as much as it allows you to break.

There were others who left without dying, of course.

My best friend in junior high was a spunky girl named Carlye. We met in 7th grade, because we were forced to feign being musical for two years and we both chose choir over band. She played basketball, as did I, and the year our extra-curricular AAU team took the city championships we played together. She was shorter than I was, blonder. Her laugh was loud and genuine, and she was endlessly ticklish. Hoopfest teams, slumber parties, talks of her first kiss, and talk of the promise of mine, characterized our relationship. We spent weekends and evenings together, summer days by the pool when we weren’t on a basketball court. We had mutual friends, but she knew me best. My mom and her mom got along famously; she had a little sister around the same age as my little sister, and it looked to be a friendship match made in heaven. Then, the summer before our freshman year of high school, she moved. A mere hour away, and yet the distance was palpable, as neither of us had driver’s licenses, or cars. My mom and hers would drive half-way between our two cities and I would wave my mother goodbye and spend two days with my best of all friends; the next weekend she would do the same. For awhile we did that, meeting in the middle, spending time together. But as weeks, months and years passed the visits happened with less and less frequency. We were both busy. Busy with school, playing basketball, making new friends and trying to keep A averages. I saw her less and less, and then, not at all.

After Carlye left two more of my closest friends moved away from our city, away from me. I missed Lisa and Erin immensely, though for awhile we tried writing letters, meeting at basketball camps in the summer-time, or at Priest Lake where we spent weekends training our skin to look darker, swimming and magazine-reading, day-dreaming about boys we would never meet. We fell apart, and then together, further apart, and then closer together. It was a rhythm I grew accustomed to, but one I never appreciated. There were days I was inconsolable, days my mother walked in on me sobbing myself to sleep. She held me and told me it would be OK. I didn’t believe her. The only “OK” I knew was a compromised, imperfect version. It was never the way it was, the way I wanted it. It would never be.

When a man I dated for less than a year left me I was ready for it, but not prepared for how badly it would hurt, ill-equipped for how much it would break me. He had tried leaving before I miscarried, but had ultimately stayed. Stayed of his own accord and yet our relationship was damaged, our trust in one another hanging by conversational threads. He promised he would stay. I wanted so much to believe him, and so I pretended to hang on his every word in a feeble attempt to make semantics a reality. A week after I lost what had begun growing inside of me, on the anniversary of my father’s death, we said goodbye. Goodbye for good, and the part of me that so passionately, so recklessly, so fearlessly wanted to love him, that part of me stopped breathing.