SPRINGFIELD — After the prayers of thanksgiving were offered and the blue ribbon surrounding the playground equipment was cut, the church courtyard filled with the sounds of happy children playing — swinging, climbing, sliding, laughing and shouting.
Springfield United Methodist Church, 701 School Ave., dedicated last Sunday a newly renovated playground area to the memory of former parishioner Marisa Joy Williams.
“She enjoyed being a kid, and so I’m hoping all of these children that came to the playground will get that joy and be able to spread it around,” said Marisa’s mother, Donna Williams, after she and husband Charles Williams cut the ribbon.
A 2006 graduate of Bay High School and 2007 alumnus of Gulf Coast Community College, Marisa died on Feb. 23, 2008 in a single car accident on Interstate 75. She was 18.
Marisa’s family attends Springfield Methodist, which raised about $15,000 and built the playground to create a space that honors her namesake joie de vivre. Many volunteers and church members committed time and money to the effort.
“When we did lose Marisa, Charles’ family wanted to do something to memorialize Marisa and wonderful heart that she had and the wonderful love that she had,” said Kevin Oakes, from the church. “And we took that on board as a church, and we considered and we prayed, and we said, ‘What would be appropriate for that?’”
The playground is the latest in a series of memorial expressions of love for Marisa that are having a positive impact on the community. Earlier this year, an endowed scholarship was established at GCCC by family and friends who began making art via “Project Joy Boots” and holding auctions and sales in the months following Marisa’s death. The scholarship will go toward the fees of technical theater students each term.
Meanwhile, in a covered space beside the play area, the church will install a brass plaque with Marisa’s photo engraved on it. The marker reads: “Joy Playground — This playground is dedicated to the loving memory of Marisa Joy Williams. May those who play here be blessed with the same joy that filled her heart.”
In the weeks following the 2008 death of Marisa Joy Williams, her friends and family gathered to launch “Project Joy Boots” to raise money to establish a perpetual scholarship in her name at her alma mater.
Marisa graduated with a degree in technical theater from Gulf Coast Community College in December 2007. She moved to Orlando to continue her studies, and died in a single car accident on Interstate 75 on Feb. 23, 2008 while driving to help someone stranded by a broken-down car. She was 18.
It takes $15,000 to endow a scholarship, and the project had raised nearly $14,200 when Marisa’s mother, Donna, got a call to meet with the college’s Foundation folks recently. She said she was scared the down economy had forced the organization to set its scholarship limits higher.
“I must admit my first thought was, ‘Oh no, the cost of endowment has gone up and we are so close!’” she said in a posting to the Project Joy Boots Facebook.
She rounded up one of the project founders, GCCC student Katie Vickmark, and they met with Duncan McClane at Gulf Coast. He explained that — rather than requiring more money — the Foundation Board had honored their hard work by donating the last $837 needed to meet the endowment goal.
“Duncan told us that this almost never happens, but they were impressed by our faithfulness and determination,” Donna said. “It seems very few people or organizations that start out a scholarship ever see it through to endowment.”
In fact, college administrators and supporters had seen the Joy Boots crew every time GCCC opened its theater doors. The college’s Performing Arts department consistently invited the project to sell its wares and concessions in the lobby on show nights, as well as during Shakespeare by the Bay productions at the college and in local parks.
The Joy Boots crew already had a raffle in progress, and last Friday gave away dozens of painted boots, keychains, buttons, bracelets and donated artwork to ticket-buyers, raising additional funds. “If we put it all in the scholarship fund, it will start earning more interest quicker, which will allow for more money to be given out for the scholarship,” Donna said.
In the fall of 2011, the first Marisa Joy Williams Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to a deserving technical theater student at GCCC. Donna thanked everyone who helped in any way — painting boots and pins, working booths, getting the word out, taking up donations, or praying.
“We could not have done it this quickly without you,” she said. “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Marisa is smiling down on us from heaven and is so very proud of all our effort on her behalf.”
Peace.
--- This was my Sunday "Undercurrents" column for The News Herald.
Friday, as a downpour flooded area streets, overflowed ditches and turned lawns into lakes, a large white balloon settled into the center of a plant in our frontyard flower bed. The white ribbon trailing from the balloon led to the stem of a rose bush we planted in 2008 in memory of Marisa Joy Williams, a beloved friend who died in a car accident at the age of 18.
Rain drummed on the surface of the balloon like a rapid heartbeat.
Now, logically, I realize someone launched or lost this balloon, and it traveled randomly upon the stormy gusts until driven down into its resting place in a nest of grasses and thorns, looking like a dinosaur egg in the front yard.
But reason and faith are comfortable companions in my brain. I also believe in signs, that seemingly random events have meaning, that “synchronicity” is more than just the title of the last studio album from the Police. And this sign came like a message from above, just when it was needed.
Ten days prior, I had met with Marisa’s family and other friends to mark her 21st birthday. As has become our tradition, we gathered by her tomb, wrote birthday messages on helium balloons, clipped off the trailing ribbons and released the floating orbs to the heavens.
That same day, the single bud on the memorial rose had bloomed.
We joke sometimes about the people who may find the balloons we launch and what they must wonder about the girl to whom these birthday messages are written. I have a feeling I’m closer, now, to understanding their possible reactions.
In the past, I have written to and about Marisa on her birthday or other milestone dates. You may have read some of those notes here. This year, for whatever reason, I just couldn’t do so. I felt closed off, like that avenue of expression was unavailable. Honestly, I felt a guilty as the days passed and I hadn’t acknowledged her beyond a passage I placed on a personal blog.
It has been a difficult year in many ways, and so many things that bound us to her memory have frayed. Friends moved away, family became distracted with school or work, and we too often struggled just to get by. She was never far from our thoughts, even as we seemed to lose contact with one another.
In symbolism, the color white indicates innocence, safety, goodness. The egg is a symbol of life, not just birth but the full cycle, the hope of resurrection. The rose is an emblem of love, and pink indicates femininity and happiness. I can think of no more accurate description of Marisa Joy.
If she (or some higher power) had a message for us in the morning’s storm, it must have been this: Live and love and be happy until we meet again.
Marisa Joy Williams
before the prom in 2005,
just less than three years
before her death.
What wounds time fails to heal are those whose aches remind us that we have survived.
I still walk outdoors on a cool springtime morning when there’s not a cloud in the deep blue sky and tremble at the memory of the day, three years ago, when a trooper’s phone call awoke us to tell us she was gone.
It’s amazing how much life has changed in that time. And how little, considering the most beautiful and perfect of days remains a bittersweet reminder.
Marisa Joy Williams was my son’s best friend, and she was like a second daughter to us. Regular readers of this column will know that she died in a single car accident on Feb. 23, 2008, driving in a thunderstorm to pick up her boyfriend, who had been stranded when his car broke down. She was 18.
The next morning, the sun rose anyway. The sky was blue, the air crisp and cool. For three years, the sun has continued to rise each day.
As those days passed, Marisa’s parents, Donna and Charles, and her extended family and friends raised money and last year established a perpetual scholarship fund in her memory at Gulf Coast Community College, where she had earned her associate’s degree in technical theater. A playground was constructed and named for her on the grounds of her church, Springfield Methodist.
She will not soon be forgotten. Years from now, children will play in the Joy Playground and students will continue to receive the scholarship in her name. Her memory will live on long after those of us who tremble at perfect spring mornings are gone.
Three years later, I still can hear a noise at the front door in the morning and look up from my coffee, half expecting Marisa to be standing there. Every day for the better part of two years, she would come by to pick up my son for school and would have apple juice in a Mason jar. He was always late getting ready, and we would talk as she waited.
Now I can’t even buy apple juice without thinking of her — particularly, how she reacted one morning when she came in to get her regular jar and discovered brand name juice in the fridge instead of the Walmart label. She gave me a skeptical look as she poured and drank.
“Yuck,” she said, and I asked if the new juice was too refined for her palette. She took another drink, made a face and shook all over.
We still only buy the store brand.
Peace.
This was my Undercurrents column for the News Herald on Sunday, Feb. 20.
It's been that long since the official naming of Panama City. The Centennial (today's word) is upon us. I spent some time at the Visual Arts Center today, videotaping the historical items and artwork being put on display for the opening there tonight, and running through the end of the month, celebrating the centennial. I'll post the video at newsherald.com in the morning.
Discussing the Centennial, however, I can't help but think about my book, which took place during the centennial week of Century, Florida, in 2001, fictional though it was.
And of course, the James Michener miniseries and novel, Centennial.
And, even more appropriately, the second volume of City Limits, which is dedicated to the memory of my good friend and daughter in spirit, Marisa Joy Williams. Perhaps its more than coincidence (and I don't believe in coincidence) that the official date of the Centennial is Feb. 23. It's not a day I will feel like celebrating, as it's also the anniversary of Marisa's death.
Gulf Coast State (then "Community") College. I was seated behind Jameson, Marisa and Nathan. Michael York was about to take the stage for his "Will and I" one-man show, in which he told stories of his times portraying characters from Shakespeare. He was there as part of FSU's "Seven Days of Opening Nights." The kids had gotten a chance to see him earlier in the day as part of a school trip, and this was his public event.
I just looked up the date this happened. I found a TV news report of coverage.
Feb. 23, 2005.
I tried to get all three of the kids to look back so I could take a photo. Jameson actually shifted away, thinking I was trying to get a picture of just Nathan and Marisa. I got this shot, and my camera battery promptly died. I tried several times to revive it.
At the time, I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to get a photo of Michael York. Now, there are very few things I would trade this photo for. I have a shadowbox in my writing space that contains York's autograph on my DVD of "Logan's Run" and the brochure for his performance. I'm adding this photo to that tonight.
Three years later, to the hour, we were gathered in the theater lab at Gulf Coast, the "black box," with Marisa's friends, fellow students, and loved ones, telling stories about her and trying to ease each other's pain. We woke up that day in a world that no longer contained her, and we've been struggling ever since with her absence.
And now, five years further on, somehow, the pain has eased. It's an ache now, though it can still pierce, still bring tears. I feel it in the center of my chest as I write this. Yesterday seems so far away.
That is, until I ran across this photo tonight. I stared at it, and it seemed like only yesterday again.
We're still in the process of moving into a new home, and we were going through pictures to put on our "Family" wall in the staircase. I pulled this one out, not because it's going on the wall, but because of the look in her eyes.
In four years, an economy can collapse and begin to recover. Presidents (and other officials) can change with the terms. Infants become toddlers become little people. Olympics return. February gets an extra day.
Pain fades. Memory becomes ever more treasured.
Today marks four years since we were awakened on a sunny Saturday morning by a phone call from the Florida Highway Patrol. Debra answered the phone. The man asked us to come over to Donna Williams' home. She had asked him to call us when he arrived to inform her that her daughter had been killed in a car accident overnight.
(I have sat here for several minutes, now, trying to decide what more there is to say about that morning that hasn't been said before. I believe there are volumes still to write. Moments that stretched like millenia. But I don't think I can approach those moments here, now.)
And following is a column I wrote in the days immediately after her death, originally published March 2, 2008:
All that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect, and in her eyes
Let me tell you about this girl I know.
I can’t recall how we met. I do remember my son, then a junior at Bay High, saying that Marisa was helping him with his math, and I said, “Who?” and he said something like, “She’s a drama kid.” But it seems no mere chance that the time our troubled lives began to get on track and start making sense coincided with her appearance.
Few anecdotes here, though. I’d need a warehouse of ink and paper to tell each story, and still they wouldn’t explain the complexity and (paradoxical) simplicity of her heart, mind and spirit. In fact, I don’t doubt that whenever I write from now on, some part of me will be writing about Marisa. So descriptions instead, the briefest sketch to fit the page, though I wonder how one may capture a dream with words.
Beautiful in every way. Lightning wit. A smile that makes the world stop spinning. Rain boots and scarves. Silly accents. Accomplished hugger. Radiant. Made of pure love.
Sneaks across the lawn and crouches by the door (or just outside the front windows) and then calls on her cell phone to ask if she can visit. Says she’d have crawled back across the yard to her car if she’d been told no.
Forgives. Trusts. Leaves messages just to say “I love you” or “I’m coming to kidnap your child” or “I’m with the squirrel police and I have a warrant to search your house.” Rescues stray dogs and turtles in the street. Befriends strangers. Always asks questions, when her shining eyes tell you that she already has the answers to any mystery you could ever imagine.
Likes Bradbury and Vonnegut. Boondock Saints. Lucero. Johnny Depp. Power tools. Apple juice in Mason jars. Red Twizzlers. Miyazaki. Crayons. Puppies and kittens. Leg warmers, striped stockings and toe socks. Barrettes. Taking photos. Playgrounds in the middle of the night. Couch pile-ons. Naps.
Hogs the shrimp at parties. Teaches friends to levitate. Wears an apron and flour “war paint” when she bakes cookies. Rules movie nights punctuated by Reefer Madness or Rocky Horror sing-alongs.
Secretly leaves gel hearts on your car. Quotes Moulin Rouge on her bathroom mirror: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
And so suddenly she exits the stage, her scenes unfinished, lines unspoken — and though we know beyond any doubt that she is one of God’s shining lights, she always has been and always will, that she watches us struggle and loves us from afar, still we ache at an emptiness only she can fill, the sense only she can bring to the world.
We hold our children close and gather in numbers to share our pitiful strength, and we watch for her in the stars and on the breeze, and listen for her in the sound of music and laughter of children, and find her in the widest skies and on the cool blue waves that sparkle like her eyes, full of answers and mystery.
Saturday was Local Books Alive 2011 at the Bay County Public Library. Here are some pictures:
David A, & Cash Money
My friend and former News Herald colleague David Angier bought the first-ever trade paperback of my novel, The Book of Gabriel. I told him I wanted a photo of the first buyer, and he said it was more important to get a photo of that first money.
Michael Lister & Nick May
A total of 23 area writers showed up to play along (24 were scheduled). I sold both copies of the hardback version of Gabriel that I had on hand, three of the trade, two of my column collection (Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents), one of the City Limits anthologies I edited, and three of my Best of Days collection. A pretty good response for two hours of sale time.
Mark Boss
Lee Baker
Dax and Jim Dodge
Mom and Me
Some names (you might recognize from this blog) that were there included authors Mark Boss, Lee Baker, Nick May, Michael Lister, Dax and Jim Dodge, Olivia Cooley (deBelle Byrd), Jeannie Cooper, Pat Douglas, Michael Brim (Goldcraft), Karon Phillips, Marlene Womack, and several others.
I had a visit from my mom, my daughter, and Donna Williams, whose daughter Marisa was the inspiration for a character in Gabriel. We also visited with Kayla, who appears in a sequence of the trailer for Gabriel being edited now by my friend Lou.
Me and Donna Williams
Pat Douglas, right, and wife.
It was a good day, beginning with presentations by Karon, Michael Brim and Olivia. I managed to give away a bunch of PanamaCity.com stickers and copies of our new tab insert that replaces The Entertainer in the News Herald now. Met some new readers and spread my brain worms into unsuspecting victims. One young woman really wanted a copy of The Best of Days, but her partner wanted Gabriel (and she had the funds); when her partner bought Gabriel, she went ahead and bought Best of Days, saying this was rent money she was spending.
I signed the book, "Thanks for the rent money." It seemed appropriate.
Books Alive was Saturday. The 14th annual event hosted by the Bay County Public Library Foundation. As a volunteer, I was invited to the Friday evening gathering at the home of Frank Walker, the director of the Panama City Beach Library. (Debra wasn't able to make it, as she was still very ill with the head cold we both have been suffering from this week.) These photos are from that event, and the next post will include photos of the actual festival.
I was pleased to see my friend Jayson Kretzer and his wife, Heather, in attendance. Jayson is the guy I want to work with on a graphic novel adaptation of my "Book of Gabriel." They discovered they knew some of the same folks in Wewa as author Michael Morris, who asked me about my current project, which I have teased a bit on Facebook. Michael is a lyrical writer, and a gentleman. He hails from Perry and writes about the areas just east of here along the "Forgotten Coast."
Stone, McVoy, West
I met the authors Michel Stone and Jacqueline West at the party, but had already met Terra Elan McVoy earlier in the day; my friend Kathie Bennett (of Magic Time Literary Agency) had put us in touch when I asked Kathie if any of the authors she represents would like to visit my Education Encore class. Terra volunteered, and the class just loved her. She showed them a character-building worksheet she uses, and how to draw a character web. (She brought her mother, Heather, along to the class — and Heather bought two of my books on Saturday. Terra says she gets to read them when her mom is finished. I hope we can still be friends when she does.)
Morrison, Monroe
Michael and Mary Alice Monroe wanted a photo together, and I was glad to oblige. I had written an article about Mary Alice for the daily paper two weeks back, based on a looong phone conversation we had (and which Kathie again set up), and we had another long talk at the party. I was impressed by how she really focuses on the person she's talking to; I noticed her giving her undivided attention a few times that evening and the next day. She's a South Carolina conservationist and avowed "turtle lady," which I thought Marisa would have appreciated.
My Big Bald Head. Also, authors.
Michael also grabbed me to say that Janis Owens wanted to recreate one of her favorite photos from a previous Books Alive party, in which I held the camera out MySpace style and authors gathered behind me. Why not? So I did, and that is the result at left. Janis is the one with the giddy expression and clasped hands. She's so funny. I was glad that Michel and Mary Alice jumped in to participate. Last time, we had a rather unimpressed Jeff Shaara in the photo (or rather, his name tag. That guy is taaaaalll.)
Featured Authors (and Bettina)
Bettina Mead, the PR person for the library, asked me to take the annual "official" photo of the featured authors. That's what you see at the left. This photo kind of marked the end of the evening (although now that I think about it, I believe the picture above actually was taken after this one). Everyone was shuttled off to their overnight places, and I returned home to gather the things I would need for the next day.
It was very cool to meet some new-to-me authors, and to get to spend a few minutes with Michael and Janis and Kathie again, as well as the locals who support the event each year, like Frank Walker, who's always good for a joke or two. Kathie and Michael, in particular, made me glad I attended, as they had nice things to say about my work; that may come off as egotistical, but what I mean is that it's nice to be bragged on by people you admire in front of people you respect.
Better picture, with Janis literally propping me up as I squat.
Whatever. I lost a day's work at the office by traveling with the new boss to consult on web updates at the Port St. Joe office. Just means there will be that much more to do in the bright-and-early.
Meanwhile, I'm working tonight on a super-secret project that does not involve my day job. If I told ya, I'd have to kill ya. So let's move on.
Today's Pick:
As I've tried to explain to my friend(s), I don't like BAD movies. I like B movies. They don't believe me because I also say to them things like, "You should watch Barbarella." That, and I named my truck after this movie because I like the Scott Weiland song of the same name. Did you know Duran Duran was named after the scientist Barbarella searches for in this movie? ANyway, this is not a classic for nothing. It's a classic because it is so terribly bad that it goes all the way around the bend and becomes entertaining again.
This pick's for Marisa. She sat mesmerized on our couch one evening and watched it with me when nobody else would.
Spent an evening last Tuesday listening to Kathy Patrick tell her story at the Bay County Library, then attended a cocktail party at the home of former Panama City Mayor Gerry Clemons in her honor the next evening. Photos:
Kathy Patrick, Linda Macbeth, Debra Simmons, Tony Simmons, and Michael Lister
on the balcony overlooking St. Andrew Bay at sunset.
Bettina Meade from the Library, Kathy Patrick and me outside the Library.
Friday, I attended the opening night of Gulf Coast Community College's spring musical, "Guys & Dolls," and worked the Joy Boots booth with Marisa's dad, Charles. We were joined for part of the evening by Berkely Reeves, Debra and Jessica. Photos:
The cast and crew of Guys and Dolls meet the audience after the show.
Center of attention is Kayla Dibble, who portrayed Adelaide.
Charles and Berkely doing the good work.
Saturday, I found a treasure or two at the Lynn Haven Good Will store, the best being a copy of "X-Men" No. 29 from February 1967 in very good condition, bagged and boarded. It's the pick of the week:
And finally, my friend Brady loaned me a copy of Warren Ellis' "Frankenstein's Womb," which reads like a literary novella, intertwining Mary Wolstoncraft's life and writings with those of her lover and later husband Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, as well as historic records and the works of Mary's parents. Mary finds herself guided through the past and future by the spirit of the Creature, her brainchild, who shows her how her life and imagination brought forth a future of towering skyscrapers and hospitals where the dead are regularly revived by contained bolts of lightning.
A great piece of work, brilliantly written by a master of the comic form and illustrated in moody black and white. It's Today's Pick.
And then...
Today, Michael delivered his newest novel to me in hardback. I already have read the advanced proof, and I've interviewed him for a story about it in this week's Entertainer (I'll link to it later this week). But he wanted me to have it in hardback, which I greatly appreciate, and he wrote a gracious note in the front. Be looking for Thunder Beach soon.
SEASIDE — We arrived at the square in the setting sun and lowering fog of a Sunday evening.
John Darnielle, singer/songwriter and founder of The Mountain Goats, walked past us into Sundog Books. I browsed there, too, while my wife and daughter sat outside, eating ice cream from the gelato shop and waiting for my son to meet us. Later, I would ask Mr. Darnielle what children’s books he had set aside for purchase later, but he couldn’t recall the titles.
Upstairs in Central Square Records, a crowd was beginning to gather. Darnielle browsed the stacks as I purchased two of his albums on vinyl (free digital downloads included). I picked up the new one, “All Eternals Deck,” which includes the songs “Damn These Vampires” and “Birth of Serpents,” which I had heard recently on public radio. My son got “Tallahassee,” which for us is the iconic Mountain Goats album.
I said, “Excuse me, Mr. Darnielle,” and introduced myself to the man. We shook hands. I told him I didn’t want to take up his time, but I felt compelled to tell him that I was introduced to his music through my son and his best friend, Marisa.
Nathan walked up then, and I introduced them. They shook hands, and I told Nathan what I had been saying.
“Mountain Goats was one of her favorite bands,” I said. “We lost her a few years ago, and your music became sort of fused together with that time in our hearts.”
The look on his face was touching. He was stunned and perhaps embarrassed a little, curious and I think maybe honored. He asked if it was all right to ask how she passed.
I told him it was. It happened in 2008. She was killed in a car accident. He said he was sorry for our loss and I’m not sure what he said after that. My emotions were clouding my senses.
“I just wanted you to know that your music was part of what got us through that,” someone said. And I don’t know as I write this if it was me speaking or Nathan. For a moment, I was outside myself.
“When we heard you were playing here, there was no way we would miss it,” I said. “We’re so honored to be here and hear you perform.”
He shook his head and smiled. “I hope no one’s disappointed. I’m only playing a few songs. This is just an in-store, not a full concert.”
“It will be remarkable,” I said.
He thanked us again and said he would like to browse some more before the show. We thanked him for his time and stepped away.
He played to a packed house and invited everyone to sit down on the floor if they wanted; no one did. People of all ages stood and swayed, tapped their feet, mouthed the lyrics along with him.
He told us stories between songs:
... Of how he had looked at a map when he lived in the Northwest and thought about how Florida was on the other side of the country; how it was somewhere people ran away to; how disappointed someone would be when the pavement ran out.
... And of his stepfather, whom he described as abusive to the whole family, and how he grieved bitterly when the man died, and he sat on a floor somewhere in France and wrote songs about how weird it was to grieve.
... He joked about his lyrics being about the squalor of people treating each other terribly, and that it seemed odd to be singing them in this place of beauty.
He played “Cotton” and “Dance Music,” “See America Right” and “You Were Cool” ("We held on to hope of better days coming/and when we did we were right"), and he sang “Matthew 25:21,” which is when the tears welled up. He played more. He had no set list, just pulling songs out of his head as they felt right.
He did, near the end, ask if anyone had a request. I wanted to hear “Old College Try,” but didn’t shout the title because what I really wanted to hear was whatever he wanted to play.
After the set, he signed albums. Nathan’s he embellished with the boy’s name in Hebrew. Mine, he decorated with a star and the words “all love.”
And we all left in the dark and the fog, carrying something bright inside us.
Part of my job involves reading incident reports from county and city law enforcement, finding crimes big and small -- and usually a little odd -- to put on our homepage. Today, I found one that needed more than a brief; my colleague Brady is working on it now, and readers will discover it soon enough, but to put it gently: Kids, don't put your personal info on the Web. A local girl got a threatening letter from a 61-year-old male inmate of a state prison who is serving life for murder. I'll link you to the story when it posts in the next day or so.
I also spent a half-hour downtown talking to my friend Matty Jankowski, a true philosopher and artist, who wanted to talk about "Nothing." It's the title of his installation on display in the breezeway of the Sherman Arcade building. I have a video of the talk, which I'll post on Monday and link to here as well. Meanwhile, check this photo for a glimpse of the man and his wonderful madness. Matty also showed me two pieces he's showing at the Gallery Above's second annual Heartbeats exhibit.
Last February, he printed and framed a photo of Marisa with a heart on her shirt as part of the show. She signed it with a "shout out" to Tony. He brought it to me for her vigil, and he sat among us through the evening, and told me to keep the portrait. It's on top of a cabinet in our living room, and I thank him often when I look at it. I look at it several times a day.
Today's Pick: Nothing. (Or rather, Not for Nothing.)
I like to think that she’d say it’s OK to tell stories about her. That she’d find the idea funny and exciting, and take it seriously for about half a second before launching into suggestions and stories of her own.
“Remember that time I fought the airship pirates?” she’d say. “The desperate sword battle across the back of their dirigible? I was disguised as a boy, all bound nice and tight where it mattered, and the pirate captain kept calling me ‘young sir.’ If not for my carple tunnel brace blocking his foil, I’d have a hook for a hand.”
Or,
“How about the time we decoded the heiroglyphs on my autograph shoes, and it led us through the forest to the forgotten tomb of the hobo king? We barely escaped with our lives, and wouldn’t have if not for distracting the hobo zombies by tossing down our scarves. The next time we ventured there, the tomb had been moved and all the trees cut down.”
Or even,
“Once upon a time, there was a turtle that, upon my saving it from the middle of a busy thoroughfare, promised to grant me three wishes, all of which came true but would come undone if ever I revealed them to anyone.”
Or possibly,
“Hippie Jesus fiddled with his eyebrow piercing all afternoon. It’s not like he’d never been pierced before — he had the marks to prove it, as Thomas pointed out. But I think it was a nervous gesture, as he was put off by my magical galoshes, which not only allowed me to walk on water, but also kept my toe-socks dry. Jesus, of course, had wet feet.”
I like to think there are such stories about her to be told, stories that are no less true for having never happened, and no less unbelievable than the true stories people tell of her even today.
Perhaps one day we’ll again tell some of them together and draw a picture. ---- (c) 2010 by Tony Simmons From the '366 Days' project
(Reprinted today in memory of Marisa Joy Williams, who inspired this tale, and who would have been 21 years old today.)
My friend, Lou Columbus, a videographer, writer and audio story narrator, created this trailer for my most recent novel, "The Book of Gabriel: An Endtimes Fable."
He used footage from this shoot on the shore of St. Andrew Bay, as well as found footage, and a photograph of Marisa, on whom I based the personality and image of the angel Joy; the text shown on the background of each scene is taken from the book and corresponds in some way to the scenes being depicted. I think he did a great job.
I hope you'll watch the trailer (1 minute) and check out the book, which is available in trade paperback and Kindle editions from Amazon.
It's the story of Gabriel Jones, a man at the end of his rope who finds himself drafted into a celestial war, fighting fallen angels and heavenly hosts on the side of Shekinah, the female aspect of God. They take some advice from Cain, the first murderer, who lives outside of Eden Gardens State Park. Borrow a ride from Elijah, who likes cars with flames on the side. Meet the Watchers who hover in the night sky over Gulf Breeze.
Dream of new lives in other worlds, and awake to find them true. Step through a door into the torture rooms of Hell, and walk the wilderness with Lilith, first wife of Adam. Stand on the edge of the world, part the sea, and raise the light of hope in a world where Lucifer is lord of all.
