my father.

today i learned that my father passed away yesterday.

i don't know if a blog is an appropriate place to commemorate people, but i figure it is as good as anywhere - especially if it makes me feel any small amount of better.

among myriad things, my father has always been unendingly supportive of me, my creative endeavors, my choices in life and my freewheeling lifestyle. he had actually been following this blog for quite a while while i travelled. my dad (both my parents, in fact) put my happiness before any pressure for me to achieve fame or fortune. he supported even some of my wildest creative ideas. he let me push him beyond things he had considered before - being interviewed for trampoline hall lectures about my family in the spring, coming to queer film festivals to see movies i was in. my father was very central in letting me feel permission to be who i am, do what i do and live how i live. he was proud of me for artistic undertakings that other parents could understandably have found pointless and confounding. for all these things i am hugely thankful.

above is possibly the last picture i took of him. it was from this past july when aitor and i went to visit. he has purchased some fake colour contacts and went through a phase of switching the eye he would wear one in to confuse acquaintances on the island where he lived. i think it's pretty clear that his legacy lives on in me.

bye, teejay. i miss you already. i wish we could go fishing again together, even if we didn't catch anything.