This art featured in my memoir, Incandescence Rising Above Darkness is included as a moment of serenity between chapters and does not necessarily have any literal connection to the story.
What Happens When Your Father Tries To Get You To Marry The Man You Left?
Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness Excerpt Chapter #21 The Rope Swing And The I Ching
After my mother’s home in Southern California, I spent a brief time living on a boat with my first boyfriend. Then my first home was a tent on some undeveloped land in Northern California leased to Joan Baez for The Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. Many days were spent in blissful solitude, wandering in the woods, laying in the warm grass, and writing poetry.
My father lived in Palo Alto down the hill with his new wife and her eleven-year-old daughter. On one of his visits, he put up a rope swing in an oak tree close to my tent. I wondered if he was trying to be the father he had not been while I was a child. His motivations were rarely obvious and were most likely not as they appeared. I accepted I might not ever know his real reason for anything. I relied on my instincts for guidance and looked for subtle clues into his true intentions.
Sometimes my dreams gave me information that seemed to prepare me for things that had not yet happened. Other times, I got warnings around me that I could not explain but were clearly helpful. Then there were times I looked for answers in unlikely places. Like when my father went to Southern California and brought back the sailor boyfriend I had left.
Clare Cooley
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