A self-portrait of my father. I believe he sculpted it while he attended art college.

One year ago today, on a cold Halloween evening in Bremerton, WA, my father Galen Gibson passed away.

I’ve struggled to articulate how I feel about his death. We hadn’t spoken in five years – a decision I had made, and not lightly – when I got word. The coroner, looking for a next of kin, had contacted my mother first, who sent them my way. I had to facilitate the cremation; the ashes and what few personal effects were sent to me. I shipped the cremains to a distant relative in Kentucky, where they were buried next to his mother’s grave.

A few days ago, using time off from work following the back-to-back hurricanes we endured here in Florida, I decided to bite the bullet and migrate my site off WordPress. And strangely, the tool I chose – Hugo – is both a throwback to an earlier time and also the cutting edge of web development. Like any good paradox, this requires some explanation.

Image: a street in my neighborhood following Hurricane Milton.

There’s nothing like two back-to-back hurricanes to remind you to talk more to people you care about.

I am, in fact, still alive. After last year’s grief and illness, I began writing poetry (hopefully more on that to come!), and I’ve been migrating the blog away from WordPress to a static site generator. I’ve also been reading more, mostly non-fiction.

I guess one could say I was complacent.

‘The Three Vinegar Tasters’ by Kanō Isen’in, Edo period, c. 1802-1816, ink and color on paper, Honolulu Museum of Art, accession 6156.1. Public Domain.

It’s a given that the older one gets, the less cut-and-dry things become. A younger me would consider getting rained on while going to work to be enough for a bad day, but now I’d consider that an inconvenience, one that could be mitigated by a thoughtful conversation with a friend or trying a new tea brew.

Bad days do still happen. The day after Halloween, when my mother called to say that my birth father had passed, was one. But it’s a higher bar.

Was 2023 a bad year? It’s no longer so binary. It’s like acting out the vinegar tasters all at once.

In an already complicated year, as I was struggling with changes in my professional life and family drama, I got the news that my biological father, Galen, had passed away.

It was the day after Halloween. That evening, my mother called to tell me that a coroner’s office in Washington state had gotten in touch. Somehow, they had found her contact information, and were seeking his next-of-kin. As I was his only child and he had no current spouse, that responsibility fell to me.

Total word count: 18,235

“This month didn’t go as planned” is an understatement. I ran into some logistical plot issues about halfway through the month that’s required a bit of tinkering, and soon after I’ve had to deal with some work issues and two major, unexpected expenses that sucked out any enthusiasm I was able to muster.

Anyway, plot issues. I may delete one of my main characters. Their sections are becoming more of a slog to write, which is a bad sign for how readable their passages are. I have ideas about how to make them more enjoyable to read about, but throwing them out the proverbial airlock is still on the table.

Total word count: 15,008

I knew this month would be hectic, but looking at my daily word count table, I underestimated just how difficult writing this month would be.

Total word count: 10,321

Progress this month has been fairly steady, apart from some neck pain this weekend that slowed me down considerably. It helps to have an action scene with a ton of buildup to keep motivated.

Come find me on Mastodon!

Total word count: 7543

Despite two Thanksgiving dinners, sinusitis, a busier-than-usual work schedule, and other various personal issues, I reached the goal I set a few days in: 250 words a day, 7,500 words by the end of the month.