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Day 12: Sometimes I Dream in Farsi

A lot has happened in the past couple weeks since last I posted.

First, we've been busy applying for a non-fiscal sponsorship through the International Documentary Association and other grants that had deadlines. These things take a lot of time to prepare. Thus far, we've done over 11 drafts on our proposal material. Now, we're being asked to update our budget. Hopefully, this'll be done before the end of the week.

For those of you interested in applying for grants, here's a nice template offered by Sundance Institute.

So what about the dirt? Well, let me start by saying: I'm not perfect. For some reason, people align me with Mr. Rogers, but I'm far from such lofty heights. My friend Nemanja put it best: "People are not all good or bad."

I'd say I'm fairly nice. It's my natural state of equilibrium, but I can also be a dick like everyone else. Usually, the meditation makes this person lilt away like a distant heartbeat. Not yesterday though. I just yelled at my mother. Mostly because I haven't slept in days, but also because I've got a bad temper if I get angry. I can cover this up mostly because I don't get angry, but leave it to family to push all the right buttons.

"Why did you do that?!" I yelled at my mother. "I can't believe you said that! That was not smart! Now I have to deal with this mess! You have to think about what you say and be smart! What you did was so stupid!"

"I'm sorry, Pirooz," she said.

I really hate losing it. It's even worse if I yell, because I've got that punk rock scream seasoned and ready to go. It got the neighbor all concerned because we had it in the garage. He's this really nice Pastor that's lived next to my parents for over a decade. I ran into him later while walking with my dad.

"Is everything okay?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said.

"Well," he said and shook my hand. "Let me know if you need anything and Gob bless."

"God bless," I said. "Thank you."

I didn't connect him saying this to me at the time as anything other than neighborly. Then I realized that my yelling must have carried in this suburban neighborhood where the only thing you hear is birds and deer grazing.

I was immediately ashamed and apologized to my mother.

"It's okay, Pirooz," she said. "I love you."

I'm glad the Pastor gave me a look. It made me think about the Buddhist koan about what would you do if someone put ashes on the Buddha. Most Zen students just smack the ground in response to prove they're in the moment or whatever. I'm a shitty Zen student, so I'd probably just give the guy an ashtray and light his next smoke. But I remember reading that a good thing to do would be to look at the person and that'd be enough to say, "What's up, yo? Don't be ashing on the Buddha."

I guess the same would go for if someone would rob you.

This Pastor had the look down and it lingered with me. I'm glad for it. I suppose other people would say that the person should mind their own business, but I'm glad his eyes were calling out my bad behavior. How else am I going to learn?

I still feel shitty about it. I suppose it'll pass. I'll just wait it out.

The previous week was less dramatic as far as fighting, but I did cry a lot. The first thing that happened was a dream. It was really vivid:

I was on the front porch of my parent's house in Delaware. Then, standing in front of me was Bobbie. She looked like I had always known her. She eyed me up and down and asked, "How I was doing?"

I said, "Okay."

Then she told me take some breaths with her.

"Okay," she said. "Put your chin down and breathe."

I put my chin down and then followed all these other moves she was doing. Then she started singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm", but she kept improvising lines. I tried to keep up, but it was getting hopeless.

"I'm really on today," she said and laughed.

Then she took my hand and walked me around a corner and we were suddenly in Boulder, Colorado. There was this old VW bus and these folks rummaging through all these boxes and books that were packed inside. She walked up to one of these young people and handed him a box.

"This is all my stuff with Pirooz," she said.

The guy started turning pages and reading poems and things we had written together.

"Look at these," Bobbie said, and pointed out some of my drawings next to the poems we wrote. They were these doodle things I always did at the time: strange circles repeating. I didn't think much of it, but Bobbie liked them a lot.

"Wow," the guy said. "These are great."

Then he read something we wrote together. It was about love. I felt myself getting emotional, but I wasn't going to cry or anything. Still, this other young woman that was with the group, put her arm around my shoulder and walked me away from the van.

"You okay?" she asked.

When she asked this, I just started crying.

Then when she walked me back to the van, everything disappeared and I was lying in my bed. There was this breeze coming through the window. It'd come in spurts like the surf coming up and over me right before morning. I lay there and thought about the dream.

I figured this wasn't a dream. It was a visit. And, I know. This sounds crazy. But, it really felt like Bobbie was getting ready for her trip and wanted me to visit.

This could also all be my unconscious, because the road trip I'm supposed to go on with my cousin next week is supposed to be an "On the Road" adventure with us stopping in Boulder to meet Bobbie. Since she died a couple weeks ago, I figured we could still pay our respects. Maybe this dream was just telling me that this was the right thing to do for the film.

I really don't know. Making films is a real mystery. It's a lot of gut decisions if you're really in it. You can't really know what's right or wrong. You just wait for the moment and then let it happen naturally. I'm not sure if it'll be good or bad, but you sort of let it be what it wants to be. If you push against it too hard, then it won't feel right. It'll be forced and it'll come off like a different kind of cinema. But, if you just let things happen and just turn the sail slightly, then it's a lot like surfing. All you gotta do is ride the wave, crash, ride the wave, stop, ride the wave, and so on.

Maybe that's why I suggested for Thomas Bellier to add a surf element to the theme song for the film. Maybe it's supposed to feel like water coming up on you, like that breeze after the dream with Bobbie. Maybe I'm also supposed to breathe and check-in with how I'm doing.

I saw my therapist last week and she gave me a rock. It was some kind of stone supposed to help you with heartache and difficulty.

"I was saving this for our last session," she said and handed me the rock. "But I think you could use it now."

I have it in my pocket now. Hopefully, it's helping. I've got all kinds of stones and trinkets on me. I will carry them with me everywhere until the film is done. I even put a Transformer in my pocket. Not sure if any of this helps, but it makes me feel a bit more relaxed.

I was supposed to say something else. Oh, right. The opening of the film. I saw this in a vision too. I was sitting wide awake on a bus stoop and saw the first frame of the film. It said: "For my brothers" on a black screen. This got me crying right away, because I thought this meant my actual brothers in real life and that really touched me. Then I realized it had two meanings and could also include the rest of humanity. That got me crying even more. It seemed really nice. I was going to stick with that, but then I realized this film is for sisters and everyone in between too.

Ah, I get it now. That's what we'll do.

We'll have the words "For my" come up first. Then it says "brothers". Then it says "and sisters". Then it says " and everyone in between too".

That sounds like overkill to me. I've got to be careful of that. I'm the king of overkill. I'll do something good. Then I'll push it so far it actually becomes too much. Jonathan Richman was the first to clue me into this idea. He was doing a gig at the East End Cafe in Newark, Delaware. It was just me and Richie, the owner of the bar, and him sitting in the back bar. He was testing his guitar and asked for some water. Like a putz, I ran over poured four waters, put in straws and peeled the wrappers back, and brought it to him on a tray.

He took one look at the waters and said: "Overkill, man."

Then him and Richie laughed at me. And I laughed too.

It was a good lesson. I'm still learning it. I even get in yelling matches in an overkill way. I suppose that's just who I am. It ain't going to change. I'll just have to quiet it down a bit.

"You have to mediate more," my dad said.

We were on our way to this car dealership. Sohee asked me to get us a car instead of renting one to go to Los Angeles. I may just rent if this falls through, but I figured I'd try. My dad wanted to come with me. He was my test pilot. I'd have him drive cars and sit inside them and make the car dealers nervous. He was about to push another button on the dashboard when I told him to do his test.

"Do it," I said to him.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Yeah," I said.

Then he put down the back seats and stuck his feet through and laid down into the trunk. He put his head back to see if he could see out the sunroof.

"This is good!" he shouted to me and the dealer standing on the side of the car. "I can sleep!"

"Well," the dealer said. "I've never seen that."

"It's even better if we get a picture," I said.

Then we went back in to talk numbers. The whole time my dad kept going into his Deniro. He'd ask about percentages and then throw a different wrench into the guy's rehearsed pitch. It was like a heckler at a comedy club. Pretty soon, the dealer was sweating so much he had to go to the bathroom and wipe down. When he came back, my dad didn't let up.

"So, we need something to get this car," my dad said.

"What do you mean?" the dealer asked and looked at me for translation.

"He wants something extra," I said.

"Yes," my dad said. "Give us cover seat."

"You want seat covers? It's already leath--"

"Yes," my dad interrupted. "Give us this."

The dealer didn't have seat covers, but my dad's look got him even more worried and he was up looking around his office to close the deal.

"I've got this," he said and pulled out a hat from a filing cabinet.

"This is a start," my dad said and took the hat.

Then I said something really innocent. I didn't mean for it to come off like a second Deniro line, but it was juxtaposed with my dad, so now everything seemed like we were making the guy squirm.

"You need to start typing things out," I said, when he handed us a piece of paper with everything I needed to do to get Sohee out in California on the lease.

"I'm old fashioned," he said, and then started looking for a stapler. "I like writing things--"

That was it. His coffee went all over his desk.

Later that night he called me because he made some more mistakes with getting insurance and he was so sweet and apologetic. I've got nothing but love for him. I mean, I'll just rent a car if this doesn't work out. And with the way he's handling things, I'm guessing it might not.

I suppose we'll find out on Saturday. That's when the next part of filming begins.

If you'd like to donate to this film or any of the other work I do, you can do so now through my Patreon page. It's our only way to raise funds at the moment, so every little bit helps. If you've got a dollar, it's really appreciated.

Day 11: Sometimes I Dream in Farsi

Now, there's no shooting until May 26th. But I've got everything else to organize with becoming a non-profit and then applying for grants before May 15th. It'll be a marathon race.

On top of that, music for the film is already coming through. Thomas Bellier is already composing tracks for the film. He's trying to get everything mostly done before he leaves back for Paris on June 15th. That means I've got to come up with money for him to do the recordings, getting studio time, paying musicians, and mastering the tracks.

In the past, we've done Indiegogo fundraisers for all the films. Usually, we'd do this right before shooting or in the middle of post-production. The rate at which this film is coming means we'll have to do that soon, or find another way to keep us afloat.

I'm thinking I'll start listing my Patreon page at the end of every blog post for anyone who wants to make a donation there. Then, maybe, next month, I'll be able to do an Indiegogo. I'm guessing we need about 50K to make this film possible.

Aaron made me a preliminary budget. I'll have to include this in the documentation when applying for non-profit status and grants. He already had us at about 52K even before the music budget.

I hope I can pull it together in time. I suppose I have no choice. I just have to do it.

I figure if we can get about $500 monthly from Patreon, followed by about 30K from Indiegogo, and 20K in grants, we'll get to the Promised Land.

Aside from that, I'm feeling a bit different since all this emotional upheaval the film has brought. I didn't even know this would come up when we said we'd do a documentary on me. I'm glad I started getting therapy last September to work through all this. I also realize that meditation is not enough, especially for people who have these types of traumatic episodes in their lives.

I remember Brad Warner told me that in a hundred years the human race will look back on us and find it amazing that we survived without meditating every day.

"They'd think we were crazy not to meditate," he told me.

I'd add therapy to that as well.

I realize now that meditation keeps you centered and grounded for dealing with certain things. And, sure, if you do it for 30 years like Brad, I'm sure it'll bring even more clarity. But, for people like me, who have only been doing it for 15 years or so, and only seriously for the last 7 years, it'll take some therapy along with it.

I've gone to therapists off and on since I was 21. I never got as deep as I am doing now. It'd always be like 20-30 sessions and then back to nothing. Now, I realize I'll have to do this weekly my entire life.

It's pretty amazing really. People take such good care of everything else besides emotional and mental well being. I'm amazed relationships even exist at all.

I'm not going to burden anyone anymore though. This was something Aaron said to me the other day.

"I go to therapy," he said. "So I don't have to burden others."

Nemanja came to a similar conclusion recently.

That got me thinking about how many people have been using me like a therapist at times. Students, friends, and family are constantly dumping their issues on me. They expect me to fix them -- and I can offer really clear advice -- but I'm no therapist. I also realize that this type of dumping isn't healthy for relationships in general.

People need to come to the relationships in their life -- and, I mean, all relationships, whether its marital, familial, friends, colleagues, etc. -- with having done some self-care on their own. If people don't take care of their insecurities and traumas, then they'll be bringing that stuff into relationships, when they could be just enjoying this time with their loved ones.

Of course, I know that therapy is not culturally acceptable in Iran, Korea, or America. I'm not sure if it doesn't still have a stigma throughout the planet. So, I know that even though I take care of myself, there will still be so many around me who don't. Still, I understand that this film, and maybe the broader issue of racism throughout the world needs to be addressed on this level.

What we all deal with as human beings on a daily basis is tough enough without all the various fears and insecurities that come through as well. If we add racism, prejudice, and discrimination, it makes it very tough to overcome these things alone. It requires a lot of healing. And this doesn't mean it's your friend's job to figure these things out for you. It's not your mother's or father's problem. It's not your partner's.

If we're going to come together as a people, then we really need to take care of ourselves individually. That might mean meditation, walks, or yoga for some. It could even mean sitting in a park reflecting or doing a marathon. It could even mean sharing a meal with friends or crying on someone's shoulder. It could mean belonging to a community or church. I'm sure all of these help us get through difficult times when we need it. But, it's really not enough.

If we're going to deal with big issues like the environment and racism and poverty, then we need to take care of ourselves.

We are not the perfect avatars we see on social media. We all have different issues. And, no one, I mean, no one, is perfect in this. And that's okay.

I don't expect my friends and family to have it all together and never talk to me about their problems. I understand if someone's having a bad day and yells at me for no reason. I've been there plenty of times, and I'm sure you have as well. But, these things build up if we don't discuss them. Our minds only see these issues after a while, and then when we interact with the world, we bring this way of being with us. Then, it's no wonder the very pollution inside us becomes reflected in the way we do commerce, take care of the environment, raise our children, and interact with each other.

My father said in our interview yesterday that he tried to create a World Unity Day after September 11th. He got the Mayor of Rochester to sign a proclamation, and he held a yearly event and tried to talk to people about the issues. Then, he realized it was too hard to bring people together.

"So," he explained. "I try to bring my brother and sisters together. Then, I see, even this is too hard. Finally, I just focus on my three sons."

I'm sure my father now realizes that the outside world cannot be effected if we do not take care of our internal ones. Like me, I'm sure he sees this isn't something that people can be forced to do. This is why we're in constant conflict at times. It's probably why the meditation has helped me as well. Although I wasn't doing therapy, I could still see that the best way with dealing with people was not to make anything. If someone was mad at me -- or themselves -- and had an outburst, I wouldn't engage that behavior. I'd just stay with myself. That would have one of two effects: either the person would recognize the outburst as unnecessary and apologize, or they'd not have anyone hit the ball back, so they'd stop engaging this thinking, and it'd subside over time.

This is a really healthy way to deal with the world as people start learning to take of their internal lives. But individual therapy and couple's, family, and group counseling, may be an even better route forward to take alongside other self-care methods. Maybe this is one way to deal with racism, because if we're able to see how we hurt ourselves, then we are less likely to do the same to others, regardless of the forms this may take.

Here's a link to my Patreon page. I've never advertised it, and I only have two supporters: Sohee and Nemanja. If you'd like to see Sometimes I Dream in Farsi, or any of the other films we'll do come to light, donating a dollar or two is the first step I can see in making this a reality. Please share it or this page. I hope this film and all the other work we create offer some comfort and a direction towards self-healing and a better internal and external world for all of us.

Also, Meina, just shared this with me. It's a fantastic video from Childish Gambino AKA Donald Glover. I also noticed one of my students Nic Hodges singing in the chorus. Shine, Nic! I see you!!

Day 10: Sometimes I Dream in Farsi

I didn't know what was going to happen at the salon. I had been there a month ago and gotten a haircut from Samantha. She was very kind and mature.

"I don't care about money," she told me. "I just want to do something I love. That's why I chose cutting hair. I like connecting with people."

"What helped you realize that?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "My parents and my church."

I wanted to know more. I asked her if we could film us getting a haircut and then talk about this again.

"That sounds exciting," she said.

Now, I was there with my mother. She was in a chair next to me. She had told me she didn't know anything about the barbershop incident. I figured I'd start there.

"You've never heard the story?" I asked.

"No," my mother said.

I told her and Samantha what happened. As soon as I looked into my mother's eyes and talked about the pain of being told to get out of the barbershop because I was Iranian, the waterworks started again.

"I'm sorry," I said. "This just keeps happening."

"Let it out," my mother said.

"Yeah," Samantha agreed.

"When you have this, you have to cry," my mother said.

"Dad said to be tough," I said.

"No," my mother said. "When you need to cry, you have to cry"

Then she told us about her trip to Iran to visit her brother. Mohti's two sons were in a car accident. One of them died and the other was paralyzed. My mother said she just cried with her brother, and then sat with Iman every night.

"I tell them we have to let it out," she told us. "We cannot keep it inside."

Then Samantha started talking about her father and his health condition. That that's how she learned how valuable life is. That we only have a short time in life, and she wasn't going to waste it chasing money or success.

"Have you talked to your dad about this?" I asked.

"No," she said. "We keep things to ourselves in my family."

I pulled out my Transformers from my pocket. I handed one to my mother. "You remember these?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "You love Transformers and puzzles. Every day when we were in Indiana, I put hundreds of puzzles on the ground. Then we make them until your father comes home. I even get puzzles from the neighbors. And books! You love books. I never forget you win Readathon. You always were reading books."

"You remember?"

"286," she said. "I never forget this number. You read all day and night to win this Cabbage Patch Kid doll. When you start, we have to give 25 cent for every book, but when your dad see how many books you read, we change to 5 cents."

I transformed the cassette Transformer into a Lazerbeak bird. My mother transformed her cassette.

"Wow!" I said. "You remember how to transform Frenzy!"

"I love that you know their names still," Samantha said.

Then I held up my Lazerbeak to my mother's Frenzy and made them kiss.

"Alright," Samantha said. "Time for your head massage."

"Mom," I said. "Do you want it instead of me?"

"No," she said. "You need it."

I got the head massage, while my mother moved to a closer seat in the hair washing station. She talked about me as a kid and Samantha talked more about herself as a kid. I could tell the two of them were getting on pretty well. I closed my eyes and just relaxed for a bit. I didn't know it at the time, but one of my greatest teachers had just passed. Bobbie Louise Hawkins one of my best friends had died right around that time.

At Naropa, her and I would spend almost every couple nights cooking salmon and hanging out. She taught me that "a great talker is a great writer" and vice-versa. She loved performing pieces, and when she'd go over pieces, she'd talk them aloud to see how they sounded in her mouth.

"Oh," she said, reading the word aloud again, "Smoosh is such an ugly word. Let's change that."

Then she kept reading changing smoosh, and then not reading the sentence at all:

Just yesterday, Havah called me up, and the first words out of her mouth were, “You’re an asshole.” She said she was uncomfortable around me because I made her feel like a kid. This is pretty crazy considering I am the same age as her. I mentioned this, and she shrugged it off.

I reminded her about the time she beat the shit out of me because I stopped her from feeding Houssein’s sister bumblebee stew. She tried to convince us that it would be so funny. She would drink it. And say she liked it. I told her I was going to tell, if she did it. Then she swung back and gave me a fat lip. “I don’t understand why you’re bringing that up,” she said.

"See," she said. "That sounds better already."

That was my first short story. After I wrote it and Bobbie found out I was in the poetry track, she said I had to switch. "Oh, honey," she said. "You need to be in fiction. Those poets all want to be rock stars. Come over with us."

"Okay," I said.

I had to re-apply and then did my second year in fiction with Bobbie, Keith, and Junior. I learned how to be honest and find my voice as a writer. And when Bobbie didn't like something, she'd tell me straight out.

"What's this?" she said about a story that was more experimental than anything else.

"You don't like it?" I said.

She just looked at me like I had two heads.

After grad school was over, I stayed in Boulder for two more years. Bobbie and I would take walks, have dinners, and even go see Star Wars.

"What'd you think?" I asked her.

"It was pretty," she said. "I liked all the sound effects."

I'm realizing now that the first movie I ever saw in English was Star Wars with my mother in Indiana. I guess sharing that moment with Bobbie was me showing how much I loved her. It's sort of like when you got all these songs you've written, but they're not really finished, but you play them for a friend, because you know they'll get that they're half-finished, so they won't judge it the same -- or that it's like in this other place -- research into something you'll launch into later.

Bobbie would do the same with me.

"I wrote this last night," she'd say, and launch.

Once she had a bunch of pieces ready for her one woman show, I suggested she perform it. She was complaining about how she'd like to be better known.

"You're already famous," I said.

She wanted more. That kind of shocked me. She was so amazing already. Who cared if more people knew? Now, I get it a bit more. She had to sneak writing in the house when she was married to Bob Creeley. He had some fucked up idea that there could only be one writer in the house. She just wanted to be out there to offer people another way of looking. It was what Kevin Ramsey, the Broadway actor and director, told me later he called "legacy".

"You've already created all this legacy," he said.

I had been lukewarm about how CTRL ALT DEL might perform in theaters. He just kept on about my "legacy" and "shining".

I wanted that for Bobbie, so I called up the manager of Joe's Pub in New York City. I figured she could do a show there. I got my buddy Mark and my brother Paiman to film the event.

Bobbie was so excited about the show. I wanted it to be a huge success. I don't think she advertised that well for it. Ann Waldman showed up. I think Bob too. I just heard about it through my brother second-hand.

"Ann says you're going to be famous," he told me.

"What?" I said. "She said that?"

"Yeah," Paiman said.

At the time, I was so flattered. I still am. But, now, I realize I'm just like Bobbie was then, trying to offer a voice for people like her -- trying to break free and shine a light.

"I'm probably not more well known, because I did so many things," Bobbie said. "Painting, theater, and writing. I should have focused on one."

"Nah," I said. "They all inform each other."

After we shot in the salon, I drove Aaron to the Buffalo airport for his flight back to LA. I talked about how Melissa Broder just got her book The Pisces reviewed in the New York Times, and how her Twitter So Sad Today was connecting with folks. That she was so dedicated even from the first time I met her. We were shooting CTRL ALT DEL and she showed up for a poetry reading we did after a shoot. I remember she came into the room and asked: "Are any of you writers?"

The other writers in the room were in that game of competition and mumbled about their statuses and books like badges on a General's uniform.

"I write," I said. "I'm mostly a filmmaker though."

"I never want to be a person that doesn't connect with people no matter who they are," I told Aaron this, and he nodded his head.

Then I talked about how important it was to be emotional. That maybe what this film and So Sad Today was doing was giving people a chance to be honest with how they feel -- a world that was so different from their avatars of perfect brunches, holidays, and relationships.

"An artist's job," Aaron said, "Is to be able to communicate feelings. That's why we engage them. They just do it in a way that other people can't, because they're in touch with those places."

I remember when I first met Bob Creeley. He was over Bobbie's new house. I shook his hand. I thought about how Bobbie told me all the stories about how she saved poems from trashcans, the wild times in Bolinas, a poetry collection called Love and Bobbie's one woman show on the same topic. He looked like he wanted to talk, but Bobbie just got me out of there.

"Pirooz and I are going for a walk," she said, and then we headed out.

We walked down Bluff Street near Lover's Park and talked about divorce. She told me about how she was done with relationships. That they were too much trouble. Then we picked apples from a crabapple tree and ate them. Then we circled back around the Boulder hospital to that house painted all white.

"Oh, honey," she said. "This was good walk and talk."

After that walk, I'm sure we had a dozen or so more over the next couple years. Then, I ended up getting divorced and moving to LA. I'd call her every once in a while. Every time I did, she started the phone call the same way:

"Oh, honey!" she'd shout. "Spill."

Bobbie loved gossiping. I'd tell her about being alone. She'd talk about reading romance novels with Joanne Kyger and how much they loved them. "You need to talk to her."

I saw Bobbie only one time in person after that. Her memory wasn't doing so well. It was 2008, and I had already been to Korea, and married Sohee, and I brought her with me.

"I like this one," Bobbie said, when Sohee walked over to the piano. "She's a keeper."

I'd call every once in a while after that, but I'd never get an answer. I heard from someone else that she had moved again. Sohee would ask how she was every once in a while, but I wouldn't go into it. I knew it'd be too hard for me to find out if she had passed, and I just didn't want to know. I'm good at bottling up feelings. It's what I've been taught to do all my life.

"You can't cry too much," my dad said, as we interviewed my family on a couch. "Everything in moderation."

"If there was one word you could tell the nine year old me, what would it be?" I asked them.

"Love," my mother said.

"Courage," my brother Panauh said.

Then my dad talked about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

"He said one word," Panauh laughed.

"That is one word," my dad said.

I realize now that without Bobbie I would have never been able to write or be a filmmaker. She was the one that got me into telling these family stories. I also realize without her, I wouldn't have been so close to my parents now either. She taught me that break-ups and differences were good things, and we'd have it out about everything. I suppose it was with her I found another family member and she helped me connect back with my own.

My dad sent me this pic of me after shooting last week. It's his latest digital painting. He makes them with mathematical code and fractals. He told me to share it with the world.

When I look at it now, I imagine myself at that age talking to me, and then talking to Bobbie, saying how much I wish I could call you again.

"I was planning on coming to Boulder on the road trip to see you, Bobbie," the picture of me says. "I wanted you to meet Meina. I figured we could walk and talk."

"Oh, honey!" her picture says to me. "I will always talk to you."

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