Bailor, call me.

It is not supposed to be this way; it is supposed to be this way. This is the way it is.

My close friend Anais Nin II C discovered last night a little pin - I imagine red or blue or something primary and childish - plugged into a giant map somewhere in her parents house, it marks Helsinki.

She placed this pushpin there 9 years ago, knowing this is where I'd be the night she was back at her mom and dads rummaging through whatever it was, or doing whatever it was. The details, except for the one, are unimportant.

She sent me a telegram this morning, it arrived over the teletype on the ship: "Found you," so I am supposed to be here. This is where I am right now.

But this week I am leaving. I am all but 100 percent sure that my life is in danger here, on this ship, if I stay on this boat. I nearly died today. . . I will get to that part, a little later.

Or hell, might as well start right now: We have been sailing for two days straight. To be accurate we have sailed for about 7 hours total - perhaps less, probably less - and the rest of the time - due to weather, poor winds, or general apathy - we used the diesel motor to chop our way through the icy, still icy cold Baltic.

We truly left off after spending a night at a little resortish sort of island outside Stockholm. We had two friends with us, and so Pete made chicken fried rice as the beers were cooling in the dock waters.

This was a beautiful, very power-boat vacationy feeling. With the sun on our backs, a beautiful city scratched from our lists ( lists ... that sounds awful and red-faced touristy.... and any way, I would have stayed much longer ... really it was only a sort of flirt with the city - she kissed us and then left in a taxi, taking only our email address - jesus, what's wrong with me ... future writers - never use email in a sentence, it kills it - although teletype seems to work . . . )

Here is what I am trying to do. I will let you in on my formula for this post. I was hoping to shape the arc of narrative like the sun sets in the Baltic. A high beautiful sun will shine over Stockholm well into the afternoon, and will gradually sink, of course, reaching its nadir just above the horizon and it never truly sets... it remains above the surface, its glow does, and then starts up again.

I have drawn little pictures of this to outline little stories I am working on while here - they look like a bunch of overlapping small circles, drawn in messy pencil, flowing in one of those math patterns, whats that name again - like a U or the skull of a bull. So that's what I was going to do.

The apex obviously, the best times, were that day leaving Stockholm. With all the city's tease, the salty breeze and wide-open seas (oh god...). And the down, the putzer, well, that was nearly dying today only 100 metres from port in Helsinki.

Oh, yes, by the way: nearly died today in Helsinki.

Where to begin (clearly this deserves one of those traditional narrative arcs - it deserves a cup of tea, some cigarettes and two comfy seats. But as we are all here on blog world I am keeping it brief - I still need to sleep, talk to embassies of Soviet and Teutonic powers and then consume some Finnish art, food, people. (Consume people. Yes, OK for now).

The day after we left Sandhamn, that little gem resort place, the seas started up on us, but at first it looked like a good time to start sailing. We put on our life coats, and latched our selves to the ship and in a few minutes, Pete's got me lifting the sails. We are making good speed, about 5 knots, and I am feeling only slightly sick. Wow, the open sea, the dark grey mass and weight of cold, long, who knows - there's something there that your mind comes up against and can't help but be satisfied with: How simple everything looks, yet there's a real and figurative hidden power. As we know the sea is a tough enemy and I'd rather not fight it much, if I could avoit it.

I head in after I start getting too cold, and figure Ill learn more a little later. But being inside the boat, and with the waves picking up, the pressure dropping, the sickness starts to get me. Now, when I fist was leaving for this trip, I figured I'd be able to out mind-control this seasickness shit. But it is impossible, or at least , it was for me... I lay down for a bit, and every time we keel over to starboard, the side my bed's on, I see the ocean coming right for me through the window, a huge jump, a gigantic splash, water coming through an unsealed porthole in the roof, I am trying to sleep, and forget about this dizzy feeling, wearing all my rain gear and boots in bed... shivering. Pete comes in and tells me plans have changed. Gravely. I take the news.

The UHF and SATNAV is warning of ultra fast Gale Force winds where we had planned on docking for the night (about half way to Helsinki), so instead of risk it with the water hazards in a storm, the skip says we are gonna sail straight through the night. I tell him I don't think its a good idea, I won't be able to help watch, which I'll need to if we pull an all nighter. . . I just want the whole world to stop spinning, nauseous and desperate (the two are practicaly identical feelings) but Pete tells me in his Liverpudlian-Ringo accent "That's fine Tobin.. I happen to disagree..." He is the captain.

I get up in a while and vomit for a little bit, feel fine for a while and puke again. Sleep again. Around this point I do a night watch, and things are a bit blurry. I do remember one part before or after my watch, getting up and walking towards the upper deck where Pete was, standing there with his arms spread out. A stern grimace, very seaman like grimace, across his old grey and white face. His giant falses sticking out past his blueish lips like the bare bones of an old wreck through the sea.

"I noticed we were headed right for her, so I took some evasive actions, there," he says to me, without even looking my way, arm outstretched gesturing towards a ghost like, humungous cruize ship, towering above,lit up like a Titanic draped in Christmas lights. The image is startling and sublime, robotic and terrifying.

Another part of the spell-bound eve, of which I was surely not going to make it through, I remember vividly thinking of my notebook being destroyed in the wreck, and the words, the all-important words, would all evaporate into the cold black water like tiny swirls of blue smoke.

There was another point where I came back into the cabin after swalling four or five gravols, and I found a french woman sitting on the bed opposite mine, smoking long cigarettes... She was beautiful, of course, black hair, a white round brimmed hat, pale skin and red lipstick ... and I remember not being too shocked to see her, I just said "You know you arent supposed to smoke down here," and he she smiled, exhaling, extinguished one cigarette in an invisble ashtray and lit a new one. I went back to sleep.

*** There's one part I am leaving out. I'll get to it now.

Nearly dying might have been an over statement. But, what a pathetic way to perish, you'll see, after all that high danger and seamanship. Upon entering the city marina of Helsinki, Finland today, Peter was top side in the cockpit, away from the GPS stuff, and I was also on deck, preparing the lines for docking.

He must have missed, or dismissed the cardinal buoy to our west, which indicated the huge hazard lying only 1 metre beneath the surface. He yells Woah, and slows the ship, Whats the problem, I ask, and he tells me: "The depth boy, it went up for a second..."

I presume everything is OK, I guess he does too for he keeps going... SMASH, one giant bump, a few rolls, we have hit something, and hit it hard. We are immobile. We can see the port, the docks, only about 100 feet away - even closer is a bay of giant concrete dividers, which I imagine I could swim to, hopefully before catching hypothermia.

Last thing I want to do is jump in the water, but Pete is tellng me to prepare the life ratf. She's rocking back and forth, and I am running from Port to Starboard and back trying to level her out;

"Jesus christ motherfucker" Pete slams his fist, those sharkish teeth coming out.

We finally get it freed, and enter port, for some reason with our mison sail still flying, which docking difficult, and us look very very stupid. He tells me it feels like a wire is wound around his heart, squeezing it. I am very worried about this situation... before getting back on hard land, he tells me

"Well thats it, then, you be wanting to get out now, take care of you."

This is no good. A damaged ship and captain. No place to go and no will to go back home.

There is hope, that unhuman feeling, hope. And happiness, that boring, human feeling. Hapiness.

The sun has nearly sunk, and it rises.

Housekeeping in Sweden

Hi everyone, welcome back,

I have just arrived in Stockholm. From now on, you will see there's a Twitter feed on the right hand side, and I'll be using this for the rather mundane but important updates (i.e. I have just arrived in Stockholm. Or 'Im sailing into St Petersburg' etc)

Ill try and reserve blog posts for things more interesting, and really save up on the posts so each one is better than the last. I can't say I've been too thrilling a writer these last 2 weeks.

For new readers to this blog, there's some things you need to know.

I just spent 3 months in South America and then rushed home because of a family emergency.

I hate to think the first thing you'd read about me would be the last four posts which are all heavy and emotional, and frankly, probably only interesting to me.

So in order to maybe keep some new readers, if there are any out there, here are a few older posts you should read before plunging into the mires, if you choose to...

Sailor, Call me
http://gomoan.blogspot.com/2009/04/sailor-call-me.html

My oldest friends are all dead ( a day in palermo)
http://gomoan.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-oldest-friends-are-all-dead.html

Cuzco
http://gomoan.blogspot.com/2009/04/from-archives-cuzco.html

Last one

A number of subjects, I find, I have become obsessed with on this blog. Perhaps obsessed is the wrong way to put it. Anyway - one of them is Miller, Henry Miller, and the other one I think is my Dad, and his death. In both cases, I decided at one point to never mention them again, at least just long enough to permit me to think about other things, to write about other things. But this self restriction right now, at 1:43 a.m. - the night before a plane will take me to other worlds - seems construct; seems wrong.

First off, maybe, because I have just received about three Miller books from a dear friend - her name is Anais Nin II C. Secondly, I really think most of you should read the speech I prepared for my father's wake.

These two thoughts seem like parallel lines thrown into the future, never meeting at any point (help me, what's that term), but they aren't. They are elbows. They are ensembles.

Here is the thing I wrote for dad, I wrote it on Blogger because I can't write on Word anymore.

Dad spent the last years of his life painting and telling stories. And although he painted much worse than Van Gogh, I always find it interesting to note how much these two men, Van Gogh and my dad, share in common. Both were middle-aged, sick men, long past the crest of life, when they started to paint. And they each lived in hospitals when they first took up the brush. I picture dad's eternally paint-covered clothes, caloused hands, and crazy manic thirst for expression, all guided by an illness of the mind and soul, and then I think of Van Gogh.

But if I was asked to really pick a comparison, more than anyone else, I would say Dad was a sort of Don Quijote. It was stories and dreams that became him these last years. He bent after windmills of riches and wealth, churned by the great winds of certain fame. Every single day this was him, the wise fool, the bumbling, innocent knight-errant. If it wasn't a coin collection or a rare antique postcard signed by George Washington, it was his close partnership with Bill Gates or his new book, an apolitical manifesto.

Of course it was clear to everyone that these must have been illusions, that dad lived in his dreams. Who knows just how far Andy deceived himself, but I think for the most part, he believed his own riddles because he had to, because he understood the power of stories and the pain of life. Andy was brave and smart and talented enough to carve out a hundred good stories and live a thousand lives. This was perhaps the most rigourous, enduring way he fought Parkinsons -- with fictions, with stories.

Now that he is gone, it is beautiful to see how precious Dad's stories have become, now that they are soberly, truly, finite and endowed with a kind of magic and symbolism.

Yesterday in the car on the way to Dad's home, my brother Andy was worried the nurses would have thrown out the scraps of paper which my dad always had scattered everywhere, on which he scribbled poems, prose and his ambivalent insights. But when we arrived, the place was pretty much spotless and these scraps were no where to be found – Andy was on his hands and knees, just looking for any random scrap of paper which had suddenly become priceless to him.

Dad’s bedroom in the nursing home is splattered from wall to wall with acrylic paint, crowded by canvases framed in impressive dark black and blue wood and gold and glass, and all over the place are paint-covered books, chairs, desk, and old poems he printed and painted over on heavy carton and photo paper.

We searched, somewhat desperately, for good poems, for his wonderful play, for presentable paintings, anything that we could use at this funeral to tell his story. You might have noticed on display, this one magical, beautiful painting, the one which is about 5 feet tall, a brightly coloured sort of abstract stone cavern.

Everyone in my family knows that Dad didn't paint this one - it was a family gift, from Joan O’doherty... But one day a few months ago, while a few of us were visiting dad, I was looking at this work which he had hanging on his wall, and I realized there was a new addition in the bottom left corner of the piece in red, messy paint. It was his signature.

"That's an A.J.D original," he told me. "Yep. One of my best." After some debate he admitted that perhaps Joan helped him chose the colours, or hold the brush, but nothing more. It was his own work, and he had the signature there to prove it.
(Hi Joan ... thank you for being with us today... )

After Andy died, I went out and bought a new digital voice recorder. I feel it is important to collect every single story about dad. I know it's impossible, but I regret never sitting down and really asking him about his own life. So I ask you all now, his friends and relatives, to come talk to me after if you want to share a story with me.

In his last days alive, Andy had us believing one last amazing, miraculous story. He was a very convincing man, and although his blood tests and diagnostics were severe and negative, the whole family felt he was going to fight and win this battle, like he had done some many times before. He even had some of the doctors convinced. When he was first admitted, Dr. Kortan told us with his sad eyes and a hand shake that our dad had days, maybe hours to live. There was no way to help.

The next day, we came back and Kortan had spent some time reading Andy's rather immense medical file. You could see it in Kortan’s eyes, a certain kind of intrigue I imagine doctor's must experience whenever they get a hold of a unique patient: Dad's medical history itself must read like a Shakespearian harmony of ups and downs. A damn good story and the doctors knew it.

And added to that, Dad seemed to be getting better. His eyes were open. He was talking again. He would scramble in his bed, ripping off his oxygen mask, shoving away spoons of water, declaring: "I drink like a normal person! I breath like a normal person!"

And suddenly we felt he was back. Dad was still sick, but perhaps not dying, not just yet. I haven't quite figured out why dad's stories and creativity, and the stories others have of him, seem so important now. Maybe it is just how every son feels after his dad dies.

But I have a feeling that we missed the point while he was still living. Somehow, all his stories, all his illusions, now seem truer than they did before. They seem true not because of fact or anything bookish, but because they have actually now become the story we tell when we talk about Andy. When we talk about the man he was.

I loved my father very much. He taught me about honesty, and responsibilty, and he inspired me to go to university, become a journalist and he gave me my first guitar. But his best gift to me, without any doubt, are his stories.
I love you Dad. Thank you.

Seymour Glass

I have been sleeping awfully for the last week. I am not sure if it is anxiety or whatever. Anyway, I am leaving this Thursday to land in Stockholm a few days before my birthday. I will turn 24 on a boat or in Sweden somewhere.

Excited to be up with the sun each day, the misty salty air and the solitude and quiet. Excited somewhat for boredom and excitement at sea.

Not in the best shape for writing just yet - feeling sick and drowsy all the time - but wanted to get a little practice before I'm on a boat.

Here's a map of the Baltic, if you feel like reading about my adventures in these places, then keep coming to this blog.



I should somehow figure out how to post at least a few times per week, but still have no idea what kind of web access I'll have. This has never really been a photo blog but I suppose there will be some of those to put up too.

What a crazy ride so far. A lull this past week, and where's the energy to start again? I'm sure it will just come .

Jazz music

Today I have been writing my father's obituary. He died yesterday in hospital quietly, fast, perhaps painlessly, but it was hard to tell. I am glad I was here, and my whole family was here — Evan, Andy, Mom — for him these last days. He wasn't alone. There's much more, there's been so many stories told this last week — so much laughter and tears — and there's more, so I am going out and buying a new tape recorder, and going listen and learn about dad. I will show you all what becomes of his stories, one day.


***

A draft —

Dalrymple, Dr. Andrew J. (a.k.a. Blue)

After a 17-year struggle with Parkinsons, Andy died May 12 with family at his side. A wonderfully smart, entertaining and difficult man, he lived an inspiring life. From homeless immigrant in Vancouver, to respected doctor of psychology, with a beautiful wife and three kids, and ultimately, a vanguard artist, it was a tremendous 57 years. When illness made his career impossible, he launched a new life, driven by a desire to create and express. A poet, playwright, experimental painter, novelist, entrepeneur and inventor, he is remembered most for his wisdom and humour, by Frances and their boys Andy, Evan, and Toby, and grandkids Jenna and Ian. Donations sent to Parkinsons Society of Canada. xxxx


***

how do you boil a life down - such a life, your father's - in a hundred-word death notice?

***


So call me sailor, again. I am leaving for Europe in a few weeks. He would have wanted that, he would have done it, too.

A crazy whisper —

Me voy.

***

My father is about 57 years old and lying in a hospital bed somewhere in Toronto. Tomorrow afternoon I leave Buenos Aires to board a 12-hour flight — I am going home .

The last time we spoke, my father and I, it was exactly a week ago. This was the first time in nearly three months I heard his voice, as I didn't bother, or hardly even consider, calling him once throughout this journey.

We talked mostly of a silver dollar he lent me — or gave and then decided he wanted back when I visited him in the old age him he calls home, about a week before I flew to Peru.

"Hold onto this, and you'll never be broke," he said.

Later, thinking over these words, I realize it's a clever joke. So clever, I'm not entirely sure he means it the way I understand. "Hold on to this bit of old, valueless currency, and you'll always have at least one coin in your pocket."

Tonight as I packed I searched frantically for the coin, as I'd really like to present it to him when I show up.

***

There's so much I'd want to tell you about my dad. I feel so awful right now it's impossible to even start.

There's this one picture of the three brothers and him all dressed up in soccer gear beneath a tree in the small town we grew up. It's a beatiful sunny day in a park, the grass is green, the tree is in full bloom. Three of us stand in front of dad, in a triangular position, arms a kimbo. A little soccer team of four. Everyone in the family knows and loves this picture; we can refer to it vaguely as 'the photo' or perhaps 'the soccer picture' and I'm sure immediately we'd know what was being discussed.

It captures a light which my family has rarely beheld, which we have rarely known as a body, as a beautiful thing together. There's the three brothers: tiny little Toby with a mushroom cut, tiny Evan smirking fiendishly, and lanky, taller, but tiny Andy, fighting with me, I think, to share the space on the ball with his cleat ( I remember it took us some time to figure out who received the honour.) Dad looks young, happy. He's a doctor, with a beautiful wife and three beautiful, intelligent kids.

It was nearly 10 years later that Dad was diagnosed with Parkinsons. And soon after life for us all, and our mother, has been, well, everything this photo isn't. That's a trite and weak way to put it, but how else describe a thing that has engulfed me, us all, for so long, in such a dark, strenuous way, in less than a volume of words and chapters?

I think this photo must be just essentially ... I can't really say right now. I am sobbing just writing about it.

Anyway, the point is, last January the four of us - the boys - were together for a small, rare vacation in Miami. Somehow, someone asked the question: "Dad, what do you want us to with you when you die?"

He said: "scatter the ashes under that tree — from the photo."

***

I am sad to be leaving, but I'm at peace with it too.

I can write more on everything later. I am headed home to be with Dad. He is sick and in a hospital. Things were looking worse before; so things are improving. I know little because I am Argentina, and disconnected from that world.

I feel awful for writing about things so personal. I do not mean to profit of this awfulness, although I do get a sense of renewed understanding as I write.

Perhaps I'll delete this later.

After the wrestling match

. . . we began calling him Israel.

***

Joseph Potter had decided to die. It was a nagging, incessant thing — this desire for a grand death, an important and poetic death. And it obsessed him long before he accomplished it. “I have decided to die,” he would say, “pleased to meet you.” Pat you on the back. Light a cigarette. Find some drugs.

He was a writer, and when his first novel came out, it was certainly one of those touchstone “events.” His great talent as a writer was, perhaps, nourished by the fact that he wasn’t handsome — artists can never be too beautiful — and what struck you most when looking at him were a pair of tired, effeminate eyes.  Set in plush clouds of yellow-white marble fat, his eyes had no white or colour, simply long dark tunnels, leading blindly away from the light of the world.

But it must be said, to look at him you couldn’t help thinking that beneath the dreariness, there was an undeniable handsomeness, hiding — as if you could remove a layer and discover not bones and veins and muscle, but a perfect Brando, a model of the dark, beautiful America from which he ran screaming, and returned to searching for his death.

***

to be continued, and surely, re-edited

- Tobin Dalrymple, Mon. May 4, 4:03 a.m., Buenos Aires

*** UPDATE: I deleted half of this. I'm working on it and I think I'll probably scrap the whole thing later. Waste of your time, I know.

But while you are here, here's a blog-bite for you: last night returning by cab at 2 am I met a pure bread Nazi - he was the driver. Born in Germany, now some 60 or 70 years old, his daddy was an S.S. trooper and died in the war. "I am a racist!" he tells me with vigour, and pride. "But nothing to do with black or whites . . . for me, it's all about religions."

I was gonna tell you about how after a few inquiries he took me to a secret meeting place and we sacrifice a goat, all wearing hoods coloured with blood; but it never happenned, and if I tell you it did, I'm just being drunk.