crossing over - learning to read fact from fiction

fact - i am not in Los Angeles; fact - i am unemployed; fact - i have carved 16 sculptures from stone, and i am 56 years old.

I have been working since I was 10 when my mama told me to make her some "Baked Alaska " - and have been earning some kind of money from 15 on; though from the number of different jobs I've had, one could argue successfully that I'm unemployable. Fact is like the bronco rider who never quite made good, I've kept getting back in the saddle, and like that rider - I'm tired, bone tired.

Last night I learned that the dark horse in Bali, up and got herself with "child," and that she's to be wed. I'm  not surprised, even though as recently as 2 weeks ago she had been keeping me up in the middle of the night chatting on Facebook, I wont go into how dark a horse she was, but dear g_d what a horse... and this is an essay on "fact from fiction." I do know that what I am able to convince myself of has not always been to my benefit, a common occurrence once one begins to dispense with facts.

On my way into Albuquerque today, I spoke with my 86 year old father; it is a fact he broke his leg right at the neck of the trochanter around the end of August 2010, though I have never seen the x-rays, so I cannot say whether or to what extent it may have mended. I was present recently for some 22 consecutive steps, however painful - I will testify to that in any court in the land.

Today I had to explain to him, again, that I am unemployed. I haven't seen him for a month. On that date I had exceeded a 2:00 pm weekend deadline which my sister had set from her office on the other side of the country, so she asked an employee from the facility where my father is a resident to see that I left - that is a fact. At the moment I was told to leave my father's side by a non-family member, I was angry enough to spit blood, and it didn't matter whose. Now I am not that angry, though I choose not to return. I am still upset, but figure the greatest honor I can do anyone in this mess we call family is to do my best. These are choices Pop made, and he has to live with that, my sister is at her limits and is simply doing her best. I'm sure she genuinely thought she was protecting her "Daddy" when she made up such an arbitrary rule, and she will have to live with that - just as I will have to live with the fact that I did not fight my way to my father's side.

And again, this essay is about fact from fiction, and crossing over, so when my father asked me today about work, and when the discussion with his caregiver returned to whether I would come back to my father's side, and when I look around my sub-luxury accommodations I invested in tonight to write this essay with,  I satisfy myself by searching for a future with these meager thoughts; I make hobo stew with frozen black-eyed peas and left-over Chicherones and fresh Jalepenos, and I'm maybe an hour and half away from an acre and an old stone school house that will not break me economically and will allow me to own my time and produce whatever I turn my hand to as long as I adhere to a certain simplicity of existence.

For a number of decades I have nurtured a fantasy that when we are children our time is hocked to the pawn shop in the sky, but if you are diligent, frugal there will come a time when any person with a purpose and some gumption can do whatever they choose - I choose to be free.