Nolus: A Summary, An Introduction

Written August 5th, 2014

Nolus Sunoon was a bit of a fucker. He could be pathologically self-involved, selfish, sanctimonious, hypocritical, in denial about his own demons. If there's such a thing as being addicted to marijuana, he was. He was also one of the most beautiful men I have ever met, a shining light, and when he died hundreds came out to mourn him and share stories of their love and his. He is deeply, truly missed. I miss him.

I sit at the cusp of vast changes in my life, and I cannot deny that Nolus doubly inspires me. He lived his life as he chose, which is something we say about people but rarely truly mean. I mean to say that he created the life he envisioned for himself. After he met Jamaica at BM09, he started talking about splitting his time between Portland and Denver, and he simply made it happen. I have lived too much of my life in the shadows and have suffered for it. So he inspires me to shine my light. But, like I said, he also could be a fucker. And he inspires me there, too, to not become so self-defining that self-reflection becomes impossible. Don't just preach love, live it. That hundreds mourned him and mourn him still shows just how much love he lived. That so many of us acknowledge what a dick he was shows how much work he still had to do.

In his example he gives two gifts, flipsides of the same coin. He was a powerful man.