Reoccurring Realizations and Rain

‘Ah, that is what I was doing.’ The voice in my head says ‘you should count these’, these times that you were lost & found. Then the idea passes. Counting that is, immediately distracted by how familiar this eureka, what was once mere recall, seems over the most mundane of things: cat food cans open, tea in microwave, shoes in room x, list on table b, vitamin on the counter, stove on…with unmonitored scary outcomes, lights left burning. Sometimes the smells call me back to the kitchen. And I fear that more times, will be alarmed for smoke, if I do not get more connected. Yes I think the issue is staying connected.

When I try to speak of these instances of forgetfulness, the ‘me too stories’ of misplaced keys, missed b’days or late recall of appointments are instant retorts from the listener. And I know that it is common to forget – maybe due to excessive busyness or poor list management; but when is being ‘disconnected’ from what you are doing become outside of the understandable. What is the benchmark, the count? What is not common?

My son suggests it is not a topic for jest, or discussion. It is not real – this loss of mindfulness. My partner – jests. He shares the room and the life that will become more unknown to me and he too does not want this to become more real.

I have a T-shirt and bumper sticker that says “I do what the Voices in my head tell me”. In jest, the retort is it would be a better imprint if it said “I do what the Voices in my head remember to tell me”. Lists I try them. Forget them. They find different places like cell phone and keys and those documents made specifically to not go in such circles again. My life’s work was geared toward removing redundancy and now I feel captive to it.

The silver lining: I like the feeling of remembering ideas previously connected to. Not experiences so much. With ideas I rehearse remembering, the voice in my head repeating key phrases so that in the short term I will be able to engage in potentially engaging conversations. If too much time passes, and I am not certain what the duration is, these key phrases come back to me as sounds I cannot quite catch. Not quite the same as searching for a name to go with a face; it is more like a hum of words to a song that is familiar but you really do not know the lyrics. This happened to me before. When I tried to learn another language and when my Instructors had strong accents. One thing I do recall is this feeling associated with my Final Exam for Russian Literature.

As I try to recall – I think her name was Nona (it just came to me as I stretched into remembering) Welleck (spelling to be confirmed). She was particular taken with an author whose name began with a G. I was too; but without doing an Internet search I will not be able to tell you the author or the compelling interest. She was a young communist by lack of options. She was married to a significantly older man (maybe too due to lack of options) and they lived on St. Ronan St. (a street that holds some intrigue). He too was published and in many languages. He was employed by Yale and she was slumming teaching at SCSU. All this is shallows from a time that I ingested ideas and seemed full of excitement connecting literature, history and social relevance together. But not one of these bits of knowledge come to me…but I know if I see something in print I may feel a Eureka rush of recall – that will be like mist within no time at all.

I know the mind is capable of more. I see its elasticity and girth in the gifts of my son and partner and I vaguely recall such capabilities from my childhood. I know I scored incredibly high in mechanical aptitude (Military Entrance Exam) at 17 when my only exposure to such things was overheard conversations between my brothers & father at dinner. There was a time when I was connecting. I wanted to study Russian via immersion. Long ago assumptions of capability.

As I post I realize that this scribble has taken a few hours to construct and that I started it in the middle of the night because the rain was making me anxious: intense downpours, winds and thunder. I actually felt afraid...and wanted distraction. I am now hearing it again through the voices and I am tired...so I will go back to my pillow and wish intently for sleep.

illusion

Three decades ago I said I want to go to Chicago to live and study and for three decades I owned this, the shallowest of illusions. But today my middle is there with the same mantra and 1000% more potential to claim the city and maybe even someday have it claim him.

I have had the pleasure of visiting twice. This is more than I truly expected I would do when I first claimed the illusion.

I have said of this path not taken, that it was an opportunity stolen. But the truth is that fear of large doors and the cracks made from a short memory are the true source of cement in my Buster Brown loafers. Today, I am year three in Finn Comfort and much less likely to travel afar. Vicarious is my only mode and even there I may be out of my depth.

Revisit and reevalute the learning

In 2005, I scribed these as life lessons learned more than a decade prior.
I was dealing with a vendetta scenario. As this is a life lessons blog, I will recapture them here.
(revisited 2.7.2012)
Public Lynching is a tool of those that believe they have right on their side. Many innocent people have been hung from righteousness. Cats have 9 lives, so purr.

If accused of something with much untruth it is likely that the accuser has some affinity with the untruth. Figuratively, put the accusation on the foot of the accuser and if it fits -- It may help determine root cause of the pain point and derive a survival strategy.

Respect and trust once, if once is too much, remember that you are the type of person that chooses respect and trust; then apply caution as needed.

Taking cover is an act of sanity, not failure. Some natural disasters include the effects of persons with mental defects on their surroundings. It helps to remember that Mental Health is the challenge for the individual at the eye of the storm.

Reality is a challenge. Some factors are the reliability of the source, the timing of the encounter and then there is the predisposition of recipient. We must respect that people may know, differently. When information does not change behavior, you must adjust to take down the wall.

How many contradictions does it takes to come into humanness…

I have been graced in recent days by the poems of Edgar Gabriel Silex and the archives of the Library of Congress.

I found a book of poems among many books of poems... I do not recall the specifics by which on the day in February 1998 I came to include this book Through All the Displacements in my collection. Someone went with a group of us to a reading and I recall 3 poetry books being purchased. I took one home. It is inscribed to Sue a name that I do not favor and did not use for myself during this stage of life. I do not remember who made the spontaneous gracious purchase or the specific occasions ---- but in recent days I have felt blessed by this random life event that put in my purview this particular collection by Edgar Gabriel Silex.

The last poem, full of irony for me with the title 'poem without title' sent static through my heart and set a tear in my eye for my own son. My head is now full of distractions; the kind that I hope come to some purpose...but that I fear will just wile away my day.

Pencils, white text and the revelations as history

As I begin to tap at the keyboard -- I sense that I am facing challenges yet to be overcome. Contributors to this sensation include that I do not type, trifocals challenge accuracy in seeing, and what it feels like to write with a pencil is a very distant memory. I face the New Year with fatigue, lack of momentum and an intention to commit to basics. I am half-heartedly assessing the public medium for which I find that ideas must be coaxed, shuffled, strained and simplified to have value. This requires resources that have been depleted.

Therefore I must challenge the purpose of glimpses through stained glass as a blog. Is this just a public scribble? Does it qualify as a journey journal? Can it be more than an expose in my inconsistency and ease of distraction?

Random memory: a peer who communicated with another peer at the day job playfully included personal hidden messages in his emails. His messages were hidden by changing the text from black to white. This sharing was discovered unexpectedly because the email was sent to print and all printed text is in black. What does this story memory invoke? Other memories like the lemon juice experiments of my youth (play, discovery) and thoughts about understanding cloaking,exposure, innovation and all of there potential impact on privacy.

So no deep dives here - just nagging thoughts in response to popular media. Our former VP speaks and I quiver. He infers that terrorists did not succeed in attacking on American soil after 911 - and the true level of threat must remain cloaked. So if Truth is cloaked in fear and hyperbole --- will history reveal if we were protected or scammed by these fear mongers. In the 80's I took a course on International Law. Terrorism was a key subject matter. I believe a Lesson Learned from that course was that terrorists are empowerd by breeding fear. It seems that this is now a living history.

ATT, Joe and Hope

I am finding my pattern of three as this blog evolves. The blog appears to be what rises to the top in the abundance of information in my life. Stuff that would otherwise be skimmed has the opportunity to be reviewed via deep dive.

Thank you PAUL JANENSCH for your comments on the upcoming convention - your commentary which included the question "Why is ATT sponsoring so many events at the Dem convention?" rises to my top three. As a local consumer advocate involved in cable, iptv and internet matters this question speaks volumes. In my opinion, this company has been political and less than consumer friendly in its colorfully architected media pursuit of market share. Since there is some talk that a democratic win would include the creation of a new and necessary cabinet position - a CTO ; part of the answer to the Professor News question may be found in examining what part of this policy would ATT want to influence?

My day started with more than a glimmer of hope.

Awareness of Joe Biden for me is much like these ideas that creep to the surface. I have a concern about my memory. I am trying to explore why certain items seem to remain crystal clear as emotional memories but shallow in detail and why certain ideas and experiences come to define me.

Ironically, I have an emotional memory of Joe Biden. The puzzling of pieces put my personal experience in 2001. I was traveling by train to Washington DC to attend an ACM National Conference. As I do whenever getting on public transportation; I was people watching. Someone on a cell phone caught my attention. This individual was conducting business that seemed to be important. I remember thinking whomever this is, is purposeful, assertive, and well-reasoned. I immediately felt a sense of trust and respect for this stranger. I had absolutely no idea what the topic was, or whom I was watching, but I felt protected. While watching various episodes of Road to the WhiteHouse on CSPAN I kept tapping into this emotional memory. I remember having an absurd thought that if I could only share this feeling I had with others in some visceral way; that he, Joe Biden, could be considered a more viable candidate by more voters. I can not make it visceral but I can share this as a serendip that means a more to me today.

So I put this post out into the world: It seems almost absurd but today I woke to news that gave me a new sense of Hope.

Conversation and the value of versus: Poems

Tension is a building block that can engage the audience within story; it is known to add challenge to conversation and is said to exist naturally between science and faith. Its value is 2 sides of a coin: and often a headache. As an element of style - it must be worked, to work.

The New Poet Laureate is getting air time. I listen. I wonder if a good poem every 10 years does a poet make? I wonder if a poem a day is a good expenditure of time. And then I know the truth: calories need burning. So I borrow an impromptu haiku from the poet from my middle and smile knowing birth is not under-rated, poetry is.

Time displaces truth

Tumbling down the rabbit hole

I am far too late

25 cents is the price of a miracle

Charlie is my Dad. His refrigerator magnet says WORK is a 4 letter word. He retired at 55. He is now 80. He putters, finding ways to save dollars and cents. He dabbled in stocks and bonds for a decade or so, but got out before all that went totally bust. He spends his days being Judge Judy trained. Other lifelong learning is aided by History, Discovery and the Weather Channel.

This weekend we shared lentil and cactus soup which he made, followed up on some health insurance claims, and discussed the behaviors of our mutual companions, feral cats and my rescued Bull Mastiff pup, Jake. I can not play cards well enough to bet a quarter, so I watch him play one of the 100 something ways to play solitaire. We chat. He mumbles about gardening in pots. We do have some healthy basil and a few strong tomato plants. I say we because I purchase the starter plant or seeds and he tends to them. The price of motivation. He has discovered our Hot Tub. Now that I mark his calendar on the date when it has been treated, he is using it regularly. I needed to learn how to communicate this readiness for use in a manner that would not offend. It was challenging. I failed a few times but I think I am finely on track. And as to the Hot Tub, he is on track as I fail to use it. More chat or exploration about short term memory. I try to remember tidbits from the news which I think may be triggers for conversation and potential stories. I work at conversations. I had scribbled a few things down that are not handy at the time we chat. I think hard: mental gymnastics and then realize that the term I was trying to recall intellectual aerobics. The differences discreet would be fun to follow. The memory was a description Tony Snow used to describe Meeting with the Press. I then think that if I have a storied life I will be a success. Both references come from elegies of the kind the video world provides: Sunday Morning Articles. Then distractions abound within me and Dad is no longer in focus. The miracle I wish for is that a card player will appear that will risk an occasional quarter. It does not take much for Dadto put up walls. Failures with neighbors and Senior Center - mostly bad timing but he took it all too personal which make me the only community he truly has. It is a tall order being a community and it does not take much for me to be distracted. The voices in my head say you need you time now, dad has had what you can give today. Balance too is difficult.

Sometimes I sense too much in common with this hermit who lives like a troll in the back house. So much unsaid here.

evolving

Well I was not sure I would be remembering the momentary distraction word for today: but in passing it connected and was recallable. Am I evolving, too? Is this buzz word informing or reforming or self-involving? The term infers substantial change. This term reconnected me to something else I wanted to explore: Guerrilla Marketing and the idea of unintended consequences that I anticipate commenting on here after June 5th.

As a business analyst I have always been informed by errors, challenged by defects, and found that gaps suggest opportunities. Are these tools for evolution?

I need to evolve further the potential of FREEMAN PENNY QUINN, the 1st. I need to evolve further the toolkit for citizen journalists. I need to evolve further the daily practices that promote good health (yes I did walk Jake today!).

Evolution is a very busy thing but since it is nearly tomorrow I will need to get busy with it later... (but 1st a bedtime story about the other word of the day to which i can say I am often far from being gruntled ...unless of course, there is word play. nite cliffy)

Memorial..Community Remembrance

I mostly remember dad in his greens going to march instead of work, the Cuban Missile crisis and almost stories of the korean conflict. But then my generation's war took over and friends did not come home and poet friends brought the power of the Vietnam Memorial on the MALL in DC to life. I had to see it in person. Not many things get such a definitive must do in my heart and mind as I no longer have enough focus to create poems.

While in Boulder City we stopped at several artisan shops. I saw the miniature cast of this memorial and had to find it. It is a powerful reflection and symbol of remembrance for sacrifices. It is the image in this spot.

But in all of the near sobs the strongest gulp is why are we again at war? I focus on the artists responses to find some meaning. And I am please to share my findings with my community this day away from work. A video with permission will play on public access station and pictures.

Where should I be, where is my mind?

My spiritual mentor would always correspond to me on a transformed scrap of paper. A sample of such a transformation circa 1993 is shown here. I found it difficult to throw away even with its tea stains.

I am at my work table where I access work from home and do community tasks via computer. The presumption is that on occasion I collect my thoughts here via this blog which is concurrently a collection of past and future memories. This process is expressed via a Maxim which is keeping a diary supports personal development.

So I am here but I just drove some distance. Driving is now a rare occurrence given I have one eye tracking left. This makes the passenger more aware of my vulnerability than myself. Dad was my passenger today. We arrived late to the commitment to heaven ceremony (which requires either faith or imagination) held by the family of Rosalie Catherine Cook (his sister, my aunt and mentor). Gathered were unfamiliar faces that were connected through Rosalie. The gathering was small and polite. Charlie broke the ceremonial sounds with a how do you do to the person to his right. This fella married into the family via the youngest daughter of Bill, niece to Charlie and Rosalie. Yes there were cousins in the room. People who once participated in games of tag, kick-the-can, hide & seek all cousins from the occasional family picnic of decades ago.

Rosalie had been a beacon of family connected-ness in a older sister fashion while she lived in CT. That changed more than several years ago. Family distances were not bridged – hearing impairment and other aging issues taking the reigns of daily life when she retired to Florida. The rest of us entered lives after teen years. Her recent return home was brief. It allowed for one visit which included the expected squeeze of the hand…the ‘good to see you my dear' whisper in the ear, the 'what can I feed you discourse. Odd disconnected memories of Rice Pudding made me bring her some. She just smiled. Maybe it should have been Tapioca. (The absence of cigarettes was very pronounced. She had been the embodiment of the meaning of Virginia Slims for me even as the cancer sticks poured from the pack of Camels or Marlboro.)

But the mind has no focus as the heart tries to reflect: cousins, pieces of art and some craft pull me in several directions. I do not turn on the radio in near fear of more connections that I cannot trace.

My sister has Dad now. They were part of the procession to the burial site along with another aunt and cousins. I returned to my table with a promise to myself to visit here before attending to the external loci of control. Upon returning, I did walk myself and the dog first because it is at this too that I fail daily.

Back to the main event: Dad did not recognize his daughter. She resides on the other ocean’s side. Many years have passed. Today as most days she embodies confidence. She was simply and smartly dressed with color accents. I immediately considered how “Rosalie would have just loved how she looks”. I did the basic black attire. it fit and the random thought for what stylish colorful item in my closet would Rosalie like, passed into nothing she would like would fit today – so the 'do not go there’ voices in my head won and I wondered in thought too much more pressing tasks at hand feeling I would be lucky to be dressed and on time. Not lucky.

Rosalie. You grace every room in my home. There is no more to write.

the Landscape_degrees of separation

Separation can be an act or a state of being. Yesterday in Biosphere2 I quietly marveled at the how the states of environmental change had nearly no transition and that a range of some 20 degrees in temperature supported different life zones. This was science and something I very much hoped others were fascinated enough by to continue exploring.
I realized that very few things about science were made exciting to me as a child and I did not grow interested in things that had practical application. I often regret this.

[A strong memory is that Mr. Afragola, my HS Science Teacher, was fascinated by insects and held a belief that the would inherit the earth. With 300,000 species of beetles and the crazy ant story from the biosphere yesterday --- it is more understandable – his fascination and belief.

The crazy ant story should go here. It does not travel in straight lines. It took over the insect word of Biosphere2. It was a native. It was a subplot. ]

Respite is to be my goal as I have had non-stop task overload for employer and community for 5,500 days. In this attempt I find myself with working in my sleep. It appears very difficult to refocus on different self-fulfilling leisurely activities. The undone tasks surface in sleep. They are the minor ‘nice to have’ tasks that I do not seem to have time for that seem to being saying – you have time now – do me now. I have attempted to address the community related nighttime reminders with daily e-mail correspondence. In 8 days I will know if the interruption of my vacation was as important as it seemed.

This morning I made a connection in thought between the scrubby landscape of my Arizona vacation and my sense of less than well-being. The blackish brown mountain is set far off (and I would not choose it as a view) and the dusty stretch in immediate and constant travel view is full of prickly growth. Some cactus looms tall (with my years or more of uninterrupted growth), some are flowering and nearly all are fortified with thorns. It is a dustbowl with scattered, but connected, activity. I cannot put words to the relationship of what my eyes see, my head connected but somehow I feel this is a representation of my intellect and imagination.

It is time to move along so I will close here. I have a vacation wait for me to engage in it and the driver is preparing for my departure…

Deerkill_ I can not let Fear Stop Me

My mouth is dry and eyes bouncy. Breathing is often interrupted these last few days by a ragged cough. My week of work and community service both have felt like rolling a boulder up a mountain but there is a sense of irony that maybe this boulder is deflecting and protecting me from debris. Sustainability is the word of the week, ‘reasonable need’ the concept and ‘Why?’ the eternal question. Joni Mitchell singing Big Yellow Taxi [@1970] ‘paved paradise and put up a parking lot’ the instant replay of my fatigued mind.

Words of the past somehow get through the mire: I read a poem written about my 1970 world-view and I post it as if new – out in the world. I realize I am pushing this symbolic boulder in anticipation that others may find fulfillment if I can help keep the door to free speech and art is kept ajar open in my home town.

exhausted.

Memory Lane - Immediacy of Now

I was asked, do you remember “Loving You” with the phenomenal high pitched C’s and chirping birds by Minnie Ripperton? And was informed that she also recorded “Walk Down Memory Lane” and died much, much too early in life at 31. The memories recalled which had prompted this inquiry were about spontaneity and discovery and traveling less traveled roads. I did not remember the Ripperton song because the music of that period of my life was controlled by others but I was prompted to its discovery now. And it was immediately special.

Memory and its failures and pleasures was part of the rational for this blog. That very same day the quote 'the fierce urgency of now' was captured in scribble. And the week included distractions of the hear via NPR like happiness research. The biggest distractions however, are the community committments....back to them I go.

Words that Pass

Would that there be but one symbolic, functional word that could unlock all the connective tissue of our techno-being? But there are limits, rules, characters; not less than, not more than, must have, cannot include ... special memory questions. I have failed to define my favorite things to remember. I have failed to have favorites, goals, or a disciplined existence ... failure to form habits stresses me. Brings me to the brink of panic. 

I prefer a world with serendipitous connections full of pleasant, valuable, or useful discoveries. Defiance enters into my thoughts. I wish to  challenge traditions and  customs in a restless pursuit of a greater truth ... then my alarm rings, and the day must continue, one password at a time.