Children find decomposing bodies on a beach. A girl becomes a ghost and finds someone. A dog dies but its owner is out of his mind and eating waffles. Sheep are a perfect species. A woman experiences a pregnancy that is out of this world! A raccoon dies and you watch its body break down. A father does his best fathering. You take a textual road-trip tour of America’s oldest hobby. A trauma is slowed down, picked apart. A soupfin shark is dissected and you watch. A homestead becomesa ghost town in rural Oregon. Joseph Beuys is an artist. A sister falls in love with an object, has a difference of opinion with her sister.

After turning forty and the unexpected death of her father, the narrator seeks to make sense of the story of her father's life and her own. Reflections on Buddhism, death, family history and community flow through the narrator's journey from the backcountry of the Colorado Rocky Mountains to the rolling farmland of the Midwest, from a retreat center in Oregon to the ancient geography of Wisconsin's Driftless Area. With clues gathered from her family home in Waterloo, Iowa, the narrator returns to her current home in Portland, where she comes to understand for herself the significance of the phrase "the let going."

This poetic thesis is an exploration of the darker side of relationships. There are two parts of this thesis and they are to be read independently of each other. Part one is concerned with the chaotic relationship structure between lovers, husbands and wives, and the unexpected anguish that results from living an inauthentic life. Part two of my thesis is a rumination of a past close friendship and the tragic death of that friend. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection