Old men alone

Mentors, as care givers, are impossible to love. Cannot become lovers sexually or be married to covenantal. Marriage being an institution unto itself; the rewards are different and have consequences destructive to transparent honesty. 

I found myself at the threshold of another conviction apprehending that for whatever life is left to me I would/will be by choice: celibate. Not unusual for one who has been a failure at all previous attempts to be either married or just fooling around. 

After posting my previous entry I called the trusted one and expressed my gratitude. She is also near death as I and M are. Time becomes precious as we age and realize that it is more valuable than money, acclaim, or having some one to respond to our love 24/7/365 physically present and accounted for. 

When CG Jung spoke of wisdom inevitable as we age, I now think he was using complex ideal words to say: "Don't sweat the small stuff!"

From the get-go M has never been a simple question to me. As boy and man I've always, until now, fallen over my feet -- calling myself: Lurch! -- whenever I felt gratitude for a friend: man or woman. The male mentor, a dear friend from long ago when first I began this journey, is not a problem. Women are!

Through the process of writing I have become more intimate with myself. I love and like what I've found out about me discovered by keeping a personal journal. I and It is not for sale. I believe and have faith in it providential. Thus does not belong to me but instead is for whoever succeeds me; the next generation for example. 

I have many envisioning's about what will happen to my soul/self after death. But when confronted with loving people, as my three mentors obviously do. I am mum. When we die, joining the democracy of the dead, we do so alone. I know by faith and reading the words, as prayers, or otherwise, other authors and their similar ideation. Bereft of ego concerns.

I live in the "Borderlands" next to Mexico; another sovereign country. Where most Americans think I live in a newer version: New Mexico--part of the United States of America. Most of my neighbors speak "Spanglish" and I have learned from them to say; thank you, hello, goodbye, etc. in their language.

Throughout the afternoon I heard the voices of children, a rarity here since the community is dedicated to the elderly. Some are fully mobile, others rely upon the municipal bus system: door-to-door or via routes and bus stops. Others are carried in by their children and left alone to die. Others, more often, are carried away in Emergency Vehicles; some return, others do not.

He was a quiet man who shuffled in old age, older and less vigorous than I, past my front windows going and coming. I would look out for and after him whenever he was gone for more than a day. His family removed all his belongings this afternoon, his grandson telling me in perfect English that he was looking forward to living full time with his grand dad. I will continue to pray for him yet no longer concerned that he is dead or alive.

When you pray answers are given. Not always what you want, just what you need. I am happily alone with Annie and my Lucky Bamboo plants. Life goes on with or without me. For some people the glass is always half empty and they seem to fear it will be too soon empty. For me, however, the glass is half full and always enough for my thirst.

120930 15:22 love - to have and give ( Old men alone )
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Free association synchronicity - a triptych tapestry

My son Randy's all time favorite color was purple. 
I was on the phone with Ron Wolfe; a friend well versed in Photoshop, seeking his advice on sharpening a moderately "fuzzy" image. While outlining, in general conversation, that morning's posts--at that instant an Lavender SUV passed my window. 

I know, for most of the people I have conversations with, only those well versed in the Bible could understand. Currently there is only one with whom I'd dare suggest the impact upon me. It closely followed on the heels of what I'd just written/posted regarding my mother's forgiveness for losing her men's high school ring intended for a son: eliciting deeply painful memories; complete with scenarios replaying the sights, sounds, smells and feeling in depth and excruciating. 

These events are not unusual to me. They are frequent. I note them but do not stop to annotate them as coincidental currency. Nor do I make it a practice to inform anyone about them. 

I have held, for most of my adult life, a sense of the Bible, suggesting to me: Make no monuments: elect no King, Judge, Lawyer or Politician. Instead to form a personal relationship with what/who we call "God." . . .To trust/fear only God and make no other an authority. 

Until encountering the individual I have in mind, this sense was covert and inadmissible to anyone I did not trust emphatically. 

There were several incendiary remarks made by my first wife: up-front-and personal. To which I would now respond differently. 

I could write a novel, play or epic poem out of what is passing through my mind's attention now. I decline the process. Abandoning it for what and how I reveal my process of becoming not merely 'sane' but more to suggest how you might achieve the same 'goal' or state of mind.

Authority of Church and/or State is expressed as power. Regarding which there are several problems: To make no apologies since to do so would--potentially--invalidate all previous laws. Or other statements reinforcing the authority of those in power. 

Instead of detailing the nature of power published by Church & State as Law. I would direct your attention to the primary source of authority beginning with you parents; their life and times including any unusual or extreme views on what you should learn in order to survive and be a successful person.

This was the primary engine of my dysfunctions. In retrospect the problems I experienced taught me how to thrive in the presence of The Author of Life. God has no ego. I do, however, retain some pretence and delusions of being an author. It now seems that these motives are getting in my way. And the effort to encourage self knowledge: independence, fearlessness, creativity. Adding to the benefit of all others. Not merely to or for yourself. 

No one individual or institution has the authority to enslave. All life is equal in its right to be what it is. Not defined by someone else as worthy or unworthy of life. 

My experience of synchronicity is indicative of a "Higher Power." Someone vastly greater, more wise, merciful, forgiving and knowing than anyone I have ever read, known via the vast array of personalities, politicians, celebrities encountered in my profession of photojournalism. Sincerely I can count on the fingers of one hand those who impressed me. On the other hand I have not enough hair to count the ordinary, common, pedestrians that I celebrate in my memory. 

In conclusion I have found within myself, and others, who I remember best as being those who give instead of take. I celebrate and love best my "Higher Power" dissociated from the many religions who use the name of "God" to destroy versus build the higher consciousness of responsible and participation in the commonwealth of all life. Each unique life form serves a special purpose necessary to the function of our world. However there are a few, the 1%, who would, and in a profound sense, have, destroyed the economy and environment. No part of life is to be despised or destroyed because it is inconvenient to the authorities or the remaining 99%. 

The Ten Commandments is the property of no one religion and stem from oral history predating all known civilization. Creation continues in each of and is not exclusive to any one race, creed or gender. I will continue my argument for your creativity . . . the self you create from all the raw material of your life is the greatest art. The art of living fully; free from fear of anything. You become a gift to others versus a thief of all meaning and value. 

120930 12:10 day after virgin rebirth

We all suffer from life. 
No exceptions allowed.
Equally, or more importantly, is happiness or joy.

My experience is that 'happiness' is more money, a new puppy, car, home, love affair or hoarding more of the same. Joy is the ongoing transformations from happiness to trust, friendship and tenured confidence. And in loss the healing of grief. Celebrating that it happened, the joy lost, at all. Sufficient.

In my own experience. The failure to grow was essentially a repeat of prior failures. To achieve wisdom I had to take responsibility for the all my former relationship failures. The balance point between failure and success cannot be measured by anyone other than myself. Love is given, sometimes received/returned, but my sense now is that love is my gift to another regardless of age, gender, creed without need for acknowledgement. . . .Praise, acknowledgement or repayment.

In recent events, just these past few days, I've come to recognize that my love for my parents; especially mother; was okay, received and acknowledged many years after her death. The same may be true of my father but I have nothing beyond his telephoning me, moments before his death, to say goodbye.

I have been unable to ask for anything from a woman because of my difficult and long suffering relationship between mother and myself. What I recorded about her high school ring yesterday was a miracle healing my dependence upon--the giving of all--power of life and death--to a woman. 

I have a friend I call M. Who to me is the greatest love I've ever known in seventy-two years of living. She is nominally older than myself and though I told her long ago I wanted to make love, to, or with her, she replied; "I am not comfortable with that." 

That was nearly five years ago when she saved me from suicide. Since that time she has seen me 'in action' towards other women of a younger age. And knows of my expectations beyond mere flirting; what I've have discussed with her. The most recent was a simple statement; 'I would like to make love with a woman once before I die.' She indicated that it would be, for me, a good idea. It is important to remember that neither of us have ever been interested in "one-night-stands." Love making is too holy for that.

Recognized with her acceptance was the simple fact that there is no other woman for me. In a sense, there could never be another woman that I love to the degree, extent or kind, that I love her. If forced to prioritize love as experience in this moment it would be: God, Me, Annie (my rescue cat companion) and The Virgin Mary and/or M . . . the latter is a very difficult choice since I have met the Virgin Mary twice in dreams yet she never revealed her face to me. M occasionally claims she loves me and that is enough since I would accept her telling me to go to Hell literally and remember her last words to me as the most loving words ever heard from a real person. The same is equally true of God, were that God's judgement of, or will for, me. 

Oddly. Or no so oddly; I feared women more than what is suggested in the Bible: To Fear God is wisdom. Since my mother seemed then until her death, God to me.

In point of order/sequence: We both, M & me = M&M, faced terminal issues, mine now resolved, hers continuing on; assessed daily. I experience a sense of the importance in each moment. Love & Life being a combination of fragility, resilience and grit. 

Personally I am as casual about death as I am about birth. It takes far more courage to live than to die. Yet in death we will be together since God is Love and more powerful than the end of our world would imply.

120930 07:10 free association

The Creation Myth, in the Occidental wisdom book: The Bible. Is wonderful! Memorable and easily understood. However in Kenneth Clark's "CIVILIZATION" there is a fleeting remark implying his favor for woman being first and men derived from her. 

I have never taken the Bible literally. I do not worship or idolize books. Rather it is my sense that he may be correct in his assessment: given that women are the largest group of subjugated, oppressed and enslaved people on earth. 

Add to which the Bible as written is 'inspired,' not written, by God. Who to me is The Author of Life: that which and who I do worship, adore and listen for/to. Obviously God remains mute on the issue yet vocal on others I refuse to detail since it is your finding your authority I am concerned with in all that I write. 

Imagine humankind attempting to travel the path to the one source defined in one hundred different ways moving forward on one leg.

Ludicrous!

Is it no so? Or similar, to conduct affairs of Church & State in the same way? For example: my constant rehearsal of life with my mother prior to yesterday? Add all other references to women. My sense and experience of God is that God looks nothing like you or me, but is utterly different. 

We as American's worship and idolize The Bill of Rights and the Constitution without regard for the obvious transformations of privacy, usury, monetary value, meaning and value of life after global wars fought; and to be expected. By inference: war this time will be catastrophic or apocalyptic. 

The Supreme Court is making decisions based upon a bias established by the former Republican Administration. Meaning, to me, that possibly where we are is intentional or a mistake. Conservatism seems to them to be fore material. While my bias is always for life.

I apply the same standard of justice upon myself being curious, or mindful, of consequence.

I've made many ludicrous remarks and judgements against the laws of our land and those officers of the court who administer them. That was then--this is now. I've changed as I must given the evidence I use to argue my case without apologies. I was wrong.

Myth, like poetry or parables, expresses truths that otherwise would require proof. It is not what we say but what we do that is the final proof our truths. All civilizations rise and fail simply based upon what they do for the least of us: women and the poor remaining defenseless. 

At times I've experience my life as: 'road kill' or 'walking across a dark room covered with marbles, or eggs.' Or being--given my love affair playing with words: 'a Mirror Maze.' One must either remove or destroy the mirrors. Or find a path through them. I've done all three.

Albert Einstein expressed an active sense of gratitude for an other worldly intelligent energy guiding his accomplishments. A 'theology' if you will allow. From his results, conclusions, discoveries added to my own; I have faith in the following: 

The science of life: biology, physics, medicine, psychology or philosophy are valid only as working in terms of flesh and blood reality. Science is dependent upon myth as well as the Bible; both are inspired.

Truth. 

Unlike our current world sense of 'God.' Ideally being fixed and immutable. Our belief is subject to violent attacks based on definitions mutually exclusive to one belief construct or another. 

God answers prayers by individuals; we cannot change the world. But we can change how we experience it without addiction to crutches. Loving God is sane, though I myself have been insane in love at times, I now know perfect sanity and look forward to meeting God face-to-face. 

Albert Einstein said; “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

"It [gaming] is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief." --George Washington

120930 08:53 history

©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Uncle & aunt fuzzy sorry bout dat @ 1-2-4-3 Tellez Wedding!

Bertha & Ray Tellez marrying off their first daughter #2 2 Chris said she had her original wedding ring stolen someone broke into their or her home before during after? whatever happened when and why the stolen ring began a string of thoughts that slowly began to eviscerate me maybe dissolve? maybe not but it began to hurt and the water began to fill my eyes somewhat like looking like I was looking at the stations some had been stolen and were Xerox copies?
U know it used to be that when working it would be for me frenzy entering the cyclone of considering all the variables within potential capture inside the frame of what a camera sees so it follows that there are mom, dad and four girls of whom one is the bride to be soon married. . . .What's her name?
oh dear me What's her name? 2-3-1-4? not Bertha or Ray of course! I'd asked them to wear NFL Football Jerseys over their wedding costumes but they laughed and giggled and smirked at me (the really didn't understand my greed and need to direct the choreography of the wedding march to and from the alter since I am not ordained and Father Dom would have to kick me away from IT! . . . U know in times past I'd say the best thing that ever happened to me was learning to read the Dick & Jane Reader, then I discovered playing with myself---oh boy!---then girls---more better---kisses and things like that the trouble with kissing girls is that it leads to soooooo muuccchch more like .......................babies Well i really don't like boys all that much. what's a guy gonna do? moving right alone/along then came M im so crazy for M the best event of my life and maybe maybe not in heaven for me is to make M laugh. Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters make room for me in the funny farm fun house filled with distorting mirrors the carnival of wonder a MIRROR MAZE!!

U know i really shouldn't share this with you or anyone . . . shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsh! can you keep a secret? I sometimes am seized by visions, omens, runes, ruins of my heart, visions and daydreams, myths and portents: things that just make me wanna run jump shout ride the ceiling fans going about completely nuts.

u sea Bertha said the wedding rings could be replaced but her high school class ring could not and she's worked long and hard to pay for that weeping blood and shedding sweat to purchase it and the thief or thieves Incorporated meaning the rights of individuals to bore me to tears with their greed well than I began to cry and had to walk away and make someone laugh before I became hysterical upon the floor a puddle of love evaporating like a jelly fish in July in the Death Valley abandoned when i was a little boy never really small but smaller than i am now i don't mean around! but as tall!@ Mom had this ring in her sewing basket and i saw it and asked what it was why what for and she said it was for me when I growed up and of course U sea i went crazy nuts wanting that ring right away and again and again i begged for it she eventually gave it to me a man's ring she bought for her graduation when she was a well just a girl and not a woman or mother of me for me and wearing it i lost it somewhere in the playground of Old Greenwich Elementary School and i remembered it was muddy and cold that day i died of shame weeping with guilt i wandered into dusk then dark then dawn looking for that ring oh Dear God why do i still love silent women? Wouldn't it have been better if she had beaten me to death or stabbed me with her pinking shears or used me for a thimble or pin cushion??????????????????????????????????????????
God U can't fool me since mom forgave me last night telling me it wasn't my fault since she could have wrapped the ring with band aids and it wouldn't have fallen off . . . I loved/love/will always love mom for ever.  Finally forgiven never forgotten in Maysville Kentucky

i have to say this i did wrong 4 wrong wrong 4 right 4 right and on and on ad infinitum in love for mom God as dad never really worked for me since he dad was just a clown silent watching not smirking but inert while she beat the tar out of me at times but that was all healed at the Tellez Wedding Rehearsal and by mom this morning sometime after midnight and there was is a full moon too, two 2 in a tutu dancing the best prayer after music but of course the two go together don't they!?
1209829 08:08 Tellez Wedding
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Death . . . of course Virginia there is that but lasting briefly but a moment the pain of leaving but of those left we who mourn the suffering is just begun save for but those of us know death a mercy for some. 

Love unending is the beginning and ending and the middle or substance of existence and lived or ignored and discovered only in the blinding binding light magnificent and for this we return perhaps to learn again that love is all there is.

What we love loves us, kisses of coins or flesh or wind vagrant touching and caressing us but a moment or more again and again Dragon Flies resting their long flight across Narragansett Bay upon cat's paws of little to no wind and upon arrival after hours of drifting or seemingly so aboard Lisa bass fastened not lasting electrolysis you know but long enough for upon the far shore dad leaned out and asked the clamer what state is this? Center Board Shoal Draft don't you know? Oh Dear Virginia. Don't you know nothing about boats and mucking about in them ecstatic and blessed-blissed out?

Holy Ghost Spiritual Host of All Clouds, Virginia, The emergent Mary marching from east to west whiting the clouds still in darkness Virginia know ye nothing of love? Let me show ye from the starry sailing about the midnight bereft moonless milky way Virginia.

Oh Virginia don't you know yourself a redeemer saviour prophet saint angel not merely a little girl in a gingham checked sailor suit with a skirt and pig tails beads and all intertwined and cornrows I love you so

&

death

hath

no

dominion

&

what's

god

call

U

when

wanting

to 

play?

120929 06:36 proof

©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

'words tattooed upon and within your heart '

moments in love
love loving you loving love
when it all the ecstasy and tragedy becomes one endless string of pearls and you are loved loving love loved you become the melting eye seeing it all a symphony of all love that ever was growing oceans and all the water in the entire cosmos is love loving love we’re all canaries in the coal mine called to sing and some do some don’t some won’t and some just lay there dead passing their songs along to others yet to be becoming love of themselves pearls in the continuity of love and in love names become meaningless fear gone forever more no more terrorist of fear since love is loved and accepted in whatever way it comes is love.

I buried her in Maysville Kentucky in a white refrigerator with gilt plastic handles mandated by the airline carrying her to me to put in her final resting place in Maysville Kentucky and Tom was bored because I couldn’t stop reciting from the Prayer Book Celebration of Internment and because I loved him and her and my sister I stopped and came to me last night and said; “Its okay son; “I loved you all along.” No exclamation mark no need shout or runabout singing or saying anything but the tears began then and quivered in my reserve of arrows loving their target and all the children beside her sang love is love loved the author of all love is love in chorus silently loving me loving them and the author of us. 

Was I born to say this? I’ll not ever know until before the judge of all love the lover of us.

It was asked of me once what does it mean if you see Buddha walking down the path towards you? It means you don’t ever kill anything or anyone because what you Kill slays u & u don’t have to slay me because I slay myself for u and 4 love B well B loved Beloved always loved exactly where and how and here you are. 

There is no end to of love it holds us the courses like the stars above us singing in chorus winking and blinking the tears away all the time until time ends never I could stop but won’t because in the end which is never you feel the love or don’t I buried her beside her father dead at four she never knew who says essentially I did did not shoot myself on purpose . . . but that’s my story not yours Yours must be sung to you as mine is to me making it apparent apprehended and convicted that U2 are loved, beloved, lovely and adored 2 well hell doesn’t exist and the devil is in you as well as love and in choosing you see the reason U must die to yourself and be reborn again coming back loving differently U see for M it would be insane for me to preach love to you since I cry every time I read reading aloud 1 Corinthians 13 and sometimes even get hysterical and roll in the mud beside my dead son never to be seen again and the deal is pastoral and liturgical the first has no script and the latter has one that goes on and around 24/7/365 a tsunami of love drowning everything before it. 

read the words tattooed upon and within your heart what you otherwise being young and about to take over the controls of life wear not upon your sleeve but the flesh of your arms 

120929 04:08 celebrate
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

120928‭ ‬02:06‭ ‬train wreck

Time is a fetish; I once sold it by the hour to clients around the world; but principally through The New York Times and one or two Editorial Agencies . . . never in that era finding the courage to go out and sell myself to other clients I was well qualified for.

Retirement for my peers seems odd to me since I’ve not yet realized that I am in fact‭ '‬retired.‭' ‬Many of my associates remain idle reliving the‭ "‬glory days.‭" ‬I am still in the trenches pushing the envelope of creation forward and outward.‭ ‬Chuckling now I remember dad calling them‭ "‬war stories.‭" ‬I have yet begun to die in the traces; always noticing odd incidents and coincidences; what CG.‭ ‬Jung called‭ '‬synchronicity.‭'

I am,‭ ‬to myself,‭ ‬a train wreck of ideas‭ ‬.‭ ‬.‭ ‬.‭ ‬have you ever seen one‭? ‬Enormous‭  ‬mass hurtling in one direction.‭ ‬Engine going off track or burying itself into something stationary.

By vocation I was a professional photojournalist. Teaching the topic at The University of Rhode Island. Writing a photography column for The Providence Journal. Where I was employed as a staff photographer.  During this time I went to Missouri for a photojournalism workshop taught principally National Geographic Editors. And there I met Howard Chapnick of Black Star Publishing who later on gave me an assignment to cover the “Dump Nixon Rally” in front of the Rhode Island State House. I declined fearing it would imperil; with my son’s diagnosis of Leukemia  an employment assured Medical Insurance Policy. I recommended a coworker who did the work but my photograph made Life Magazine, double page, with an Associated Press credit line. My son Randy died six years later and my career as a photojournalist had for all intents and purposes died with that missed opportunity. This is not a resume, but another page in my journal keeping. I am surprised to recall that particular loss right up front. Until recently I could remember only becoming blind to my ambitions then. Of which Howard, over lunch at his invitation said; “Jack you are one the the twenty best photojournalist in the world.” . . . I was stunned and having no self-esteem presumed he wanted me to crawl beneath the table and fellate him; as it was I managed to leave the restaurant with a white linen table cloth firmly stuck in my belt.

Between then and now everything has changed. It is difficult to explain in detail and irrelevant; my focus it other and outward directed; away from myself to you and your Self.

I had begun keeping a journal shortly after my son’s death, his death following that of his sister’s; born with Spina Bifida. Traumatised in childhood as most of us are, in one way or another; my life became unendurable: depressed and suicidal. In 1993 I threw away all that I had created; images, tearsheets and my writings; everything.

This business of keeping a journal is not exclusively for posterity. I find the act of writing therapeutic; lending both peace and joy with the added benefit of clarity recorded for later review. Even if only to edit and rewrite before publication a deliberate effort to save others who like myself lived with daily suicidal ideation.

I argue synchronicity both ways, for and against myself, attempting to deny what eventually became obviously undeniable. Events and words strung together that were too fabulous to explain otherwise. Looking at now, the before and endless afterward I am simply humiliated that I could not own it or fulfill the gifts bestowed; instead I fled. Even now I am compelled to transpose or translate what I sense is appropriate and meet or match the language of those I encounter . . . those who call me long distance to say goodbye dying after hanging up. Bereft of excuse or shrugged shoulders I need to be explicit with both, myself and the audience of one.

Remembering is part of keeping a journal; placing events and choices within a context. Though I’ve kept it for years and well remember surprises discovered being now rediscovered newly minted bright shiny and new coins from common materials. Choices seen seminal, roads taken others abandoned. My ego surrendered to a newly discovered truth. An old man with the ground rising to meet my journey; distant mountain tops ahead beckoning my stride increasing. No longer laboring. 

The teacher taught that I have light years to travel yet vigorously. To myself I seem younger returning to innocence all previous lessons learned well. A night train running full bore joyously; whistle echoing behind me.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

"We are the people of times infinity flowing"

Reclining my eyes through the dark/sense a dream catcher/my head toward the north/upon my wrist is a band of brass from Tibet/around my right ring finger/a ring of silver upon which/a Mimbrenos peoples of my locality/1000 years-ago symbolic a lizard reposes/and upon my left Anamika ("nameless")/ a turquoise ring glows/what you might call 'wedded finger'

Perhaps, if time allows, meaning I don't die too soon -- one never knows; given the chaos of over crowding everywhere . . . I'll complete the poem started at the annotated time: it is now 120927 20:07.

M has taught me many things: intentionally and unintentionally, since with each time together I grow; both in love with her and larger in ability to understand and interpret her silences intuitively. She has walked with me through many changes, what I can call conversion/born again but refuse to accept the lexicon of either Occidental or oriental divination. Since it is thousands of years ago that it was spoken of.
Experientially the feeling is being extruded, or reduced -- losing prior conceits, hypocrisies, bigotry etc. Watch the no-speak of politicians and you will know what I shun and why. . . . seeking tolerance versus intolerance.

We are a people of the New Consciousness, all called, few answer and of those few most seek profit; not prophecy. Prophets seldom die in their sleep; they always speak truth to powers that dominate their time.

The image illustrating this post is her name in Native American Symbol. If you can read it you can/may know who she is. Otherwise, should I predecease her, you will never know; at least not from me.

We both are of Native American descent; hers considerably more recent than mine. Ancient: his name was Florence, buried beside a significant oak tree at the time, with his horse; in the state of Kentucky, USA. His grave is otherwise unmarked and I haven't a clue where it might be within a state that I've traveled: side to side top to bottom. 

I have immutable faith in the succeeding generations judging by their reverting to tribalism; what I initially misjudged as 'acting out' is in fact identification of their time of power when we are gone. They are possessed with anger worthy of the time ahead. 

Unlike the learning of those who protest our (America's Preeminence in the world) they lack our education. Theirs being, on the poorest levels of society, limited to what their religious leaders want them to know and act upon. We the learned of the world, while cynical at worst, skeptical a best know a better blend of church & state.

I am able to read signs. And so please forgive my rationalizations as being dictated by God. Who is not the God of your understanding; but The Great Spirit who knows what a Shapeshifter is/for/about. 

Yet, at that, I am equally able to intuit or trace the paths of others, either oriental or occidental towards what they sought . . . it is the Teacher who will answer your fears with peace, not me, or "God" or the 'devil.' Once you have crossed the boundary between illusion too experience, you will kill no one and definitely not your self. 

No costly licit or illicit drugs, no byproducts save for love; and no hangover. Better, or more better, yet no jail time just move forward towards eternal life.

I have light years to travel before my next rest period. House keeping chores mostly and a wedding rehearsal and dinner to attend tomorrow. 

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Medici%2c+Cosimo+de'

120927 14:43 amulet talisman fetish

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

120927 05:25 4 U

I'm not here for you, me or God. This is simply my journal from which I occasionally tear pages sharing my images; here and there. I have no sense of urgency; what drove Jesus to committed suicide on the Cross. Although His sacrifice and martyrdom was for me for us for posterity magnificent it was done and that's enough. 

My theology, teleology or tango is of no concern to you. You, if you care about life, should learn to simply love yourself as you are . . . as God . . . and as I do. Yet I am ashamed to put my name next to, or near, or even on the same page, book or anywhere near God. Scratch the 'ashamed' replace with humiliated maybe. Or maybe not because to claim humility is a signature of genius and therefore of God. 

I have begged, prostrated, belittled myself forever attempting to gain approval and a right to live when all I ever received was, more-or-less, rejection, abandonment, beating, kicking and all the rest. Yet when I stroll the graveyard at St. Genevieve's and come upon a child's grave I don't kneel and weep as I did leaving Rhode Island beside Sr. Karin Flynn's grave to say 'thank you & goodbye.'

I saw two women, once, tamping down a fresh grave before which was a marker covered with toys. I asked who, what, where, when and why . . . they told me the father &/or mother had beaten the child to death for wetting his/her bed. 

And here, in Las Cruces, New Mexico -- it really is part of The United States of America -- once a part of Mexico but no more. I know a man who is my friend, a good friend, my best friend until I told him I'd never ride in his car! Because he was sold a new iPhone and was telling me about being bored while driving so he did, could and will use it as a diversion. To be fair: he stipulated very strict limits: at night on a deserted interstate, as he did while driving long haul trailer truck all across America.

He was overdosed with Ritalin as a child for annoying his parents. Was he, like me, 'lucky' to not be beaten to death? What is the difference? He is a handsome man turning 68 on October 20th and could run circles around me multidimensionally had he not been mentally mutilated chemically. . . . 

The only reason I have not, at least not yet, run amok completely berserk killing anyone or anything other than myself -- sitting here in my underpants smoking cigarettes -- is that someone, many someone(s) were kind to me. And if I claim to be loved by God I am, as we all are; even the parents and doctor and pharmaceutical company who made the drug etc.

I have no fear and fear not death. For starters, Jesus taught me that, were you asleep during the teaching? Or were you a slave in North Kingstown Rhode Island asleep with the master's horse waiting his/her pleasure the ride back to the manse? I weep now for the simple pleasure of having touched the cup consecrated by a Spratt during Queen Anne's time serving the Blood of Christ in The Old Narragansette Church . . . I digress and should never be allowed access to a computer or The Internet.

Ritalin; for ADHD = Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder 
refract v prism bending light
"religion is society worshiping itself" . . . from my 'personal dictionary' where I look when I cannot get Google's Chrome to look it up for me; why I use it.

. . . The Ritalin Man hasn't spoken to me since I told him I'd not ride with him even if I'd been burnt nearly to death by some other person speaking on a cell phone driving me into the Jersey Barrier or a pile of other folks also being burnt to death from negligence. I've promised him my car at the time of my death; his has 380,000 miles on it. Mine, though eleven years old, paid for, has only 51,000 on it + 30 mpg around town 38 mph highway. 

I make note of days, hours, months, seasons the wobble of the earth moving into the Age of Aquarius etc. I can, but won't, tell you why. You have to figure your own periodicity out. Every minute is sacramental now. I take special note of birthdays, his is the 20th of October, I won't call him, won't send him a card, won't inflict my attention upon him or M or Susan or Annie . . . 

And I won't bother with the Authorities since I tore myself apart for thirty-five years with guilt that I might by: any means or measures in ways unknowable, have caused the death of my daughter, the abandonment by the other daughter or Randy's death. Susan possibly introverted and by nurture or nature silent seems to become more so behind the costume of Priest. 

120927 08:54

I am, at times, seized, by, or with rage; ready to lash out. I have tried to kill myself and failed too many times to not wonder why. I know the rage as the obverse of my passion and compassion, the opposite of empathy . . . at it is at this point the childhood discovery of H. L. Mencken's; . . .they should be put to sleep like mad dogs . . . echoes. 

Was I a victim? yes Did I want to kill my parents or God for the children's absence? yes Did I, Do I, want M to die? No! Do I want to die -- i don't care anymore. If you speak to anyone providing security personally and in trust of non-disclosure, no quote. They will tell you there is no possibility to deter a determined foe. I am not unique. I am a member of the School of Terrorism -- THOUGHT POLICE TAKE NOTICE! -- I am merely an unwanted child born from or by unknowing parents. I am too well versed in The Bible to presume Randy could save the world yet in his death I feel into hell and . . . or so I now believe took Jodi with me. In all probability she will never know me as I am now, nor will her daughter. Nor will Susan. And. . . .not even M can hold me for long from killing myself . . . dare I say, only God can? He couldn't save Jesus. Add to which I am sincerely more concerned with lunatic fundamentalist who might take offense at what I say about HIS BIBLE or HIS KORAN. 

. . . and then I return to the certainty that in Imperial Rome and the KGB they would eradicate forward and backward all who seemed to imperiled the State. The Holy Roman Church is guilty of the same. By deed or behavior it: THE AUTHORITY is stilling doing it to those who are, like I was in life, inconvenient to the authority able and willing to incarcerate, beat to death, burn me alive, eradicate and expunge.

In a sense I compete with God to be least and last making sure that all the living are saved. When M dies the world will have lost a magnificent human being for whom I have no jealousy; since to see her with anyone else is to see grace incarnate. Not, mind you, that I enjoy being a lump or litter on the floor but either or any way it is a joy for me to see her 'work.' I am merely a witness of God becoming more so hourly: a witness for God. 

With that I will close reminding you that you can only change your perceptions and know peace. Bliss beyond the providence of medicine, licit/illicit drugs . . . I would rather, like the religious and civilians of Tibet burn myself alive than thwart her powers. Beware of 'bad Karma' as The Dalai Lama said in regard to China's incursions into that place.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

“If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.”

"It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” --Anais Nin

“For whatever else the religious life may be, it is the fountain of self-knowledge and disillusion, the safest form of psychoanalysis.” --C. S. LEWIS

120926 14:57 ordinary life

Day follows night seamless; I follow the Buddhist Master's; "Sleep when tired, eat when hungry." Napping during the daylight hours: I sleep like the dead and nothing can awaken me. Living on a local shortcut between two thoroughfares gleans many kids on motorcycles without mufflers and children screaming in playful joy only noted when I am awake.

I love this place where I live.

Breakfast at 02:30

Lunch at 07:30

Supper at 13:00

And I cannot remember when the last meal of my day is consumed. As stated: seamless are my days. I do sleep approximately one to two hours at a time awakening and cleaning house, grooming Annie's litter box and writing. Awakening remembering a dream or dialog and then the usual routine . . . .
Has changed from collecting quotes seeking answers to dreams or what's up Doc!?

Since retiring from Hospice work. Where I had presumed I would have continued until I could no longer do so. Never anticipating the conflict over my copyrighted material. Oh well . . . I'm okay, they're okay and life and death goes on; nothing unusual just the ordinary of, what has become, extraordinary: my life.

I travel easily between cultures and can fool around with even the most violent gangsters; immune. Why? I'll never know.

There are, even now, "days of Obligation:" water aerobics, grocery shopping and I will of need do the laundry idle since last February -- don't be concerned I have days of the year underwear. Sheets however are another matter.

Then there is M my joy in whose presence silent I've known more pleasure than anything I've ever seen in a television or moving picture show. And for whom I'd crawl naked over broken glass through fire just to see and maybe, maybe not, hear her voice.

Dangerous of association and impossible to live with for the ferocity of my lust and love am i. However I did in previously idle moments wish I had something to do that did not require the authority of The New York Times, Playboy or Time Magazine to do . . . oddly having been around the world so many times I simply refuse to encase myself in an aluminum coffin and go anywhere now.

Preferring instead to enter eternity within my mind, soul and heart; vastly rewarding it is, more tears, laughter and joy than I ever assumed myself capable of.

I haven't told you anything you do not already know of or about me yet I've had the pleasure of touching the keys and seeing the characters copulate becoming sentences convicted that I must stay awake another few hours to fulfill a previous engagement: pre rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, wedding and whatever follows--the most arduous work I'll ever do with a camera. Weddings for friends who abused my free gift by stealing my copyright claiming; "well I just charged the for my time getting your stuff printed." And she was a 'fellow artist' whose living depended on her craft.

The last tendril of my association with Hospice is a wedding I volunteered to do for zip to keep a friendly custodian from having to spend money for a wedding photographer. And I hope I don't expire on the job; the hardest work I've every done with a camera.

He, his family, and community are the remnant of what has become blurred here. Boundaries between Native American, Franciscan, whites like me, Mexicans, blacks, Asian Indians, etc. . . . by intermarriage the kids are glorious.

The last tendril. I knew it was always possible that they would have discovered me doing things I was unqualified for. There was no one else to pick up patients off the floor. Wipe their sit downs etc. I knew it was a privilege, not a right to be there, and so finally they kicked me to the curb over copyrights? I have arthritis in my hands, bad, shoulders, back and neck, getting worse each attack and so the professional grade Canon Cameras had to go. I couldn't hold them with one hand and do the things I did that would have resulted in my being asked to leave anyway. I replaced the entire system without promise of paying for it from reserves held back in case of medical emergency. Roughly thirteen thousand dollars lost; I should have just given them the money instead.

Life is ugly in America now. Civil strife between the have and have not. I pray it remains nonviolent.
Whatever
I remain joyful and able to arise from sleep and greet the next session of writing nonsense. It gives me a joy I never knew possible and more so each day, daily growing better and more conscientious about editing and rewrite before rushing . . . there are no more deadlines and I'm stress free. So I'll live another day or so concerned about M who may not.

Just another ordinary day. In an ordinary life. i ain't nothing special and nothing to see; pardon me while i disappear.

120927 00:57

I said and did all the wrong things for the right (to me now) reasons. Is that rationalization?

Were I Hitler in front of The JUDGE what would I say, what could I do?
a. God looks nothing like you or me
b. Jerusalem the 'city of peace' who named it?
(note please: I didn't start this; it began last night at a little semi-humble real adobe Franciscan Church where:Ray & Family: Bertha and four daughters who called themselves "#1, #2, #3 & #4 . . . all lovely and none looked like one or the other . . . thinking post man, milk man, baker, banker????
c. Father Dom who knew Cardinal Bernadin as I did, conversationally, never showed up? What was I there for? . . . .Well let me tell you I was in bliss (weeping now) the moon kissed the clouds peeking at us visible 3/4 of it and the light, oh Dear God The Light! Was it #3 or #1? Who said; "Yeah the sunset was good too" . . . looking west. I hadn't noticed as I wandered around where I was six years ago on The Holy Mother's birthday and the natives dancing ferociously ecstatic. Curious . . . i'm always curious . . . especially about all the Children of God . . . I've always been -- and yeah when I talk to myself I get answers. No. I'm not crazy I'm just in love with God . . . and . . . All God's Children . . . get you mind out of your pants Jack.

On second thought leave it in your knickers. I mean those short legged pants to play golf in not the British version of panties . . . you know the short legged pants to show off your Argyle socks and fancy pointy spiked shoes (laughter)

. . . God doesn't really change us. Metaphorically God makes us, like Hitler, see all the why's, wherefores . . . poor Adolph. I once viewed an "Illustrated Novel" (read Comic Book!) Hitler strapped into a chair eye lids propped open head affixed to a posing brace -- See Mathew Bradley etc. -- time exposure photography listening to and viewing his speeches: ALL OF THEM FOREVER ON A TRIP TO NOWHERE

is that hell?

Well if it is; this what I'm doing at the moment; is hell too two to 2 in a tutu and I f#*!ing love it. (M said; "I delete at first sight the "F" word! . . . is there such a character as a Half Exclamation point? I hate being scolded by beautiful, intelligent, kind, women, whom I love, worship and adore. Meaning I know when they are excited and out of control. Oh Boy oh boy do I remember the few times Susan was so! Sexual I didn't know her but enjoyed it. Making love to or with a (for me only women) is fantastic! Even if it is merely practice. . . . and oh man Rae is a happy dude. . . . & Bertha, #1-2-3-4 have special names for him slyly smerking and him, aw shucks, pawing the pavement looking down at his shoes . . . now I know why I was there . . . I loved him, love him so because he was he and I was i in hospice.

. . . i'll stop here. I have to. God is not in charge of me; i am. I feel like one of those inflated toys suspended above the madding throng on Thanksgiving in NY,NY what is now called Macy's Parade and I simply must deflate myself before I float away defying the laws of nature and physics . . . it is not time for me to return home. not yet anyway.

Religion is a portal to God. It is about -- but not God. We are we, or what we are; and God is simply God. Always Thou. And like M I am helplessly in love with BOTH! As I was with Susan, then Randy, and Johanna and Jodi but I've lost them all and . . . found or been found by God

120927 02:27

You are very special to me, not merely those few who read what I write, but all of the world filled with life. At that. I am helpless to do anything dramatic. And were I able it wouldn't matter. There are too many of us to sustain and the world . . . is going down.

Worn out?
Don't think so since were it not for us the world would be just fine. But then we wouldn't be here would we?

You, including those of you who attempt to control or flee from the "Madding Throng" are loved by God and thus me. You like me are nothing special, just another form of life like wolves and butterflies. There is one small difference, not my faith in or love affair with God, it is merely that in the Carnival Mirror Maze I've broken most of them to bits and cleaned out the vast floor of . . . the ground of my being and now in line skate freely upon the vast plain of eternity knowing myself as 'other' than what you say i am. As reflected in the mirrors surrounding me here on my in line roller blades chortling and skating doing figure eights.

I've long held a theory that Jesus was resurrected as is Mary via the Holy Spirit or something like that within all forms of life. Merely conjecture for and about which I have no affirmations from God . . . I've come to adore God's silence as well as God's 'speaking' not to me alone of course . . . but to all of us and that's why I write. This is a personal journal of how I came to be conscious in a time of unconsciousness. A time of fear, anxiety and, let me very plain: terrorism.

U ain't seen nothing yet! It is going to get, rapidly, worse: wars over water, air, arable land and it is not exactly "Global Warming." But maybe -- maybe not -- that plus a host of other issues.

Sex is fun as well as procreation. Without television, the Internet, etc. What's a man and woman, boy and girl, boy & boy, girl & girl going to do on cold winter nights? U got it! Whether ecstatic, by the numbers, boring as wheat paste; it is part of life like; birth-life-then death: part and parcel.

Yesterday I deleted all my pornography sites from Opera my, next to Chrome, favorite browser. Remembering M's affirmation of my doing so once before. (Odd, or not so odd, last evening exhausted I returned from the adobe church were the Indians pray . . . singing silently to me and Our Lady of Guadeloupe whose Cathedral in Mexico City called to me, to kneel, and knee walk to her walls & kiss her then grimy stones . . . True. I didn't but remember, remembering at the church in Mesilla wanting to and I so adore The Virgin Mary . . . i'm starting to cry. I realize that I saw her face yesterday in all the women I then met in reality and I'm weeping more now for the joy of seeing what I saw = see/saw & yeah looking into the Emerald Green Eyed Sphinx is for me similar just hadn't recognized it yet until writing it out.) Pornography is one of America's greatest profit makers and exports. Do you now wonder why Muslems want to thrawrt our 'progress?' I don't really know, but judging by my experience, sex to them is a sacrament about which no image can be worshiped. Yet in American, I cannot deny my complicity in it, pornography is a product. Yes 'Virgina' I masturbate lots, at least I did getting no, Susan my love forgive me, satisfaction.

That one life should be destroyed, whether Diplomat or peasant, boy, girl or dog . . . They're all equal in value to God. Yet Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin killed people by the millions. Why? Ideology become idolatry.

It is not what I, or God, or you want . . . it is They who profit from war. Were there a tithe, a gleaning, the lesser part of all the money spend on destroying life . . . life and love would be more possible for the rest of us. Retiring from hospice, and sincerely praying for a sundry reasons and roles causing it, I've come to recognize, without rationalization, it was very simply time to move on.

I did it. Not God or "The Devil."

& what?

I'm out of the closet: decisive versus indecisiveness; my former name.

I am not a lot of things I could name and don't want to be anything but a retired photojournalist who has seen what I didn't want to see. When I told Denis of my sorrow at losing a woman I'd fed for three years because she couldn't. He said, quietly: "i know."

In that simple exchange I realized the agony of Jesus, not on the Cross, but all those he couldn't heal because they said; "No way" or "Go away you bore me." Or, Or, Or.

. . . Susan became an Episcopal Priest and I happily didn't. Clerics are a reprise of Jesus driven out into the desert to die alone. He didn't, obviously. Scapegoat -- means covered with the sins of others they wish to no longer know about . . . how do I know this? From experience since I too did the same thing with her.

M said, loosely transliterated, to me, cryptically: "heal." When I later on asked 'who, why, when and were?' She said; "you will."

I have tried to editorialize my opinions making myself ridiculous to myself let alone you who have read me. It is not all the cats who don't get stuck up trees that make the "News!" but all the cats that don't go near trees. Cats know how to get down, their human companions don't know or have forgotten that.

Sufi's talk to me drawing the child who reads them into conspiracy with love. Buddha et al make it simple how to read life but Sufi's live it . . . and the one who evaporates me making me air or water is Rumi.

Helpless to heal her. Knowing I can't have her. I know better the humility of being a child of god. I have God no more or less than any living thing -- well actually all the elements of life and being -- than either you or M . . . I do not love Rumi the poet but who he wrote to. Add to which the who writes back U won't know that until you look inward as M implied . . . it is not she but God who replies.

In closing: I took a notion to buy some ice cream, it is really bad for me -- triglycerides-- yet waiting to check out this little girl in a pink top started unloading her families cart beside me. I turned to the cashiers, a woman of indeterminate age and asked; "Would you like to be her?"

"No. I did that and don't want to go back." What The Buddha said upon his death bed. That's why I'm a Christian because in death Jesus said; "forgive them they know not what they do."

And i, nothing, want to join that small chorus of those who care and give versus those who take.

# 6. Thou shalt not kill: from my notes -- The Ten Commandments

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

120926 0440 --Ayn Rand

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--Ayn Rand
"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in the lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists . . it is real . . it is possible . . it's yours." --Atlas Shrugged

--Katharine Hepburn
"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything."

Of the two, I prefer the latter to the former for President.

Everything material thing in life has a bias. Wood, for example, depending on the type of tree, has a distinct grain or bias; easily identifiable. Were we to speak in terms of "The Tree of Life," I think it appropriate to speak not of a single tree but all of them since trees are principal agents in clearing the atmosphere and water filtration.

Material such as steel has a different grain than aluminum which is principally flaky. And of plastic only God knows what's in that. Chemicals controlling the molecular structure? Speaking for myself I prefer glass having no carcinogenic potentials. Where I buy groceries poor people go and they advise me to avoid cans and plastic preferring glass as well as I now do.

I live on sub poverty Social Security, my inheritance lost in the recent economic downturn while considerable and excluding the million or so given to my half-brother should have been $l.25 million dollars. I appreciate and apprehend the value of poverty since amongst the poor we share everything and no one goes with out.

I rest my case.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

God, more real than you or i are

God, more real than you or i are

120925 22:19 ah ha!

I'd hate to die wondering and now I can die in peace finally recognizing that we, you and me; all of us are unwanted burdens to, resulting from, our parent's pleasure. 

Maybe: byproducts?

Accidents! Yes!

Of course you and I are unwanted; never thought of in the moments of mating like rabbits. That's what mothers are for to take of the mess for the next so many years. In some cases forever at least until they die leaving the child remaining at age 12 grown old at 70 still mentally challenged and incapable of taking care of themselves . . . no shame in that. And. Yes. Children we are our brother's keepers.

Yes. Life is divine but not particular to you or me but all life in general. Love & God are funny that way. Sometimes God says; "take notes" and gives me entire poems/prayers or sentences and paragraphs and once a complete short story. Seldom, but it has happened more than once . . . I know . . . I know you're thinking I'm nuts or at best schizophrenic but I'm too old. It would have happened in my middle age not just before I'm gonna die. 

In for a penny, in for a pound: British Sterling. 
Do you get my point? 
We were children when first we made love and that was because she didn't want to go to the movies watching actors pretend. 

As indicated I was gaga over her and still am: The Bride-of-my-Youth. It wasn't her fault it was ours, I was complicit and though I did run away I came back. Actually we renewed our vows three times over and the last time was magnificent! 

All the omens, portents and signs. Lighting, Rain like a Race Horse before the race; then a rainbow I'll never forget and the sun, "God's Eye" winking between the black under bellied clouds.

Soon I'll meet St. Joseph again and we'll talk about it all; the whole deal; enquiring minds, mine, wants to know. EVERYTHING!

I'm not just the gazing globe I am the chrome trailer hitch. Dense. Blind. Deaf, dumb and stupid. 

Okay.

It's okay we'll be fine here or wherever God wants us next; we've worn out this planet with overpopulation and it is time to move on. 

M said it all, "In my time you got married. You'd made you bed now lay in it forever until you die." From which and other clues I know she remains married to OB & Nazoni. As for me, though divorced we'll meet in heaven and carry on or something like that.

With just one little problem, I'm married to God. . . . or something like that.

Sweet baby Jesus flying a drone bombing mushrooms in Tokyo. I was never alone. You were with me?!

Wilco over and out I'll wait until you take me home bro. If you have yourself & God who else do you really need? Annie? And/or Koko!

120926 02:22 Part II

Myth and poetry serve a purpose. It is to express and detail things otherwise impossible to believe. 

In infancy we are cynical, then become skeptical. Once fully mature, as I am now (being male it takes much longer than females and most men never make IT.) The sequence in The Creation Myth was reversed because men wanted to take all the credit then enslaving women to them by guilt & shame. 

First created, metaphorically was Lilith/Eve something like what we called the skull 'Lucy' from whom, by virgin birth, was conceived and created 'Adam' the first male. It is at this point that I was formerly confused. Where was God? Was God the tree? The snake or The Apple?? 

Given M's allergy to tomatoes I think it was a tomato, which she calls "Deadly Night Shade." Which, I may be very incorrect on this, some call it a 'fruit' and others call it a 'vegetable.' For convenience sake let us think in terms of God being a Shapeshifter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapeshifting 

"Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes." -- C. S. Lewis

I remain nameless. God has yet to reveal my 'God-Given-Name' to me. My role is obviously subordinate to M since I love her to the extent I loved Susan; unreasonably and putting up with her intransigent silence. When I told her I wanted a divorce it was shameful since I was then dependent upon the agency of another woman. Typical male: Standard Operational Procedure: SOP find a newer or better model and leave. I did, without rationalization, wait until seven years or so after the internment scene: me hysterical and she silent standing with Nancy across the open grave.

Approximately eighteen months into our relationship. We were having lunch at The Village Inn, the one closest to our gym. I distinctly remember becoming gelatinous when M suggested that Susan was 'evil.' Seated at a semi-private both I nearly fell crying to the floor. I have never been 'suggestible' to men but women have always poised a threat to me. I had fended off several, not many, suggestions that I have sex with women. And one in particular had been a "Groupie" of Lee Romero's. Apparently she liked "star" photographers. I denied her going on to deny the promised potential in being "a star photographer" when my son was diagnosed with Leukemia. Recall, please, that my daughters birth, witnessed by me, it was obvious she would not, could not survive. The recall I had as a charity photographed for a hospital in Rhode Island a caesarian section birth.
I can be both Fire & Ice with a camera in hand and am so as I write this.

My intentions and motives in writing have now become obvious to me. M suggested in her acrylic way that I could 'heal.' At a time not too long ago I asked what she meant. She replied; 'you will.'
In frustration I "doubled-down" on keeping my journal, eventually publishing in hopes that others, like myself, could find healing without drugs or professional help. 

Never underestimate your 'enemy' think instead that the adversary, is like or possibly, superior in stealth and cunning. I mention this because I have an arbitrary limit learned from writing a photography column for The Providence Journal. Add. That your attention to anything written has the span of a fruit fly's attention.

My 'healing' is a process not a miracle. It takes grit, dedication and collaboration. I know, if you read me, you are worth every second of your life to achieve what has been 'given' to me. As 'writer or author' I have no idea how well or poorly I accomplish my intentions. Yet. I have a genius for discovering God in others. Add. That the same genius is applied in witnessing God's providence in real life everywhere. The only limit being free will, choice and willingness to address our fears.

Death has no dominion.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved