solitude 00:00

120924 00:00 solitude

"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence." --Tom Wolfe

Unlike Mr. Wolfe with whom I share a friend of stellar personhood; I relish my solitude. Additionally I wonder at where are the affirmations and/or gratitude for joy experienced in the past? 

That said my mind wanders upward toward the inevitable time when in death we are lonely? Or will it be otherwise; remembering the joys of life and return again.

Deeply in love I think-feel-sense-intuit that I am whole at last; at near seventy-two-years-of-age; equally balanced between woman/man plus the above primary titles for the way we process experience, vision, seeing, responding to our solitude. 

Never alone in any sense since 'my' muse remains within and beside me. Remembering yesterday's ecstasy become today's poetry or prose; either or both mutilated or groaned. Such as it is, or was, or will be, this now is joy beyond accountancy.

Lamentably I destroyed and/or abandoned images of her: "Lucy-In-The-Sky-With-Diamonds" . . . in her eyes; as with all my work prior to 2000. Redacted and expunged those images remain within the engine of my mind better to remember than the object: a photograph.

Suicidal from birth until quite recently I remember her keeping me alive and for a time lending me a purpose to occupy my solitude, then and now, and long will I remember her for all of her a gift for which I am grateful in eternity. . . .Alone but never lonely happily so

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

120923 12:28 my humiliation
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

--Michel de Montaigne
Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known."
Walking on eggs?
Who Me?
. . . was it because of something unsaid or undone?
"NO! BECAUSE __________ !"

Humiliation is an excellent teacher, in fact it is "quite Buddhist" in origin. Well. Actually in Classical Greek Gymnasiums . . . .I suppose some would call it hazing these days!? . . . or sexual harassment?  Oh Well! The list regarding many things considered now P.C. (Politically Correct) is endless and actually boring while being astonishing at the same time.

McGraw-Hill's "Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions" lists under 'Politician:' "baby-kisser, backslapper, flesh-presser, glad-hander, palm-presser, pol." Not oddly I consider those to be kind describing a person who is actually compelled to beg for attention and funds to get or keep his/her job. . . .To not mention the cost of television advertising in the age of TiVo and the Internet . . . there's always radio . . . but I listen to Public Radio; exclusively.

"A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself." 
"Ambition is not a vice of little people.."
"Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to."
"Few men have been admired by their own households."
"For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits."
--Michel de Montaigne (died 1592 unable to speak)

In times of turbulent epochal change -- exactly where we are -- and I especially am now -- it is good to have wise friends who accept you/me exactly as we are and love us nevertheless. 

I talk to people everywhere I go; especially the poor. Learn from, thank, then bless them as they do me with their transparency. Distressed since nearly all indicate disinterest in voting; they feel helpless regarding Voter Identification, etc. It seems Carl Rove is at it again. Instead of voting for George W. Bush and getting Dick Cheney for President. It is now Vote for Mitt Romney and get Exxon for President. . . . Senate, House and The Supreme Court bought and paid for. 

Materialist are intelligent rich people who seem interested in the bottom line regarding what they earn by investment -- not labor. As a conservative primarily interested in power for its own sake. It, more often doing harm than good, via State or Federal Government & Religion, I can and am willing to debate the issues on their own merits. I think we have had enough of ideal dreaming never-never-land by the Masters of the Universe.

Seventy-Two in a month or so I find myself destitute of a quarter million dollar investment account. Add to which I am complicit when self-employed I attempted to game the FICA or Social Security payments due by spending on consumable assets then taking short depreciation. 

Now I am living in sub poverty desperately clinging to $2,000.00 an advance on my grandmother's bequest once used to purchase my first house. Earned by sewing buttons, hemming blue jeans and taking in laundry all her working life. Not merely complicit but guilty that I betrayed her ideals. To whom, or who do I turn? My father stole my investments in his business; claiming I'd left him no heirs to carry forward the family name; they both died and he then called my adopted daughter a nigger.

Sincerely I have benefited from my inherited poverty. I now am no longer White from Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.A. one of the three riches addresses in the world -- once-upon-a-time -- but a citizen of the world's destitute poor finding a new culture and family here. Absent religion, government, ambition save in telling others like myself there is hope.

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil." 
-- C. S. Lewis

be well miraculous

No. This is not goodbye for now. Or forever. Merely a message that you can: be well. At least better and more so day-by-day. However for now death is near, not dear, but a concern.

M is facing breast cancer and I've been given a reprive from own similar concerns. Though I've been advised not to smoke ciragrettes and drink so much coffee, I continue to breakfast on both. That is why I lost one testicle having survived a similar attack not so long ago. 

We are not married though many, if not most seeing us together, assume we are. Also we do not collaborate on what-or-why I write; although when The Sphinx speaks I experience going through a Fool Processor; similar to the untility I use to mince onions, garlic and celery for Tuna Fish Salad for sandwitches. Were I actively conscious of Her here beside me much less ten miles distant . . . well guys . . . what can I tell you? I love her enought to cut my testiles off to make my love for her "safe."

We met during cardiac rehab; an ongoing issue for us both, however we've been able to supress hypertension though exercize and diet -- there is virtually no evidence of either Type 2 Diabiets, or bipolar behavior in me; equally attributable to the peace we know together or individually. The miricale. My miracle is that she knew me scuicidal, at first, glance and saved me; not simply from eating a train, scuicide by pillow or Cop; or as Jersy Kozinski (one of my all time favorite authors) did sitting in bathtube holding a white plastic grocerie bag by hand, no tape, suffocating himself. Of course he was nude since in death we void and deficate; easily washed away. 

I have no sense of time. I had to check my atomicly regulated clock to see that it was indeed Sunday. It follows that I have no sense of the amount of time between us from the beginning to . . . the end? She knows and I now know that prayer works; so please pray for her. If not please keep her consciously within your thoughs and heart; works nearly as well. 

M not only saved me from the beginning but also suggested: that I continue writing/keeping a journal, not be so very angry with parential abandonment issues (Mom did leave Janina and myself $250,000 each mostly lost to the economic turn-down starting with the previous Repblican adminstration) . . . She also recommended that I volunteer for hospice service. Her husband had been a patient of their "Field Care" not the clinic where I worked. He died at home July 9th at, or near the same hour, different year, ten years ago . . . it takes a long, long, long, time to grief and get about your life indepent of your lose. Mine took thirty-five to get over but never forgotten. 

Recently I retired my service at The Mesilla Valley Hospice concerned about misunderstandings concerning copyright laws. I initially stated ceasation of all photographic service on a volunteer basis adding that I sensed myself become a liability therefore additionally would retire my volunteer work in the clinic as well. They said 'yes.' I do, when all things are considered, have a professional obligation to my peers as well as any amateurs who might follow me; that an artist has first rights to their property unless contractually surrendered.

Read from the following what you may or wish: Many are called, few answer and of those few who do, some find profit others, fewer still, find sevice to others a profitable reward beyond any wealth in comerice. 

My life, as it is -- brief or long -- is a miracle attributatble to many I refuse to name. But unlike the minstry of Jesus, His pastoral miracles, mine have been process; no magic bullets, pills, books, or one individual. But at that mostly M . . . yet she as i are both children of Love . . . being of course what we sometimes call 'god.'

--Jerzy Kosinski 
“It is not sex by itself that interests me, but its particular role in American consciousness, and in my own life.”
"The principle of art is to pause, not bypass."
"The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke."

Miraculous

120923 08:07 be well 4M

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Mother's, especially single ones, have it worse than many assume/presume. Absent fathers remove support/attention from a 'trusted' friend and take away such small agenda's of the woman left behind by death, divorce or running away . . . for a younger/newer model or ideal. I did not see the mother and so asked the grandmother if she were the 'mother' of the dog she offered for sale. 

"No. I am the Grandmother of . . . the dog and a young man who seemed late adolescent. The yard was strewn with dresses, a few baseball caps, sundry household items . . . they were compelled to move, I assumed to tighter, smaller, quarters.

Unconscious at the time, I'd made a U turn in the middle of traffic to get back to the sight of a woman pasting a Yard Sale sign above a pink knit child's dress . . . I now realize my mind then, was preoccupied with placing the dog amongst a list of Therapaw friends, who have friends and contact amongst a community of friends who care for strays . . . or those abandoned by death or runaways. Though the price asked was $50 improbable for an elderly Chihuahua I fell to considering its future in my home; though in agony for the dog, I explained my back story with pets and that M had suggested my Annie was an "only child." Then left. No crying but nearly so; for both "Rags" the one I had to put down for peeing on everything and the dog left behind.

Mother decorated my bedroom with two Vincent van Gogh reproductions, approximately large Post Card size. It was after we moved from, next to the railroad tracks, to a northerly Old Greenwich estate divided for new housing. The house, although previously owned was redecorated by my family. I remember mother's heart break that the house she wanted had been taken off the market . . . a lovely, well crafted, by the owner home upon the shores of the North Mianus River, in Cos Cob, Connecticut . . .  remembering her tears. 

While selecting the paintings used to illustrate my previous post (below) I ran across the one's from my bedroom. Then all the connections between my mother and myself became different.

Dad, though handsome to himself, vain, charming and selfish beyond telling, save that he was profligate in all things for himself alone; was otherwise cheap towards his family; mother especially. Meaning he was an absentee husband/father drunk or sober.

I have detailed her behavior towards her children elsewhere amongst my posts. So will say only this. I now understand, coupled with her childhood, well known to me, was a continuous vicious slander for her being a girl instead of a boy.

Healing is available if only you ask. There are many different paths yet only one goal: Love. Or what we call "God." 

. . . so i now forgive, not only mother, but myself for hating her for terrorizing me and Janina, my sister. 

. . . and praise more: M. For her genius in healing me as I believe, and now have more faith in, her suggesting, by gentle and few words, all the steps between our first meeting and now. Please pray, as I do, for her healing from breast cancer. . . .We all creatures/life have a genius for Love.

120923 04:17 Mothers

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Vincent, thanks for making Love visible

120922 08:31 Self Destruct

Ambition is never for something; it is to be something. My longing as author, is for us, writer/reader to have an interior life worth dying for.

At birth I began a long and uncertain course towards this moment; thinking now this moment the best ever. I think again and realize that the moments passed this moment, simply said;  gets better that the last one.

“It is a good idea to be ambitious, to have goals, to want to be good at what you do, but it is a terrible mistake to let drive and ambition get in the way of treating people with kindness and decency.” --Thomas Merton

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." --Mark Twain

"The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow--by the tilt of the social landscape." -- Eric Hoffer

“When ambition ends, happiness begins.” --Toshiro Kanamori, 4th grade teacher 

120922 15:12

At times I feel that the essence of what I intended to write is stated. In a sense: a loose armature such as Rodin would use to add clay upon to form a full sculpture; for example Balzac or St. John. Additionally I have rediscovered the sensual pleasure of reference dictionaries and realized that I'd better grab the OED in miniature with magnifying glass. 

I tend to write in an inverted pyramid form -- top down -- important parts first then in descending order, though I rarely follow that to the "letter" so to speak. It is as I was taught or suggested by Carol McCabe who being a fellow journalist knew the form. Add to which she introduced me to Tom Wolf and Gay Talese thenceforth to an astonishing number of "black humorist." My initial attraction was to her self and smarts; we fell in love later on for which, as indicated, I have had no luck forgiving myself. Nor have I been able to ask her forgiveness for abandoning her pregnant. The child was aborted in New York, N. Y.

It was she who taught me to interview people, gave me an opportunity to begin writing a photography column and in general was able to take the stories I discovered and render them whole and complete to a prize winning degree. She also suggested that I write as I speak; I'm quick on my feet when there is an opportunity to engage someone who seems available.

In these pages I've begun to do what I long desired, to write, but it essentially remained buried in mother's accusations of being; "to stupid to get in out of the rain . . . etc., Inc."

Unaccountably Carl Sandburg comes to mind. He was one of many she ridiculed. I remain unclear about her interest in the arts; after all she did cry when Billie Holiday died. However she was brilliant at accounting, was multilingual and made sure that I was exposed to all the arts from a very young age. Including "Can-Can" on Broadway at twelve . . . I hasten to add that hers were not the only panites I admired. Of course as a result of witnessing "Can-Can" . . . not the original pantaloons but real briefs with ruffles too!

What ever you may think of my maturity by age; I don't ever want to grow up.

Her crimes against my sister and I were deeply extreme, far reaching and detrimental to our education since it is, as I recently discovered, in childhood it was impossible to see a sentence diagramed on a black board with white chalk and not go numb. 

I have clearly stated my ambition mercerized in public as well as here. I touch and talk to everyone in my path through the days 'on the outside.' Otherwise I am here keeping house and writing. Oh yes! Researching the highways and byways of wisdom gleaned from quotes across time and all boundaries.

I am no longer contemplating either self destruction or concerned about cancer. Thank you for reading me and I hope either this touches you or someone close to you. Random acts of kindness my be the only kindness another will ever know in their life.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.” --Lao Tzu

120923 02:33

God does not care how we adorn our bodies but our hearts. It is our mindfulness about others and ourselves that matters most. How we his children live in harmony not chaos . . . God is only a "He" in the generic sense since in our language He stands for all of us: Men, Women, Children; life itself. The periodicity the waking, the sleeping, the living and the dead. All life that ever was, is and will ever be.

I awoke with a title given in a dream; I cannot remember for reasons that are irrelevant to this dialog. Since it is not I who needs repair but all of us. We need to repair ourselves. If we do not there will no longer be life or love but silence . . . the silence of the Moon and stars. And since I saw the Starry, starry night I've loved Vincent Van Gogh . . . mom & dad took me to a massive retrospective of his paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of New York. When? When I was kneel high to a grasshopper. I remember the crowds and being held by both hands peeking between the knees of those adults in font of my eyes standing before me in mute admiration of not just The Starry, Starry Night but all his work. We knew then how to admire and worship genius then. Not merely the humble genius of Vincent but of God; for and of whom Vincent spoke.

"A good picture is equivalent to a good deed. "
“Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.”
"But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things."
"But my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live."
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."
"How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?"
“I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream. ~ 
"I feel the need of relations and friendship, of affection, of friendly intercourse. ... I cannot miss these things without feeling, as does any other intelligent man, a void and a deep need."
"I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."
"I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners."
"It's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it. There is the art of lines and colors, but the art of words exists too, and will never be less important."
"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." 
"One of the most difficult things to do is to paint darkness which nonetheless has light in it."
"The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others."
"The way to know life is to love many things."
"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"
--Vincent Van Gogh

. . . what part of Love do you not understand?

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved