Hi Everybody, Tim’s old friend Barbara here.
I asked Liz and Al if I could share my thoughts with all of you. Did you ever think we’d find ourselves saying goodbye to Tim like this? I never even imagined it. I figured we’d all live forever, young at heart and rocking on until the world ended. But your community of friends has lost so many dear members these last years, hasn’t it? Strange how things turn out.
I met Tim as a school kid in Hawaii, probably 45 years ago, maybe closer to 50. I’m one of his “Ohana”, his family of friends from Hawaii, like you are his Alaskan family. Tim’s stories of all of you have amazed and entertained us all for such a long time. I hope his tales of us have done the same for you. He always had an adventure to relate and his deep love for all of you was constantly in the forefront of his experience. We’ve all shared the roller coaster-adventure cruise-safari that’s been Tim’s life. We are the characters that fueled his art.
of us manage.
The Ohana have messages of their own to add. Beloved little ‘Tita’ Tracy sends a message to Tim “I will be looking Out The Kitchen Door for you!” That was always her favorite Tim Poem, he even made her a video, looking out his mother’s kitchen door in Hawaii into a tropical garden. His dear old friend Tiger says this about Tim: Tim lived life. He didn’t wait for it to find him, he went out and found it. We all should. Move on, Tim. Move on. We will remember you – not miss you.
Tim FELT everything. Deeply. Hopelessly. Expressively. He loved too intensely. He risked everything he was and he bled because of it, but he bled willingly and it fed his art in the richest possible ways. Tim is an incredibly memorable individual.
But you already know all that, too. What I really wanted to do today is take this moment to give you, Tim’s Alaskan family a message from Tim’s Ohana.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for being his inspirations. His muses. His
Tim was an incredibly creative soul, you already know that. Whether it was in words or paint, he could
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
Round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking
On them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these things please the soul well.
He didn’t have a chance to tell you himself, so as one of his very oldest friends I’m going to help him out and tell you what I think he’d say to you. I can hear his soft chuckle, you know the one, as he says:
I love you guys, Its been awesome. Don’t waste time being sad, its not the way to go. Live your days fully and be ready to party when you catch up to me!”
Thanks everybody,
Barb
friends and lovers. Thank you for weathering his storms and for sharing the bright times. Thank you for sticking by him, for being his companions on this wild ride we call life.
Thanks for loving him and for kicking his ass when he needed it. Thanks for giving him such a rich collection of experiences and adventures (God, remember when he wanted to buy that ancient boat, turn it into a treehouse and call it The Love Shack?)
Thanks for being patient, indulgent and loyal.
You guys are the best. He wouldn’t have been our Tim without you all, his life wouldn’t have been so rich and full.
From Tim’s Ohana, thank you for caring all those decades and for caring here at the end of his life.
Tim wrote and loved poetry and this one seems to state a lot of how Tim felt. Its Walt Whitman’s
I Sing The Body Electric
I have perciev’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in the company with the rest at evening is enough,
NAMAKANI
THE WINDS
express himself in ways that ranged from romantic and poetic to almost gothically dark and haunting. His work evoked feelings. It disturbed and it enlightened.
He had that gift.
Tim walked alone in the desert like philosophers before him, but you were his oasis. Above all things, he loved his family and friends and kept in constant touch with us.
It’s a custom to celebrate lost friend’s lives with Memorials and Wakes but you’d have to Wake Tim a solid week and then Roast him for another. Tim would enjoy them both with the same enthusiasm. He took pleasure in the darkness and the light in his life and drew inspiration from both.
Tim was a driven and tormented artistic soul and a thoughtful, educated, intelligent and informed man. As all things seek balance, he was also a bawdy wastrel capable of epic feats of foolishness with a penchant for the impossible. But we all managed to remain his friends and he experienced life in a way few
Ninth Annual Milky Way Celebration
O my brothers and sisters
You are cordially invited to
The ninth annual celebration of
Our galaxy, the Milky Way
In loving memory of our brother
And dear friend, Tim Arney
After sunset on July 22nd
At a high and dark location near you
Lift your eyes to the southern sky
and look to the constellations
Sagittarius and Scorpio
The Archer (the Teapot) and the Scorpion
There, between the stinger and the teapot
Is the center of our galaxy
Around which we and millions of stars
Swirl in a slow motion dance
You have heard that we are stardust...
Ashes, ashes, dust to dust
Silent drumming of our breath and heartbeats
Clouds of atoms, floating in space
Give thanks for the mystery of Creation
The virgin birth of the universe
O my brothers and sisters
Dance till we fly away