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.

I finally recognized the "Big Dipper."

I am sitting in a building sporting the windsock for the airstrip in Amboy California. It is Monday 2 May 2011, at 8:48 pm. Richard at Roy's Hotel allowed me to build a fire and cook beans outside the building. There is a room with a corrugated roof and two windows - all of the panes are broken out the walls are clean and straight. There is a door in the front but it is off its hinges.

Inside the room there are the cement cones that don't go all away to the taper and are too large to pick up alone without some struggle, i am strong, but i am also 56. I ran the airport runway 4 times which is about 4,000 steps and close, or something around 4 miles. I didn't get out of Los Angeles until around 1:30 pm.

The train tracks are close enough to feel the rumble of the track if you are very quiet and still and can listen past the whistle blowing, which I think is a very beautiful sound; there is enough train traffic so's that you can get a different sense of each train. Most of the traffic thus far is to L.A. - perhaps all.

I am tired but i feel good. I spoke with my father from a turnout in Stoddard Canyon just before Barstow. He is digging the trip but wouldn't give me directions for Flagstaff outside of Barstow. It turns out that the Interstate 40 branches just outside of town. Amboy is on an ole length of Route 66 which also contains Bagdad of "Bagdad Cafe" fame. The internet search for Amboy describes it as a "ghost town" - i would say under utilized….

I am heading for New Mexico to see about an abandoned school house made of stone; it is for sale. The layout fits my concept for a simple existence, though I'm hoping it is not quite as existentially isolated as my current accommodations. 

i will check back later with more: notes from the hinterlands

affectionately

Joseph

ps the way to see the Big Dipper is to find a dark place near Amboy on a clear night; lay on your back with your feet pointing towards 29 Palms, tilt your head back toward the Marble Mountains about  22 degrees and look over a little to the right. the handle for the "Dipper" will be on the left hand side… my vision is 90/800, so if you can't see it; get someone to bring you to an optometrist quickly… ciao 

Dear Mom, is it you or the Universe talking?

Just now I watched 45 minutes of heartfelt, however tortured, personal disclosure evaporate into the digital ether. The paragraphs that disappeared were cogent and articulate, but I have to wonder about that "flick of the wrist." Essentially the discussion was this, how can you see me as ever wanting to harm you? I accept that I am angry - who wouldn't be if one's siblings acted in such a way as to limit one's access to a dying parent?

However, that is not the real concern for me; it is not a concern because the choice to place the siblings in charge was Pop's. I expressed my feelings at the time - whether what has come to pass is self-fulfilling prophecy or competent forecasting, who gives a sh_t? I have only a limited time left on this planet, and I do not want to spend that time either attacking you, or attempting to avenge any slight for being excluded from an opportunity to serve my father's dying wishes. If this makes me self-involved,  narcissistic or crazy then so be it.

From where I stand it is a practical recourse, for if your  perception of my efforts to understand our family will be ever construed by you as a personal attack, and if my siblings are only able to see my efforts to alleviate my father's suffering as some manner of torment, or incompetence - what is left to me? How am I to convince anyone of anything when I am having difficulty enough not creating mayhem in reaction to such blatant injustice? I accept that your history is filtered by your experience; unfortunately for us so is my own. Why would I consult or attempt to sort out difficult feelings with a person who is convinced I mean them harm?

Perhaps you and the siblings feel the same way towards me; maybe you experience my efforts to understand our current miasma as personal attacks on you? Here's a fact, if I am attacking you, I don't want to, g_d knows there are plenty of other targets on which to purge my bile; fact number two: I am asking these questions of myself because I am full of self-doubt, and I welcome the opinion of anyone reading this to show me the error in my ways; however, be advised that I can be quite chatty when I'm attempting to learn something, especially if it involves my failings... how do they say, "I'm so wrong, and there is so little time...?"

Here's the last fact, I'm going to die like every other person on this planet, and with the time left to me I prefer love over hate; joy over sorrow; honest emotion over stifled want; closeness to distance and freedom for self over control of others.

oh, and Mom - in my humble opinion, you did a gr8 job raising me, and I'll be happy to share my reasons with you, thanks.

My Father is dying and I am leaving...

I go willingly, though not entirely by choice. If it were left to me, I would remain at his side searching for ways to deflect some small pleasure his way. He is the person most responsible for my understanding how important joy is in this life, however he is also responsible for placing in charge siblings who see no place for me in my father's life. Neither sibling is vile by any stretch, and their behavior underlines how "the path to hell is paved with good intentions."

It is not their hell to which I am referring, though by their behavior, it is clear they are suffering; it is the deprivation of my presence in my father's world - this has caused him hideous, unnecessary discomfort. Yet it would be consistent with his life and his philosophy as an existentialist. He made these choices and by g_d, he is going to see them through. About this time, I'd imagine he is wanting some help from me, for from what I have gathered my siblings are content to allow him the sanctity of his own solitude - they show up when... ever?

Okay, so I'm not as reconciled to the facts as I'd like to think, this is probably why I have been marginalized in his world, that dirty stink of the loud and the imperfect which seems to follow me around like dirty dishes that just won't stay clean. The most solid response I can make to my exclusion from my father's end days is as Bob Dylan said, "I"ll step back..." However, the perversely stubborn man inside of me, will also honor Pop's admonitions - "Don't ever change; don't stop writing," ergo this maiden blog.

I am leaving Southern California, a change that is a long time coming. My future is shorter than my past and that inspires a certain resolve in terms of lifestyle choices. As much comfort as it might provide my aging Mother, the likelihood of enduring what has occurred regarding Pop's dotage is not something I will repeat. I am discussing this with her and she understands unhappily that there is a measure of family pathology which, possibly, is not entirely manifested in my person.

So how to honor the privilege of having been introduced into the creative life by two capable and in their own ways, conflicted people? Naturally, I create. In some form or another for the past 30+ years I have emulated, not one, but both parents. Through this process I have extruded after a fashion my own sense of self which is not obliged, nor yoked, to the destiny of either parent. Whether this autonomy will suffice in any karmic way for the travail and misery which has been intertwined with the ineffable pleasure of joy and rectitude one finds in attempting to reconcile two wildly disparate paths will only be known after my own demise, for if I've learned anything from this life Art is my greatest hope of being heard.