and both

Across the hours, down the days, eating miles between my former home and now, I became lost in silent contemplation of my gratitude for it all. The friends left behind and those to be discovered ahead. Wondering how it came to be that I left one for another at such an advanced age. . . .sensing myself as wed to M as to Pam in a love elastic beyond distance and time.

Loss has a way of doing that, eliciting the reevaluation of meanings, values and priorities. Revealing important, formerly hidden, truths and choices made on any basis. To hold or fold, gambling on the potential imagined or intuited that may be consequent in choices made.

Finally conscious that when I claim, men never really grow up but merely old then die, I recognized myself as a flirt seeking from women what I was unable to receive from my mother. Who remained, essentially, immune from my attempts to glean her attention, joy or laughter. Which, obviously, I personalized as my problem not hers. A problem I too easily assuaged with wishful thinking in all other relationships save for with M. Whose suggestion that I volunteer for hospice service was the origin of my current geographical location. . . .

130807 EDT 05:17

In an attempt to distill my dream, from which I have just awakened, I began to recognize a collective communal corporation of love for life.; made obvious through my daily research. And discovered within the long silence begun at the moment of my departure; moving, not to Vermont, but to Pamela.

Central to my conflict is the simple sense of losing M. Or choosing Pam over her. But within my dream I sense a union of both and an incarnation of M’s gifts to me manifest in community. A choice made for what remains of my physical life; the long or short of it. What has been forged within me by M is unbreakable. Add. If it happened to me it can happen to anyone since all are capable of loving life; the all of it: rising up and going down.

130811 04:08

Within my dream I stood suspended in stasis. No way forward, unwilling to backup, leaping from the shear cliff face traversed I knew I could never reach the rock spire of what seemed safety distant ahead. Falling I discovered there was no bottom. No sudden death from either terror or collision with the distant valley floor. Awake standing in the dark with my first cigarette I saw a shooting star and thought there are no boundaries to God, or good, or whatever had brought me to this moment in life; for the source is both extrinsic and intrinsic within all and each of us equally.

My current sense is that dreams analogize experience into a comprehensive direction for what is next in life. Which, given my current state of continual transition from the past to future, indicates a need to more fully inhabit the present. To more specifically focus on the human condition versus cause and effect. And, in a sense, I feel that I am being drawn back into photography of people in isolation and transition in this failure of free market capitalism the new religion and creed of America. . . not my problem but ours. The ideal of liberty for all has been sold to the highest bidders; those who take pleasure in hoarding the labors of our forefathers and our selves . . . the consequent death of our future and the victims of greed.

Regardless of duration, life seems more precious to me here and now. Resident in the second least populous state of America; wall-to-wall green mountains. The people of all ages are the subject of our evolving tapestry about which I refuse to attempt prophecy but can record and annotate the remarkable trashing of what was once the “American Dream.”

130731 EDT 06:27 and both

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

arrival

We, Annie and I, arrived July 7^th 17:15. She was the first to be offloaded. Then into an upstairs bedroom with attic attached quarantine for her gradual introduction to the resident pets: two dogs. One male, smaller than herself. The other female weighing about forty pounds. So far I’ve more often slept with Annie, than Pam, as it has been our custom for the past five years.

I am surprised by my dreams here., being very concerned from the beginning that Annie fit in. Recently I awoke remembering John Steinbeck’s novella Red Pony. While refreshing my memory, I was younger than ten when mom read it to me, I was staggered to realize now why she wept so hard while reading it to me. And why I still suffer grief for my children and Rags (a cat I had to put down for ‘out-of-box’ behavior) who had lived with me since he was a kitten.

Between ideal and real are light years of separation. I am reminded, again, of how little I can protect those I love from harm, or the simple vicissitudes of life. We each in our lives, seem to be a vessel, into which events occur or happen that we are incapable of preparing for. Each does the best we can with what we have and then must let the devil take the hindmost. Or do I mean destiny, fate or God?

130710 07:07

There I stopped, stunned to realize it was the anniversary of a friend’s husband who died eleven years ago. As she says of him now; “Leaving me behind . . . “And it is she who I love similarly to Pam, and she who made Pam a realization. Each of us, the three of us, has had events that irrevocably changed our lives—usually by suffering and/or loss—that we then attempt to reconcile and redeem in the ordinary of such, or what, life is left to us afterwards.

Traveling I could brook no distractions: radio or audio books. Instead my thoughts were of the three I mention M, Pam and myself. Accompanied by with gratitude for those who made the move possible. And celebrated it for the promise of a new life upon my arrival.

Having arrived, I now sense there is a seamless continuity, an organic wholeness, inherent and obvious to me manifest in these past two months. For which many played a part; yet the effort required by the transition nearly killed me. I had sincerely expected to die leaving the task to others completely. Instead I was compelled to examine each memento and choose to either dispose of or carry forward the evidence of my now former life.

130711 EDT 15:45

Closing thoughts. Annie adventured down stairs this morning and seems to feel at home. I now sense I will be able to fully unload the car and settle in. In the coming days I anticipate her curling up with with the two dogs, Pam and I, upon the bed of an evening, one happy and fully integrated family home at last.

Be well.

130709 EDT St Johnsbury VT 13:33 new home

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

midway

At times, especially around the fourth hour of driving, I sense myself in limbo and longing to get out the car for any reason imaginable. There really is no room to nap since the car is packed with Annie beside me. The drive took Pam four days with another driver, it will take me six days alone with Annie.

I awoke after eight hours of sleep feeling tired. In some sense it is the prospect of two more days driving. Yet I remain concerned since I fell asleep at the wheel yesterday shocked aware by the rumble strips along side the highway.

My dreams have been fantastic, entertaining, informative and best, affirmative of what lays ahead . . . if and when I get there. If all goes well, and I pray so, I will overnight in New York State this evening before the last drive to Pam.

I awoke with a profound sense that the love I experience is from the interlocutor and available for all. Immense, kind, patient, forgiving. Possible for me to acknowledge the experience during this epic transit of America alone with Annie. Humbling, these stops when we become people not just rude aggressors competing for space on the highway. Lending a new sense of: “What you see is what you get.” Add, there were several instances of unusual kindness yesterday reminding me that I too was once young and impatient. Aggressive and in a hurry, but now I realize the grave will be soon enough.

I will long remember these days for the closeness between Annie and myself. And this, new to me, discovery of the nature of love. Experiential. Not theoretical. Not chapter and verse but if you want love you must be loving and abandon all fear.

130706 EDT Johnson City, New York 06:14

When I refer to ‘morning’ I mean the first minutes after midnight. Up since around 03:00 I am now finished with my usual practice of collecting quotes. Relevant only for the affirmations I usually receive on Wikiquotes, first and foremost.

I awakened with a sincere sense of gratitude for our safe, so far, passage across America:: two thousand two hundred miles.

My thanksgiving is for not only our safety but our companionship between Annie and I, then Pam for her continual affirmations and empathy for the experience of exhaustion and frustration with fellow travelers. The few who seem hell bent for election to disposes any in their way on the road at break-neck speed. Of and for those few I have learned to forgive having been once, not that long ago, similarly rude. I ain’t no saint merely wanting to see love possible instead of vengeance.

BE HERE NOW means exactly that, live: fully in each and every moment. And I have. Sometimes exhausted falling into occasional wonder; just what in the name of all good am I doing? With each eaten mile behind me fully conscious of those who I left behind; never to be forgotten. An entirely other level of gratitude experienced this morning.

Then more so when renewed with consciousness of Pam and our life ahead.

Should I become a traffic statistic remember I am having and have had the best years and days of my life. No longer a wage slave I have time to be patient.

Be well.

130705 EDT Zanesville, Ohio 0541 midway

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

on the road

Scarcely able to control myself, much less the world, add a cat on the road and I have had a bag full of surprises. Most I consulted implied a host of alternative methods for the experience. A carrier, of course, but then leash and halter; neither have worked very well. Annie was largely silent until I put her in the car. Then the caterwauling began in earnest for an hour finally silence. Her protest renewed at each stop.

At the first overnight stop I attached her to a chair with the leash. Leaving her alone for an hour wile going on errands. Upon my return discovering her leash taut disappearing beneath the bed and a bed side lamp wrapped in it, bulb shattered, shade and cat no where to be seen.

Soon afterward, having moved the attachment point, I returned to discover she had slipped off harness and leash, either hiding or escaped from our temporary home. This being the first day of my new life, Annie being a friend and companion for the past five years, I panicked and called Pam. Who advocated that I leave Annie in peace until the morning. When I awoke Annie was snuggled beside me upon the bed as per usual. During the entire time of our relationship Annie has seemed not place, but person, centric. More like a dog than a cat.

I will attempt to place her in the carrier sans leash and harness awaiting the next stop to see what will happen during this, the second day, of my new life.

130704 CDT Effingham, Illinois 06:06

I think I have arrived at the epicenter of my life, this 4^th of July and third day on the road towards Pamela Joyce. Discovering myself as “litter mate” to Annie who for the second time is free and roaming about our motel room happily free of her carrier, halter and leash.

Coincidentally, I am about to cross Ohio towards my next destination and overnight at Zanesville. Tempted but will not go through the remains of my father’s family and/or to visit mine in Maysville, KY. That was then, this is now, the infinite within my awareness; as in BE HERE NOW.I remember being transfixed at first sight of the book as the same title in Wakefield, RI. Many decades ago and what it means to me now.

Having traveled around the globe so many times the prospect of travel bores me—the getting there—not being there. The difference in me is astonishing. Not so much because I am in love, loved by both Pam & Annie and confident of where I will be upon arrival. But also the process of consciously choosing to love my fellow travelers. Accepting their unconscionably rude driving as do I with my being in their way. Overloaded and observing the speed limits to save fuel and tires. Not to say a word about Annie and myself.

There is a vision I hold, recently discovered, of America being once a common land mass singular with all others—a one continent world so to speak. My sense being: we are one family of life including those who grasp and those who give. Add. Pam and I have a mutually affirmed sense of when everything goes south, by accident or consequence of age and disease.

Annie travels beside me in her carrier and in good consciousness I refuse to prolong her captivity by another day for me to revisit my childhood summers in Ohio and Kentucky. This now is our new life heading for Vermont. I pray for, think about, and ponder my friends left behind more than what I was in childhood; longing for love. What I give not what I received.

My paternal grandfather played third base for the Zanesville Mud Hens. Perhaps I will discover another Spratt or two while I overnight there.

More in the later future; be well.

130702 CDT 06:20 on the road

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

slip away

At tomorrow morning’s running tide I will slip this mooring and sail forth into uncharted waters of a new life. Reborn again. Not running away, but towards. Never intended by fate or destiny to lay anchored in snug harbor.

Surrounded by open boxes, awaiting the remains of my life for the past seven years. The essential things packed and shipped. But the precious things, special mementos of this phase, await the savage discipline of my small car for the long haul toward Had She Said Yes. Saying yes now, and more. Sharing what the process was like for her, commiserating with mine.

Awakening this next to last morning I was conscious of time before time was measured and what will be, by imagination or projection, after time is forgotten. Not merely by she or I, but us all, this many of us, going through, essentially the same process on a macro scale. Then too the immortal morality of kindness and my sense of living epochs in day; the infinity of now.

Of special concern are the mementos by/from/of M weighed—go—no go, against more pragmatic tools and artifacts. Conscious that she is within me and the greater part of my heart. For which there is no evidence save in what I pay forward from her continuing love and blessings: unconditionally, generously and kindly expressed.

I will ask the dawn to remind my beloved, both, that I am constant and upon the song of birds greeting the morning, walking forward through each remaining day with them in my heart. Essential are visions of the heart ever remaining and expanding. Possible to grow a soul in solitude but a personality only in community.

Yet about this time, swept forward by tide and lunar cycle, is a sweet sadness for what was and joy regarding what will be. Reminiscent of those who passed away in my care for whom I reassured, by behavior, their certain continuance beyond death. What more can I ask of the interlocutor than that? Who it seems has impelled this day moving forward. Affirming, variously, at each turning, the simpler choice obvious to Her/Him that which lays secret in my heart.

The vessel of my destiny and fate subtly slides down the ways of this day.

130630 MDT 03:35 slip away

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

changes

The peace I know, comes through willingness to change; inspired by many different resources. Completely outside the ordinary institutions and established categories of any discipline: Philosophy, Science, Psychology, Aesthetics and Religion in the traditional sense. Poetry, however is a constant resource. Then quotes, emblematic of the poetry of souls who use prose to communicate.

I am startled to realize that this trust began when I sought sanctuary in libraries during frequent childhood crises. At first randomly and then reading what was specifically recommend by librarians at my inquiry. Initiating a journey towards an unknowable goal. Which, within any definition, remains unknowable yet trustworthy. And better described as kindness, empathy, mercy and love. I desire wisdom more highly than knowledge—experience as apposed to ideals.

Within the past 24 hours many questions, as prayers, unconsciously uttered as such, were answered specifically. To the degree and kind I can no longer doubt the source, for whom, or which, I remain devoted; a disciple.

Sadly, across a lifetime, until now, I have failed this invitation. Fearing that I was unworthy. Thus my thesis that no life is “too stupid to live”.

Native and inherent within all life is the potential manifestation. Albeit deeply buried within and denied as it was within me. Which is to say both, that I am not THERE yet, but willing to change, and that the process continues infinitely until face-to-face. Add: I have an unreasonably reverence for teachers, as messengers, along the way. And for myself the ideal of being like those whose random kindness aided me without conditions to be myself . . . all that I advocate for you.

Bigotry, by any definition, has no part of this. Generosity does. We can never fully know ourselves until we accept that what we incarnate and inhabit is nothing like anything that ever was before. Building a new world and life, one person at a time, creatively collaborative.

Love between two people, regardless of gender— or animals/nature/universe — or the divine, can only be defined by experience in giving and receiving. Fearlessly and unconditionally.

Well beyond the apogee of my life I am no longer alarmed to find myself Beyond The Point of No Return with Pam. Our — origin and process — will make a wonderful novella—perhaps—sometime in the future.

Superlatives and sentiments cannot begin to articulate the dialog between us. We both are stunned at what began four years ago. Renewed and accelerating from May until now the consequence. Yet very candid regarding our concerns; mediated and resolved. The intervening space between is filled with value; learning to accept and submit to an unconditional life together: what I’ve longed, a lifetime, for.

My sense, the interlocutor’s will and intention for all of us.

Be well.

130629 MDT 06:10 change

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

growing

Growing is my list of heroes. Those upon whose shoulders I stand, reaching a little bit further up the Tree of Life. Yet there is nothing heroic in me, save my love, respect and admiration for all of life: the good and the grotesque—the all of it.

For those I have slandered in the past there is no content upon which to stand.

Simple.

I have discredited myself significantly learning the substance of humility. Add: a better sense of why God is more visible amongst the poor and meek.

Awakening from a previous engagement with friends, a goodbye party of sorts, I am too aware that the principal companion of these past five years, Annie, lays subdued in a harness awaiting our departure. I shall not tarry much further for she, my friend, tells me much about us. I have a sense she will drive me mad for a time with her caterwauling protest progressing across the twenty-five hundred miles between us and Pam. Continuing this process of threshing and winnowing, the most difficult process for which I can take personal responsibility. Gleaning my unconscious fears left from childhood and moving forward in faith that what will be, will be, by faith.

In recognition that this time, these hours alone, in the dark arisen from sleep, with or without dreams, is my selfish desire to grow more. Perhaps that is my flaw. To have a greater desire to be or do anything other that fully present in this infinity of now. No one, or thing, is merely what I, you, or we define it to be . . . could be . . . maybe maybe not; the wallpaper of eternity. My newly discovered sense being that each and all my heroes did participate by choice in their time. Forgiving their executioners. Dad was adamant about that; the principal activity of man to man is to kill, not enable, freedom and love. Our most disabling adversary is fear. In reaction to which we become more collectively insane daily.

I am learning to submit/surrender/accept the humility of my will against the Interlocutor’s intentions: To move forward with conviction and accept my destiny and fate. As we all must—being – beyond the point of No Return to what was.

06:06

I have a file full of quotes about friendship and love, exactly in that order of priority. Remembering that Annie in all previous times would accompany me to bed. She no longer does. Since the imposition of the harness. Instead she awaits in silence what is to come. Where I was concerned she’d drive me mad with her protest with noise, she does now with silent resignation. Responsibility for her welfare began upon first discovery. I had not decided upon a dog or cat and was well aware that either would keep me alive, suicide being the alternative. After walking through seven rooms of both I heard her calling to me and searched her out loving her at first sight.

The nature, kind and degree of my concern is based upon our friendship, nearly equal of that between M and myself. Both have held me until I could hold myself aloft from despondency. As have those I am saying goodbye to; never to be forgotten nor ignored. Love being of a lesser order of magnitude than friendship.

130628 MDT 02:02

About this time is a sweet sadness for my dumbness to the love between myself and friends who, pre-departure, are touching me with their values. Not just what they say about me but my memory of them carried forward as they were and have become since my arrival here seven years ago. Without friends, or being friends in love, material or spiritual, who would we be or become?

It is dangerous to sleep as I do, when tired, then awakening from dreams that no longer beguile me. Instead dovetail into the incidents of the day before or issues vaguely noted and long neglected stemming back to the origins of me. I mention this only for the surprising acceleration of “hits” as noted on my Google & Opera venues; growing by ones and twos in countries far flung. Then at Culture Book a special someone, who has commented several times, affirmed what I essentially keep covert: my sense of the divine.

Not theoretical but experiential.

I may be offline for a time consequent to travel.

I awoke this time with an image of the hide of a mustang stretched and presented like a Robert Motherwell painting. Within the dream I surmised it emblematic resolving the Native American mythology, theology and symbols that have more than five times over mystified me.

But it is not my myths and metaphors, or runes and ruins of my heart, that concern me. It is to encourage you to seek that within your own life. That is your responsibility, stewardship of your Self/Soul. It is the real story of your life. And the greatest wealth we can know while living.

The peace I know has been midwifed by several, yet most notably M. Who, in, of and by herself, is a force of nature staggering—huge. It is not she, or myself, I would memorialize, but the process of kindness freely/unconditionally given that we, the family of all life, learn to tolerate one another to the end that love is possible instead of extinction.

If I know the ill that destroys us. It is known by my own former ambitions, fear, greed and lusts. Nothing extraordinary. Since it describes the process of becoming authentic and unashamed of any part of myself as I sense inherently possible for all of us. Can I say, and we agree, The Science of Love?

As in the Science of love is life, versus the Science of War is death?

PS One of the books I look forward to reading: An Old Man and a cat/dog? aboard a Cat Boat, or something like that. Remembering my voyages with Tinkler several hundred miles off shore aboard the Paradox. Annie, my companion cat and dear friend, is now wandering about the apartment restored to curiosity about my activities. She will, of course, accompany me to Vermont and Pam. For both I would do all required, including my life, to protect.

130627 MDT 02:16 growing

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved