A defining time!

The journey for a moment interrupted and undefined. The wheels stop turning and conditions allow moss to gather.
The load of obligation, expectation relieves it impression. The trodden path a mere suggestion in the fresh field of possibilities.

I begin this year evolved into a new platform of life. Last year was so terrifically challenging. I could never have anticipated all the whittling down of confidence and expectations. However I am trying to focus on today, tomorrow. I will allow space for the impact of the past, the journey of the last 15 years. Altogether a magical life by most standards, the cost have been immense in personal sacrifice. But I don't wish to dwell on that now, it is the future I wish to imagine & create. As I sit here in this fractured space. Gone is the wife, the molding to the needs of another, the business that evolved out of the painters dream. Now its my dream, and I really have no idea what that is, but I am determined to dedicate my time to listening and allowing it to evolve..

The kindness of strangers.

I have SO much explaining to do. Its almost easier to skip the whole story than start the tale of the last 15 years. To catch up with my past life, now. Where do I begin. How did A lead to B lead to USA. The fork in the road since those early days of winging it.

I should explain that I used to be something before all this. I guess we all did in a manner of ways. Right now I am trying to understand the common thread through it all.

The story of a collection

Once the collection is disassembled the secrets of a life are forever dispersed. Independently the pieces have token or weight value. But the priceless value of life, the generations, the journeys, become dust. Who was the last person to close this box. Did that person know the many sources and stories behind each treasure. Or was the cumulative treasure handed down. The history chiseled into each possession by the value of the combined ownership and story that was ceremonially passed as the piece was passed palm to palm.

Paul never intended to die. He saw this challenge of illness as a dedicated solitary journey that he had taken on and would be on. Like his morning cycle ride the 10 miles to the top of the mountain. Peddle after peddle he focused on the momentary effort. If it was a test in strength, focus or effort alone, there was no mountain that Paul could not climb. Except the feat was not accomplished by any of those efforts, it was too late whe he realised that he would never reach the saddle of this uphill struggle. He really really was loosing control and at the same time loosing his life.

It would be too much for any man to sit back and write the story of his life and possessions. Because of Paul's meticulous nature this would have been an art form. Each item would have been sketched, referenced & logged. I say this not because he was obsessive by nature. But because everything he possessed was meaningful. His home more like a museum, the environment itself an introduction to a mind you want to know more about.

The box of postcards

It took about a week to go through all the elements of Paul's house. This was 3 years after his death. His house, designed and built by Paul in 2000 is simple. The environment along with everything in it was immaculately and exquisitely organized. With Paul every element of his life was precise and meaningful. In dialogue too. He never wasted words or talked too much, in fact his silence was often intimidating and awkward. I knew more people that were more offended by what he didn't say than what he did. His lack of response or comfort giving gestures opened up the hole in the socially vunerable.

Maybe it was theses factors that added to my appreciation of Paul. I was lucky to form a firm friendship with him over the years. He was a significant part of my acquired family. The people that fill the quirky & eccentric gap of my kin. Adding to my deeper feelings that we all ended up in this corner of the world because we didn't belong elsewhere, however we did & infact flourished here.

When we first looked into the storage space of Paul's it was like opening a time vault. Most of the items were stored in old cigar boxes. Some in cardboard boxes & tins. But everything had been so purposely placed & fitted into each. However it was the box with the Postcards I took home, knowing its content were a deeper cortex than initially viewed.

Now each time I open the box I get a drawn a chapter deeper into the story of Paul's ancestors. First it was just the images I was curious about. But soon the growing story of all the images combined with the dates and written script on the back, became the fascination.

Amongst the postcards was a number of old photos. Most of which were a combination of mining & ranching images from the New Mexico in the 1920's. I know this because of the references on the back. Were it not for those the landscape could easily have been mistaken for the hills and valley of the land that will live on. An introduction to the Southwest for a family that emigrated from Heidelberg to Chicago in 1908.

The end of a fairy tail

It would be impossible to ignore my misfortune over the past year. I am almost embarrassed to go uptown, the endless explanations & impossible responses required to the filter of our community. I see jaws drop as friends approach. People most of all want to know, what is going on with YOU.

There is the sweetness of a small town that out weighs the set backs. Which is the lack of anonymity. The fact that an event can occur & within moment an interpretation & the Chinese whisper is released across the bar & down the lanes & through the alleys, picking up filters of influence on the way. Like it or not, everyone in a small town is a celebrity, and we are all the journalists. All responsible for our taint on the big picture. Well in my case only I know the big picture. What people are wanting to talk about is the tip of the iceberg. The Divorce, the car crash & the lost job, all aspects to topple a stable woman off her sound pedestal. But its all the nasty little things in between that have been un-included in the details of the big picture. But it is also impossible to begin to tell the story, for you cannot balance the facts. At this point all I can say is that is all truly behind me. Done, dealt, I have been beaten with the big stick of fate & folly all in one grim year. Meanwhile I have held my head high & tried to not to moan or complain. Its not the stiff upper lip approach. Or denying reality. Its just my story & no one else can really truly ever understand & truthfully I would not want them to. Its my story, and although I consider myself a storyteller, this is one story I really wouldn't want to share. It's not worth the air. There is so much that is magnificent to contemplate, why dwell on the disintegration of a fairy tail.

Journey of a thousand steps

there is something in me that is unaccessible. A part of me that is shielded and guarded, that has yet to let down its hair. I live in a house of spiders webs. A faint felt that day after day tangles a weave between me and my reality.

I don't know what it is that is holding back. It is just unavailable. Like a magnet, no question as to its polarity, ain't no way you can get to it. I am here, its over there and no matter how hard I push there is more likelihood of me spinning for eternity than getting any closer to it. its just recently the separation has become more pronounced. And the divide greater. As one part of me engages in the world, the other sits back and lets me finish the sentence, only this sentence never ends. Partially I believe that my reptilian brain has closed down. The inconceivable thought that would stem from this grey matter is mute. Partly because the world i see does not speak my language. Like the feeling that I had as a child where I knew there was no way I was made of the same stuff as my family. Maybe its because I am the only one that's not lost under the spell that this is ok for everyone else or maybe it because I am the crazy one. I am the one with a fairy dust warped vision of a world healed & wholesome. But that wholesome healing journey has to begin with me.

Believable tangable

I should be grateful, at least to be alive. After all I have long outlived my expectations and my gratitude for that ineffable. The longer I linger the more I appreciate being here. In fact I am desperately attached to this life of mine. As if a yoke that once separated me from everything beautiful & exquisite has been pierced and here I am helplessly exposed. Here I am venerable at my awareness of extinction .

It is not simply the case of my attachment to my life , my luxuries. I desperately applaud every fragment , every rock decked with lycen. The quantum history and memory that is a memory traced in mineral deposits and carbon clusters. The spores that can dance with moisture and once again return to life.

Saturation of information that calls for my idle mind to ponder its beginnings and its end and all the space in between. I am decadently lavished with the dance of every blade of of grass as a vapour trail of my heart, witness and sensation of the moment. And these moments so kind and inviting. Believable tangible in form and fragments that makes up this blessed earth.