"A Softer Place"

2/24/21

“A Softer Place”

By: Rudy Gutierrez

For my deepest and dearest loves, Hazel and

Liset.

CHAPTER 1. Time Flies

As she finally takes her last fleeting breath, I get lost into the life that left her eyes and then in an instant, I knew, she was gone forever.. .but not forgotten. I tell her even though I’m fully aware she won’t hear me, “I will always love you and hold your love closer to me than the fire that burns inside the sun growing brighter with each passing day.” I kiss her forehead goodbye as a couple tears run down my smile. I thank her once more before picking up the small pine box and letter she had graciously left me. I didn’t know my grandmother very well, but I did know she would always be that same great and courageous woman so many people wildly found themselves being fond of, with a certain heightened amount of respect. She was alive with me for as long as I could remember, and I can surely say I’ll miss hearing her stories and laughing like delirious hyenas together. She has taught me too much and I could never be more thankful for her guidance, and now this little wooden box, too. It’s days like this where I feel so out of place, and misled all at once. I have nothing now without my abuela (grandmother), she told me I had lost my parents at birth in some miraculous tragedy. I’m sure my parents were the greatest for leaving me with my grandma at least, she was the best and could cheer me up no matter what was jarring inside my head. Now I have to see what’s inside this box she left me, I feel the emptiness cloud me and I don’t know if I can do this all on my own.. So I prepare to start trying to figure out my fresh twenties sad, alone and new. I opened up the box and inside was a picture, it was of a magnificently mesmerizing woman. I mean not just beautiful, she was very pretty from everything that single abandoned picture could tell you about a complete stranger. Her eyes looked familiar, and I couldn’t stop to think from

staring at her, how someone could be sculpted so perfectly. The photograph was old, clearly taken a long time ago, I turned it around to find a short note followed by a signature that reads, “ My beloved-” it says a very formal spanish name, and initialed “R.G.” The magical name must’ve belonged to the woman in the photo, her name was from a “well-off” family, if you tried pronouncing her name correctly it would roll off the tongue fluently, professionally and extremely exotic. Under the photograph was a little black book, like a journal of some sort with a black strap tied to the front. It held the book’s pages closed firmly because it seemed to house an endless supply of notes, sketches both finished and unfinished, poems, paintings and photos stuffed throughout. Not only was it filled with words and thoughts. The book is clearly meant to be thoroughly examined by none other than me, my name is on the front page next to the woman’s and reads, “For my deepest and dearest loves, Hazel and Liset.”

CHAPTER 2. The Journal

The book had been used for what I imagine could’ve been ages because it was stuffed randomly with so many extra papers. Why this journal was directly targeting me, I am yet to find out as the suspense was gnawing at me from within. Who was writing in this little book for so long and how did they know my name? I begin to sift through the loose pages before getting into the “novel” of a book. The loose pages were everywhere, found in all sorts of parts of the journal in different forms and sizes. Some were sketches both finished and incomplete, some had notes more legible while most were coordinated because they were more neat, concentrated thoughts and other pages were filled with what I think to be nonsense at first before noticing that they’re carefully thought out ideas. Other works were visually stimulating, whoever wrote in this had plenty of time on their hands, or maybe just a lot on their minds with no way of expressing themselves. Some pencil sketches shined through the raw roughness of their impressions, while particular pieces looked more cared for, more immersive too with the way they’d catch your eye. Their sketches were each so individual and irresistible the more I found myself

pondering their meaning, or how they came into existence. They showed me more than was really there, I could tell whoever sketched and painted them drew a vivid and vast amount of energy merely into the thought of somehow bringing plain pages and empty spaces to life with immense feelings in them. I sit in awe at their creator’s translation before I snap out of it to begin the journal. It starts reading so vulnerably and suddenly I feel like I’m sitting around a lonely campfire on a breezily beautiful evening shore with nothing but this photo, the small wooden box my grandma gave me, which I’ve had since she had gifted it to me on my fifteenth birthday, and now this mysterious black little book. It begins “I knew I loved her from the very start. It was those beginning stages of intoxication that lead to the beautiful chaos that was, us. If I had known a second sooner, I wouldn’t have wasted those delicate nineteen years.” He was a year younger than me, at some point in his ever-intriguing life. He starts reciting upon how they found each other, his love for her stretched far beyond the limits of the universe, this they both felt from the beginning as well. I’ve never known the pleasures of being loved by a boy since I had spent my life growing up in a strictly prideful kingdom with little room to sprout curiosity, yet I can sense the emotions he had made her feel with each passing day, the love grew stronger for her with each sentence. My grandma gave me the choice to drop out of school after the age of fourteen. So I did and began my research on all the things that demanded my attention and greatest of wonders daily. She gave me a reason to be happy, in her own way, to teach myself the mysteries of life. I always took my camera everywhere and shot only what seemed to really reel me in, but I have a certain vision when it comes to finding something that was meant to be seen or felt by me. I think I’m just different, but that’s okay with me now. I’ve taken so many photos and my two albums are stacked with images from my life this far. I cannot find a single reason to put the book down, once he started reminiscing on how they met. Not only does he know exactly what to tell her but it’s how he’d explain himself to her. She loved discovering his smile and about the war that raged inside his head since he was young, and she’d listen softly and carefully to his every word because she most certainly felt a burning sensation in her heart when his eyes

would meet hers. Even so close to her at times throughout his life, he never mentioned to her once that he always felt so deeply alone. She eased his pain, and he spent the rest of his life being eternally grateful he got to break at the sight and thoughts of her growth everyday. I don’t know his voice but I can almost feel him clearly speaking to me of his dreadfully inspirational story. He speaks of his life in sporadic memories, bringing up certain and specific occasions where he thinks they’re necessary, if they aren’t just thoughts meant for me (the reader) to read through so transparently. Almost like jumping through a window inside of his broken, gentle mind. There’s so much to take in and get lost in, so much to try and understand. He makes himself believe he’s empty without her and his art. They complete his balance, yet he’s human just like me, but the way he carries himself and his scriptures, his sketches and fine descriptions. They are all beautiful but I know some would see his work and label him a madman, “a waste of perfectly good efforts, time and space that could’ve been spent on something charitable or productive.” No one could know his secret passion to draw his feelings away, for fear of being hung in front of the girl of his dreams. It sickens me to know the truth, but he tells me that she was the only one who believed in him and trusted his work. I think he is a genius in every sense of the word and I have never even met the guy. He continues “I was abandoned at birth, my parents couldn’t afford another urgent priority such as newfound life, on top of the ones they already had and saw me only as an accident. The white fire that lit ablaze in her gaze gave me hope that things would get better. Until I met her, I was profoundly lost in this world. Her family is the wealthiest family in all of Europe, them being of greater Spanish descent. I was about six months when they took me in as their own, next to their only daughter the princess, Liset. We grew up separately but closely when alone together under her parents grand estate until I turned thirteen. I would mainly help wherever I was needed around the castle grounds, and I’d also adhere to the King and Queens’ every request. They only ever had three things to ask of me: prepare to work for them forever, journey to further land for special training in defending the royal grounds when I am to come of age, and to NEVER speak to the princess. I was an orphan child raised in a house of wealth

and respect, with nothing but the images in my head I’d choose to spend time understanding with each and every sketch I’d make and the thought of hearing her voice. The power her parents held was vastly popular around the world, this I soon learned. I was put to invest large amounts of my day in mindless teachings early on, separate from Liset of course, but I advanced from school very quickly. My lessons grew shorter and shorter once I began picking up books that I felt I needed to read on my own time and began to draw and paint with the most of my time. I had an instant portal to new worlds, full of life and color. The act of letting the war inside my head go and releasing it out to the paper or canvases, gave me the will to draw whatever I felt no matter where I was or how I was feeling. No one knew but her, that at twelve my only two escapes from reality were dreams about Liset and some charcoal envisionings on slips of parchment. I was told by the king to protect his family and kingdom as if they were my own. That my responsibilities had to be taken with the greatest caution and consideration. Just like that, I was put on a boat with several other of the nearer town’s best bladesmen, and sent to rural Japan to start my training. I was given this small black book wrapped up and placed at the foot of my chamber door the night before I was set to leave the kingdom. It was from Liset, my first encounter with her and she gave me this little book with a note attached to the cover that read, “ Write in me so I can read all about your travels, and just don’t forget to come home.” I held my new journal so close to my heart before losing consciousness happily ready to come home to her after the heavy trip. I started writing and sketching my thoughts when I arrived in Japan the next day. I wrote about everything I was seeing and learning about the new country, the newfound practices and everything from the considerate culture of the people to the consumption of my training on the art of war. It was philosophical and humbling most of the time, because I’d spend my days always in my head when I wasn’t thinking of her, or working on a sketch. I’d write and sketch for at least an hour a day, sometimes down by the river or under a tree-it just depended on where I was and what was around me, reflecting on how small this place made me feel. Training was a battlefield meant to deteriorate any courage brought off the boats. It was almost impossible not to be

confronted by the corruption of our general, it was clearer than day to me though, for some weird reason I knew when to obey his wishes and when to choose the right moments to remain strong in my ideas and movements. I learned something new about myself and the universe each day I spent in that unknown place for months that led to years. Teaching myself the purest forms of discipline to guide me alongside nature’s path, I returned home after eight long and unforgetful years. As well, for it felt like seeing her smile for the very first time again. That smile made me smile back with every ounce of weakness in my body, inside I completely lost it because it had been too long since we saw each other. Now she’s seventeen and I just turned eighteen. She’s grown so much and I can tell she’s learned evil and amazing things just as much as me while I was away. She’s much more perfect than I could remember, and she’s glowing from the lustrous and luminous braids atop that life-changing smile, to the bottom of her blood red dress. She was everything I had ever desired and my immense hunger to be held tighter than the corset ripping the breath from within her was killing me. The mere sound of her voice and thinking of her laughter would light up my life from that moment on, mind you I was still fresh from learning how to cope with being taught to show no mercy. She was my favorite blessing and I couldn’t think of a more precious moment to ready myself for giving her my full and unconditional love. I guess Japan was preparing me to finally begin my life freshly eighteen with a head full of imagination, introduced and inspired by my first recent trip and my first-recent and only love of my life. It was solemnly for her I was building up unmerciful and honest compassion. Only for the benefit of aiding others and all the rest of our companions, the flora and fauna. My time in Japan granted me excessive amounts of time to myself. To deal with the demons that kept me up at night, to meditate on my own and to the world/with it, with every sketch I make. To heal the damages I was self-inflicting with the images and thoughts that would find themselves inside my mind. I let myself become completely free to the universe, giving it my time and energy, sitting and releasing it all out breathing in all Japan’s organic spring air had to offer me, as I would exhale the impurities of my soul. I was now a modern-warrior for the

king, and as the only spanish samurai in the world, I was surely the best there was. I spent my days back in the kingdom mostly by her side, both in private and in public, observing her every move. Analyzing her thoughts and wondering if they’d ever find me. I obsessed over her more with each coming year. My infatuations and need for her presence came shortly after disobeying her family’s orders to not talk to her upon my arrival, in secret. We only spoke, wrote to and saw each other in private, the criminal acts always felt so magical and infinitely rewarding. Each second I shared and lived along her side was tragically special to me.”

CHAPTER 3. Heartbreak Motel

The level of intimacy they shared, Liset and Rudy. I later found out his name when he explained to her how it felt to be with her. They naturally felt each other and he talks so passionately of the way he’d caress her, he liked being held way closer to her skin and fell under her spell that first time they spent together. They would seamlessly hold each other like they were the last two people on the planet. Her heartbeat gave him emanating life, the softness of her love only made him realize that his heart would belong to her infinitely, no matter the consequences. He always knew there was more to her but that went both ways. The mystery between them only consumed them with the need of being inseparable, but only he would succumb as far as to telling her. He knew better than to ever judge or misdirect the feelings he felt for this really lucky princess and he always stood true to them. Nightfall would blanket them and he’d be in her grasp every night. To speak closely about their inner most desires and fears. She never loved him the way he did for her, simply because he felt something so immense and emotionally impactful, she was “ the sanctuary to where he could retreat to at any moment and be himself.” She must’ve shown him how bright his light really was, in a world of darkness. Her warmth melted him down to ashes with each kiss they shared, they’d embrace and two souls would cosmically collide in seconds that stretched out for lifetimes for me to be reading about it. “Once, her parents found us sleeping beside one another and they tore us apart. I

could feel her not letting go by that same mystic stare. They locked her away in her chambers for two long years, she said, but she would manage to visit me every night and I still remember how scared I was when she first knocked on my chamber door. Thinking of being slaughtered bit by bit while she watched her father command the best samurai guardsmen beat me alive. They soon exiled me after a couple months until they caught us together for the last time. She sent letters to Japan, where I built a home I designed after setting overseas for three years to America and starting small independent businesses that funded my everlasting lifestyle. We both didn’t care what the king ordered, she’d sent me letters and some would be so precious because they were memories of us and she held nothing back when learning all of my writing techniques (some I had even gained from Japan) Some things she chose to tell me would make me cry a tear or a couple depending on how much I gave exactly what she said deeper thought. It was only after she found out what I was doing, where I was living and choosing to be.. .alone for her. It finally hit her, maybe I was the one and she just always knew it, same as me. She traveled to Japan in search of me after I sent her a sketch of where I was staying in our last exchange. She told me she’d seen and been with other men since me, but none of that really mattered. The fact that she came all this way, left whatever behind to find me, amidst my garden at that! There she was, standing by the white lotus I planted the day I finished building the dojo (which was the day I had completed my dream home). The rest was a peaceful and dramatic day of catching up after taking her to the still, crescent shaped cove that fateful night. She was incredible, not only for having found one of the seven people who knew of this valley, but the fact that she was here in all of her perfection. The purity of listening to the sound of her heartbeat was my only reason left to live. I had accomplished so much on my own and thanks to her.” In all of her glory he saw she was the woman of his each and every dream. On her return, upon her arrival, he was gardening his harvest. She stared at him from behind his view, and caught him in the middle of his daily routine watering plants, flowers, vegetables and feeding whatever animal life that found their way to him. She interrupted but not before he felt her, noticed her like a burning sensation the more she grew

closer to him. He turns to see her and they both smile but only she let tears race slowly down her face and she was full of life seeing him standing there, a happily sad man and his plants. After hugging the pain away, he took her inside his humble home he had built all by himself. He told her about his travels and knowledgeable stories he thought would only help interest her. He told her how his life had changed him, for the better, being away from her. Without her, he couldn't save himself from drowning in a depression that followed after dealing with the general’s training he once endured. Nothing compared to entrusting her that night, with all of his most intense dreams and experiences he lived. He mentioned scary stories he knew taught him the vulnerability she had chained to him, was only ever meant to make the both of them wiser in the way they’d now rediscover their love for one another. He told her about the times when very certain things happened to him, it was important for him to notice and reflect on his acknowledgements. She in turn, learned he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for her and what she meant to him. He met the devil in a small Japanese market, he told her about the time a particular person he felt stop him on the way home from buying ingredients, one strange day. The man looked normal, he was a poor merchant who sold iron-casted wok pots. “Only he stopped me to make me an offer,” Rudy wrote, “he wasn’t trying to gain any of my money, only knowledge of my existence.” The merchant asked Rudy of his misery, why he seemed so left out of this beautiful world and shared with him some of his personal, scarring experiences that made him an old wok pot salesman. Nothing phased Rudy because he didn’t know the strange man, until he mentioned his destination. “You’re headed to a home away from home, are you not?” asked the merchant. “How do you know so much about me, stranger?” inquired Rudy to which the man said “I know more than you think. If your heart is still so far away from you, why must you go on? Do you not want women nor all the land and food you could ever ask for, I could give you endless riches you couldn’t possibly fathom. All you’d have to do for me, is wear my clothes.” The man clearly knew more than he would let go. The offer did not concern him, Rudy replies “I am in no need of garments that will still do nothing for the blizzard of bad vibes the

world hides away. I live for one source of heat and I carry her with me everywhere I go.” He thanked the oddly grinning merchant as he left with his new bought ingredients, and his new-found knowledge, to his humble little home built from forest wood, that slept soundly on the Yellow Valley Mountain peak. He said that he could still feel the merchant with his grotesque grin until the moment he stepped onto his land. He told his Liset this and so much more things, he wished subconsciously she never knew, the more invested in each other they grew. His perspective and everything he had learned about his lover would make it easier to convey to her the amount of elastic visions he had. (He says he always saw the world from a different light but never told anyone else but her about it, because he knew it wasn’t something just anyone could understand. Maybe even her, but at least she would choose to listen.) Her eyes would soothe his every worry, and after talking to her for hours and hours upon her arrival. They finally took each other’s clothes off, piece by piece, with such respectful consideration for the comfort of the other. He’d run his fingers through her hair slowly, feeling each soothed strand of pain. Everyday he remembered her eyes and her smile, since that night nothing was ever the same. He would admire the seconds passed and spent gazing in an unbreakable trance at how peaceful she slept, she drifts through the sacred night without a sound. He pecks her forehead with his lips just close enough to feel them, but with not enough efforts to wake her. A tear shed down his face and got lost in hers while he held her that night, he thought at times that his life was a curse to be this real. Her naked skin burned through to his like freshly erupted molten lava sliding down an ancient volcano, on some deserted paradise. Her heartbeat was pounding life to his chest once again. She awoke the following morning to be truthful to him about her feelings, it was difficult and they both cried once she mentioned how abused other men made her feel. No one had love like his, this they knew from the start. She felt so below a royal Empress for how much she chose to bear to him. She held nothing back until she felt he had heard it all, or at least enough. He stood up from out of the single mattress in his room, that was laid on the floor, keeping his Empress and covers insulated. He stood for what felt like decades in silence. He looked

back to her after staring out into the morning sun draw over the whole valley from the mountain summit, (the highest peak in the valley where it’d snow because it got so cold all the way up there) and to the lonely little river that streamed through, carrying and attracting all sorts of life. He then said, not seconds after processing the grace of the valley and the venom his lover had just poured into his ears. “Thank you for your honesty, it wasn’t easy trying to explain yourself and that is something I am very much proud of you for. If you must know how I feel about it all.. .I simply don’t care because I love you too much, and I won’t let anything ever break my promises to always be yours.” He then took her by the hand and stood her up, after drying her tears patiently, to look a centered stare from within her soul to the inside of his, and said “I will always love you more than anyone should ever be allowed to feel and I’ll keep you safe from the darkness of this world, in this life and the next.” They kissed and got lost in one another’s touch the rest of the morning. They’d spend the day joking around and making each other laugh when they weren’t cooking together, adventuring or teaching the other newer (and sometimes useful) things (consciously and subconsciously). I think they fell for each other all over again in Japan that year, because they had SO MUCH FUN! It was more than just that to them. They shared unmatched potential when it came to healing the other, throughout the entirety of their lives. Everywhere they felt one another, they could see themselves entering a gateway to a spiritual level. He would wash away the sorrows from her body with the most care after they’d pour out all of their energies into one another. Days went by and time only grew them closer together with everything they did. They taught themselves so much, it was almost a fairytale the way he’d translate their adventures to her. She was his real and only home. They later even planted a cherry blossom tree in the middle of their garden, he would tend to like a bonsai tree, to symbolize his infatuated and devoted loyalty to her. It was his way of thanking her for finding him in this life (and her faith in him). They only found out the next morning that they made each other’s lives worth living. She was a single pure blessing that would light up his plagued world/mind. He held her hand pressed close against his heart until the very end.

CHAPTER 4. Oasis

I start shedding tears over his journal, the pages are readable (where the ink hasn’t botched up the words from my bawling). I’m silent as I read through closer and closer to the end. I had no idea I’d become so incredibly involved into someone else’s life, especially when it felt like I’ve never needed it more. It’s all helping me in a way, his words and his mind. The sketches, it all paints an extreme visual I cannot resist no matter what I could ever try to think of. They soon got pregnant in the following years, and those last months he spent with her by her side the whole way through, really got to me. He sent word once they knew, to Liset’s grandmother in the kingdom, who sent her daughter the Queen to us at once. “I told her in person, that the only way I’d know our child would be safe would be to keep her close and watch after her as long as she could inside the kingdom. So the Queen left and was to return in nine months to adhere and welcome into this world our only child. She thankfully accepted my request and set off back for the kingdom, she wasn’t as dismissive as the king. I wanted to spend the last nine months by my heart’s desire, I maintained a sane diet thanks to her keeping me in check when I wasn’t attending to her (and our little one’s) every need. I even had time to paint every so often, well daily actually ever since we knew we were being honored with a smaller life. I had taken photos of Japan and her natural beauty, besides the Goddess of a woman my Liset has grown to be. The days are melancholy and I’m grateful for all of life’s wondrous gifts and lessons. It seemed like I was alone again the times I’d spend tending to my thoughts. I’d let Liset rest once my faithful duties were done, so that I could unwind the nature of my balance. I was centered each day once I returned to Japan, after being reborn in America, she only made everything limitless once she got here. I relived all my best and worst days those nine months, they stretched out even those last beautiful seconds we shared even after she left. I didn’t know she could do such a thing to me, my nightmares were preparing themselves to drown me headfirst into despair and I could do absolutely nothing about it, but learn to accept it. However, each day felt new and like it was being

displayed to us from when we first met, all those years ago, everytime we woke up in eachothers arms. Everyday in her eyes was my entire favorite moment of the cycle, and so much would happen in that small amount of time. I’d spend my life noticing every detail my mind would allow from that day forward (life was beautiful in every direction). No longer fearful for what lurks deeper in the unknown. I held her closer than ever those last nine months, not because they would be our last, but because they were being spent as a family. They made me feel complete, everything my life meant to this world was in my arms carrying an irreplaceable special gift. I knew I didn’t want to live in a world without her. I stayed true until the end of time. I could feel the life being stolen from her, it was an impactful journey to hold her hand the whole way through. I saw that morning with a different light, those long nine months kept my mind at ease for what was to come. I hated the fact that I might have the chance to not have a mother to my child, but I’d rather die knowing I did everything I could to keep my promises for my Liset. So I had everything ready when the time came. She looked more graceful than usual, like she also knew we were both headed in the same, lame direction. I loved that most about her, among the infinite amount of other little and huge details about her. She always followed her heart, regardless of where it led her, even to the weight of my love she’d listen to her honesty. She grew to inspire me more and more since the day we met. I brought out my katana “Suzo” made me, one of the seven wise village people in Japan/ the world who knew of this sacred valley. He taught me compassionate understanding techniques to speak to the universe and ways of listening to it. He said it would only help you both grow, he worked as a blade craftsman during my training in Japan during my first visit. He took me in as his personal student, in private away from the eyes and ears of the mad general’s spies, once he noticed the general dismiss me with severe public punishment after discovering a sketchbook I had been working on of Liset. I hid it under my cot’s covers in the camp I stayed for the duration of my training with him, along with my pencils I made from fresh forestlife (and a special one Liset left me to write in the journal with when she gifted it to me). It was very private, yet he found it and displayed it to all my peers before setting it ablaze and beating me

senseless for being a pitiful disgrace to Japan. My handle was green on the blade, for the color of her birth flower, and it had a shell tied to it from the cove I had taken her to on our first date when she arrived in Japan. My blade in one hand, my everlasting gorgeous lover in the other. We were ready and strayed slowly out to the garden with confidence, where the beautiful cherry blossom we planted had grown several feet. I’m ready as I place a set of blankets and pillows with candles around and incense to guide her natural voyage healthily afloat and in tune with the universe. I’d hold her hand throughout the process and as I’m crying in these last final entries, my bloodstained pages are filled with such unbearable emotion. My Liset is gone... I’m still and motionless with the sounds of the valley. For seconds before I held my daughter, I felt the life slowly fleeting from the strength in her hand’s grasp. One life left to bring anew, but I couldn’t just let her go. I had to chase her, this my mother in-law knew. She stood in front of us before taking our precious daughter, she knew I was next. Liset and I decided on the child’s name once we found out she was pregnant. I unsheathed “U~ōkingu mūn.” My katana, I named her after the nickname Suzo gave me. He called me that once I became his student and said, “this blade will show you the light and guide you to salvation.” Once he gifted it to me the day I went to find him to be poisoned in his bed by the vile general- surely after interrogating him from the looks of things. Suzo told me of this valley called “the Sacred Yellow Valley” and said it was known to have housed so many kind-hearted people, plants, animals and energies. Suzo gave me the special blade and as a dying wish asked me to go fourth and either seek revenge down a righteous path, or follow the river to the solace in the hills of the sacred valley. So I held him close after he left this world, I gave him a proper burial arrangement and set off to find the so-called ‘sacred yellow valley’ with my brand new knife, Walking Moon.”

CHAPTER 5. Redemption

Grandma said she always remembered my parents as the greatest people she knew. I now know what she meant because she very seldom would mention small details about them I’m only now realizing are so

relatable. They obviously explain so much like my connection with nature, my taste in anything that’s worth knowing about and how amazing I guess I really am (thanks to being theirs, and theirs alone). The journal suddenly stops with a mess of ink, some mysterious stains that could’ve been water or some different liquid at some point (and tons and tons of blood splatters). The last thing I can make out is a very blurred and faded, “ We love you Hazy.” I’m guessing they also must’ve had plenty of time to come up with good nicknames. I’m in awe at how strong my parents were. My grandma left me a letter inside the box as well, which tells me to visit a place in Japan where if you listen closely, you can hear the whispers of the world. She speaks of a place called home, and gives me the directions of the valley I heard my dad speak so fondly of. I go and I take my time pacing through each and every inch of land my mother and father lived on. It took a couple of minutes for it to all sink in. My dad’s house was a modern Japanese designed home, made to look minimal but majorly impressionable from his humble little dojo to his garden. I left my things next to their mat, which I laid on for hours to just.. .feel them. They were there with me and I noticed a note beneath the bottom of the mat that peered back at me. I opened it to read my dad one last time, but who knows when he wrote this/ found the time or efforts to. He must have spent serious thought on it because it’s very neat and made to be presentable, clearly legible and almost to be read with immediate and immense intent. “Dear my little baby girl Hazy, you are the most precious gift to my life besides your especially beautiful mother. I know you will prosper and flourish into whatever your heart needs most. Listen to it and trust yourself, knowing that my honesty will help you grow stronger and more aware of yourself and your surroundings. I spent the first few years back in Japan, before your mother arrived surprisingly, sketching and creating new ideas after I had met with a particular old wok merchant. I researched endless books on marketing and design which led me to fund my three businesses. A marketplace to sell my art for those who wish to share my life, a clothing line made from sustainable and recyclable materials based on representing my sketches. To help feed the planet and lastly a farm where I grow many different forms of crops and valuable and organic nutrients for the townsfolk in the

villages, and the animals and travelers of the valley. I have left a small fund beneath the floorboard with the writing painted on it. (I later found out it read “Pleasure Garden” in Japanese.) Do with it and my book of ventures as you like. You are grown enough to know your mother and I will always love you more than life itself. Take your time in our home, it’s yours now to treat with respect and benefit you the same way it took care of us, or sell it, destroy it and forget about it. (And the ten-thousand dollar sword in the garden.) If you do choose to stay, please stay as long as you need to. Here you are safe from any and every danger, but know that in life, what will come to you was meant to be found. Just let the valley sink in before you leave, if you ever decide to leave this place.. Never forget what you’ve chosen to leave behind. The valley will show you what is real, and in the end, she’ll reveal yourself to you. Your mom found me when I was deeply lost in an abyss of self torment. She saw beyond my emptiness and she found hope inside. Don’t ever hurt yourself in any way because of what your family has been through, you have unfathomable potential to change the world my love.. Hazel Faith, Oliva Gutierrez loving yourself will always keep you from wasting it.

With all of our love-Rudy.”

He left twenty thousand under the floorboard but I didn’t want the money. I wanted them. To be held by them both and to sleep in their comfortable mat between them. I’ll be okay here (sniff). I'll lay down for a bit more before I check out the garden. Their mat is so cozy, no wonder they’d spend so much time here, holding and comforting one another. It’s calming, the echoes I get the valley provides. I stand up and take my camera outside to my parents garden. Somehow, it looks as if they were still taking care of it. It’s healthy and the cherry blossom looks massive with such a presence. It illuminates the openness of the ambience. The way you feel out here, everything is colorful and the pink leaves falling makes it feel like mom and dad are standing right next to me. There’s something carved into the tree bark, two initials an “R” and an “L.” How perfect, what was a bit hard to leave in place was “U~ōkingu mūn”, dad’s katana. Grandma wrote in her letter, of how my dad took his life with honor to be with his beloved.

He felt her hand fall from his grip and gave me to grandma once he wiped the tears from his face. She said he looked out into the world from the opening in the garden. (a half-circle designed in the wall to connect the outside world to the garden with the hole in front of the pink tree, and the open ceiling so the rainwater and sunlight could find their way too) He stood with his blade in his hands for minutes before reaching his Liset’s feet, and not hesitating to take her lifeless hand for one last kiss. He ran Walking Moon through to the outside of his backside before his knees gave out, and went from respectfully kneeling before his lover to a bound, cold, collapsed corpse. Only seconds after unsheathing his blade and closing his eyes to breathe his last words out to her from under his breath, before the movement that initiated the sword’s impact. “Always and forever Liset, thank you.”

I sat under the cherry blossom and held myself for a while, looking out to the magical valley. The sunset and I knew, I would die here too. I thank my parents everyday for giving me life, and protecting me with the love of my grandma. She left me with the greatest of gifts (my parents of course). I guess I won’t be needing my camera anymore, I already developed a new album all about my connection to Japan and myself. I’m tossing it in the snow before I start the rest of my glorious life. I’ll capture each second spent and harmonize them with every breath I take. Living life in the moment with the best home anyone could ever ask for. The money will benefit the townsfolk in the closer and distant villages. I can live off of my dad’s businesses and the natural land provided to me by the best parents EVER! Crying tears of joy as I’m signing my last journal entry before I start my spiritual training.

“To whom it may concern, life is beautiful. Please don’t waste it, and thank you abuelita, (grandma) mom and dad. I love you all to the ends of time and back. I know you’re watching over me and keeping me safe. I appreciate these gifts you all left me, so much. Infinitely thankful for all that you’ve taught me. -You’ll probably never see me because I have a lifetime of feelings to catch-up on, but I’m leaving with you the last picture I took on my camera before choosing to let her go. I’m leaving it and my journal to you so that you can see I was really here, and as far as what I believe to be the better story, normally

anyone would choose theirs as their favored story, the story of themselves, which in my case will be pretty epic.. .In the only sense that I ended up living for my parents, theirs was my favorite. Here’s to you mom and pops.

Thank You.”

-Hazel