Ian Carlstrom Halliday

Ian Carlstrom Halliday left his body and this earth Monday, March 8th, on his 47th birthday. He was one of six siblings, the only boy in a brood of women. I know many of you knew and loved him and have asked about his well being over the years and I am sorry to give this news publicly but I don't have the energy to make personal phone calls right now. Please know that this was what he wanted, he was in a great deal of pain and this was his way of taking control in a situation which he found uncontrollable.

Ian was an incredibly intelligent, wickedly funny, multi-talented person. People gravitated towards him and wanted to be around his big, funny and frenzied energy. He was really goofy and silly and could be very intense but he was also very thoughtful and sweet. He was a talented skateboarder, always in the paper when he was a teenager for his daredevil tricks and hijinks. He was a prolific writer, journaling being his chosen form of expression. In his life he probably filled hundreds of journals which he would give to friends and family when he was done, never one to care about possessions. He was an artist, his art was often graffiti inspired, lots of heavily lined ink characters with odd, exaggerated characteristics.

He was insanely smart, and I don't say that lightly. He taught himself to read at four, according to our mother, and as an adult could speed read an entire novel in an afternoon. He taught English in Korea and China off and on for many years and taught himself Chinese and Korean fluently (though he would argue this, saying that his proficiency seemed more impressive than it was). He also made his living as a carpenter and built beautiful houses, taking great pride in his work. While working on a house one summer he sent me a letter filled with photos of the frame of the house. He compared building the frame to building the skeleton of a whale and the sadness he felt when they started covering it up.

He was uncomfortable staying still in his body. He would go outside to have a cigarette every twenty minutes, which was very annoying when you were trying to watch a movie with him. Walking down the street with him was my favorite thing, no matter what city we were in he seemed to know everybody and he would constantly be jumping over meters, balancing on fences, rocketing his body off of the walls and structures we passed, skateboarding with no skateboard even at thirty, forty years old. He was always moving from city to city too, often because his antics when not sober forced him too but just as often because he seemed to need to keep moving to stay sane. A new city, a new job...he needed that newness, stangnence of all sorts made him uneasy.

Often we didn't know exactly where he was for weeks or months and then he would call from Hawaii, Korea, upstate New York. He was notorious for showing up at your doorstep unannounced and staying for weeks before splitting for his next adventure. The only time we saw him stay still for longer than a few years was during his longest stint of sobriety when he co-founded the coffee shop Coffee Slingers in Oklahoma City, OK with his then partner Melody. It was the happiest we ever saw him and he took enormous pride in creating their business and learning the coffee trade. The business is still there, though under different ownership.

He stayed with me and my family about four years ago for a few months and I feel blessed to have had that quiet, domestic time together. He was wonderfully goofy with Paisley and she adored his company and attention. It was the first time as adults that we really sat and talked about life without the fuel of a bottle of wine or the frenzied, manic behavior that colored our interactions when we were young. When I hugged him goodbye, in my driveway at midnight before he drove to Arizona with our sister Inge, I worried it would be the last time I ever touched his body. I said I loved him and he said he knew that, slightly annoyed with my sentimentality, as always.

I don't want to go into the details of the next four years or the darker years that lead up to that because I don't want him remembered that way. Even though he was always very public about his struggles and lifestyle, he was more than that. And though there is no shame in addiction, mental illness or suicide, his light always shone brighter than his darkness.

I know he was loved by so many and I want to thank everyone who touched his life, who helped him and let him help them, who answered his phone calls in the middle of the night, who offered up their couches to him, who joined him in his adventures. To the women, the loves of his life, and there are a few of you, and you know who you are, thank you for seeing him, for letting him feel safe, for allowing him to experience true love and companionship. He loved each and every one of you so much.

We love you Bruder, Ianinski, Mantis Jones, Truth Sleuth, Ian Carlstrom Halliday son of Jerry Carlstom and Miriam Halliday-Borkowski

We loved you, we love you, we loved you, we love you. We will never forget you, we will never walk on by.

[Excerpt from a letter our mother sent to a friend from Sept. 2, 1980 - Ian is 6 years old in this story]

...ian takes a forest walk alone-he starts up the road + always looks terrified - i say have courage the angels are all around you! so he takes a deep breath - takes a snake stick to tap through the brush to defend himself from dogs and after 15 minutes one hears his hooting and triumphant yells of YOU-WHO way up behind the cabin at the top of the ridge - he looks radiant and moves with barefoot authority down through the leaves.

Text by Eugenia Miriam Borkowski-Sypherd (one of Ian's five sisters)