Whatever it is you're afraid of me learning, I've already imagined it or seen it in dreams. ANd Isympathized, because it was part of me too.
I believe you still care for me as a friend and want to be at peace with me. Letting you go is never going to mean putting you out of my heart. You'll still be here every minute. I will never turn you away if you choose to reach out. Turn my way, see that my arms are always open to you. I'm your friend, and fiercely loyal.
Please be looking. I have not sensed your presence is such a long time.
<{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}>
May 23rd. I have had no internet access for a week and will have none for another week and a half. I have taken a major wrong turn and landed in a place that was not designed to be exited. I have no choice now but to return home to Oregon. I feel I have let down Jesseca and Brian and all their efforts to make New York work. I've heard that Jesseca feels bad too - I've not been in touch with her except through Scott and my niece Lore. Phone service here is spotty.
I have nothing in my account with which to use my debit card on the trip home, so I hope I won't have to. I'll have a little cash, as long as cash is accepted. No meals on the plane then! Maybe something at the airport? Hope so. Then I'll have to find money for Jesseca to send my stuff back, there's more than I can take on the plane. I hope I get a chance to grab some of what's at her house. I shall have to leave to Pope Francis image behind lest it become damaged in my bags. Damn, have to figure out my art supplies, probably leave that masonite in NY and I still never even got it gessoed.
My first night here was despondent. This is a place for men who have resigned themselves to having nowhere else to go. No, maybe that's presumptuous, I haven't spoken to many of them, and some do leave...but i don't know how. The plan was for me to stay here until DSS came through and I got a job, after which HUD would help me pay for a place to stay. I needed to check this place out first but they had an opening right away and I had to take it. Well, you can't get DSS if you're here. If you get a job you keep half your income - [you have to be out within thirty days, without having had the chance to build up any money to move out on. You can't apply for jobs online and we're located well away from anywhere (there is a bus but it's a journey). Essentially, you can't get a job if you're here and you can't leave if you don't have a job. Catch 22. The only thing I could do was reach out to my niece Lore. I have a plane ticket home on Saturday June 2nd. So I've wasted my own money, what little I had (gone), wasted Jesseca and Brian's money, wasted two months, and canceled my OHP and SNAP. If anything good did come out of this, I am blind as to what it might have been.
Ralph, my dorm-mate, has pointed me in the direction of a rather profound book, 'The Spirituality of Imperfection' by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, centered on the guiding principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. As I've mentioned before, I'm an atheist - I just don't have a sense that there's someone there. It doesn't add up with what I've seen in life. I'm open to possibilities, my life is still moving forward. I'd never been interested in AA enough to consider them, having put off by their well-known insistence on reliance on a higher power. What I've found is that (a) you don't need to hold a particular faith to find value in their precepts, and (b) you don't have to be an alcoholic either to find their approach to life a fundamentally healthy and helpful one. It's basically a primer on being human. The book sets forth an approach to life that I find is akin to the way have always tried to approach life - er, mostly, anyway, and in some cases unsuccessfully. It's that lack of success the book addresses...accepting that none of us are perfect, that life isn't something one masters but encounters on an ever unfolding basis. It is how we deal with those encounters that matter. It's not a test we pass or fail. It is ongoing. Spirituality (if you will) comes day by day. There is always something new. I know that Dana is interested in the bible. For me, for this point in m y life, that's way too specific for me. I don't want to get hung up on a faith whose central points are in conflict with my own beliefs (particularly on matters sexual and gender). For now I am content to see myself as spiritual. Given what I've seen of life, I can't say I particularly want to believe in a God. Many of His followers struggle with Him, and right now I can't see the comfort in that belief.
Naturally, I couldn't read the book without seeing myself reflected in it at points. My faults, the things that block me from moving forward (which seem unrelated to my grief over the loss of Dana's friendship). My addiction would be complacency and comfort. Maybe TV and movies, except that I'd love to utilize that somehow to make money - reviews, could I do that? Letting go of Dana doesn't seem to mean an end to feeling heartbroken, which a first surface reading of this book seems to confirm. I'll have to buy a copy for myself to re-read before the finer points sink in.
One of the fundamentals is telling one's stories, and listening. Ralph and I have been doing that. I've told the story of Dana before, just never to anyone who knows her. I never realized until now, I've also never told that story in person before, by mouth. I couldn't do it without crying.
Of Ralph, I'll only say that he's a good and decent man who endures. The rest is of course confidential.
You may recall that I drew the thorn rune at Easter (drawn on an Easter egg - color the egg to reveal the rune randomly drawn). Keep my head down, I am under the sign of chaos. Well, that hasn't ended yet. I had been wanting to ask Jesseca for a Tarot reading when I felt the time was right, and I was watching for that egg to leave her refrigerator. It never did. I wasn't going to eat it for superstitious reasons (also the only way I like eggs is scrambled, but I hate to see food go to waste). Turns out jesseca felt the same way. So when she deviled her and Brian's eggs, she wasn't about to internalize chaos. She handed it to me the day I came here and suggested I fling it as far from me as I could. I did, but the chaos has merely intensified. I won't be able to get my Tarot reading. The last (which was also my first) foretold my future as 'life in suspension', which it has been ever since. That was fresh out of high school.
I had hoped to discover more artistically with Jesseca, like helping her build a kiln we could both use. I also wanted to make my cashew butter pie for her heathen gathering. There's not going to be any kiln in Portland (or Hillsboro, which is where I'll be for the foreseeable future).
My life scares me. I genuinely wish it was over. But as I'm not going to kill myself, There's no way I'm sitting out my days where I am as i type this. That wasn't the plan, it's not what Jesseca brought me here for, and my very being rails against agreeing to give up in this particular fashion. It's get out of give up. New York didn't feel like home even if I might have made a better inroad with my art here. Hope I can find an audience on Etsy. Dammit, I wanted to produce enough drawings to try the gallery in Oswego.
<{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}><{}>
June 3rd. I am home - sort of - in McMinnville Oregon as of early this morning. Still unpacking, still unwinding and settling in. Too tired to review and revise anything 've written above. Some of my stuff, including the Francis drawing and some art supplies/tablets are still in NY.
We have a white smoke sighting. Bob Walsh at the place I just left scanned the drawing for me and adjusted it in PhotoShop.
Funny, I've been surrounded by cats everywhere I go since I lost the house. They all take a liking to me, though, which is gratifying. I'm back now with Abby, Babygirl, Bailey, Chance, and Charlie They were all wary of me before but for Bailey. I've never had a cat groom my scalp before, Abby used to be afraid of me but is hanging around a lot and is starting to let me pet her. Only Charllie keeps his distance now.
Oh - my camera is in NY. The laptop I have with me doesn't take shots ads far as I've been able to figure out. Oh, well, anyway, I've worked out the pose for Mina. She will be walking forward, head up, engaging the viewer. Hand held forward. All that is important per attitude, exactly what Iwanted. I'd intended her raised hand to be more to the side, but it needs to at least somewhat follow her gaze...I want her engaging with thew fireflies, but with the audience as well. So. Still need to do a search on women in turtleneck sweaters.
Funny, I'd wanted to do a larger masonite board but out of impatience settled for the smaller one - and never even got it gessoed. Now it's back in NY untouched. Like, I got swatted down for rushing it? I've been wanting to do this for over half a year now!! Very little money left, will need it for food and clothing. No knowing how soon I can buy a board, gesso, and maybe some higher-quality artists crayons. Must ask Jesseca which kind she used on a couple of really vibrant pieces if her own I saw. For that matter, I have no paints to use either. I still want enamels rather than acrylics, though it will be more expensive and without the variety the image needs.
Kathy has a small print of Van Gogh irises which i put on the wall for inspiration. I've got a fitting Chagall image as my desktop image.
Eyes are going shut. I'm still on NY time, and it's nearly midnight there.
No comments:
Post a Comment