Wednesday, April 27, 2011

For the last time...

For the final steps I carry you
One last clutch hold and careful traverse
So heavy the weight lifted then moved again
Filled with treasures not forgot or ever again espied
This chest, a treasure of the past
How oft I have borne you
Till now, to the step of a new home
I will always have it in my heart
My minds eye, the treasure chest
Filled with another's treasure
you

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Possesion "haircut"

Thinning out a lifetime of things is proving to be a lengthy task. Every day I have found a home for clothes,books,furniture,trinkets and more. Someone even took the collection of rocks and shells. At the nearby grocery I saw a bicycle parked outside. It's seat was covered with duct tape. It had front and rear baskets filled with clothes and food supplies. I quickly went home and removed the comfortable seat from my old bike and returned to find the owner was a homeless man, he was taken aback by my gift and offered to give me something in return. I needed nothing and wished I could do more for him. This daily "give" sometimes feels like a chore. By days end I feel richer and have less. Still, I have more to part from and have begun to move the possessions that I will keep to their new lodgings. This is taking longer than I thought. With patience I will be back on the road in good time. With less clutter on my mind I am sure.

Friday, April 15, 2011

the flier...

While clearing the stacks of newspapers from the bed that she had placed there one day at a time for years it slipped out and fell on the floor. It was an advertisement leaflet, one of those that come in an envelope filled with dozens of local business ads. I had been bagging the newspapers for hours, for days really, had been careful to make sure there was no hidden treasures and had found nothing but years of newsprint. It was as if this flier jumped out from the stack as I was placing it in the bag. All around the edge of this coupon was handwriting. The back of the paper was filled with words by the same hand,"J.B."...

"Up down all around
in a circle we go
In out run about
Jump and shout
Having fun you know
Here there everywhere
Smiling faces you see
Having fun in the sun
Chasing each other with glee
Out to the country
Then back to town
All the sights to see
Here there everywhere
Dashing to and fro
Back and forth
East North South West
Here there everywhere
All none some one
Cold warm cool hot
See the flowers
After April showers
Plant a seed feed and weed
Watch the flower grow
Play work
Walk run skip to
Nest Home abode den nest

Wholesome fun books or The Fun Books"


"Who am I?" Fall 2001, J.B.
A person a proper noun I me
client customer patient (Dr's)
resident occupant citizen
subscriber pupil teacher a genre
child (of parents) sibling cousin
parent worker viewer buyer
seller sometimes sad sack sometimes
clown rider passenger driver
biker stroller swimmer participant
fan she or he or him male or
female this one

I am all these yet I am the one and only me

worker helper
owner buyer seller bargainer
barterer
thinker talker pupil teacher
parent child sibling cousin
friend aide doer talker listener
sewer sower gardener
cook
consumer reader writer
painter cleaner sweeper mower
trimmer pruner planter picker
grower cultivator builder
player listener viewer
dreamer
To me I am I or me to others he or she
user loser winner
participant fan viewer user
girl boy man woman child
baby lady or gentleman
owner user buyer seller
client customer patient teller
artist painter maker tinkerer thinker
I am this one he or she."


Fly away flier...

Saturday, April 9, 2011

post note: blogging is like writing backwards; reverse storytelling.

Buddha's Last Ride to a New Beginning

In my World of clinging to all possessions like memories, the time had come to remove him from my mantle. In the basket on the handlebar he went. The wind visibly blew a layer of dust from his bald head and happy belly as he faced forward to the sunny spring morning. He smiled as we weaved along the sidewalks pulled by the Nice dog steed who was possessed with moving forward to the top of Broadway, over Phoenix Hill, down to Spring Street to Beargrass Trail along the Creek it is named after. Through to the trailhead and along the edge of the park and by the Cherokee Triangle, by the simple Memorial stone erected to my mother then up to where the Art Fair is held the weekend before the Kentucky Derby. I had found the smiling plaster cast statue while clearing out an apartment years ago. Later I met the man who had made the figure when he worked at a local business, he recognized the mark he made on it's base. That man is dying of cancer now and I fancied riding part of him on a final trip around the park, his essence bouncing in the basket ahead of me. We made our way back to the Songs for Seba to my artist friend where the Smiling Buddha will be reborn, cleaned, repainted, and passed on to another's mantle.
One less thing. One more pleasant memory. A weight lifted.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Clearing House

I filled my basket with things I have gathered over the years. A box of books left behind by some good parents, books on child development. I took them to a small mother's shop where the woman was happy to receive them saying they never get gifts like that. In my basket I also had a wind chime, a pail of old paint brushes, a frisbee with a smiley face, a bag of ribbons and bows along with a roll of wrapping paper, two boxes with Christmas lights that had never been used, and a small moth eaten picto-graph persian rug. The ribbons I left propped on top of a city sidewalk trash bin on a heavily trafficed street. The lights I gave to a store owner who was going to put them in his store window. The brushes, smiley, and chimes to the Liberian Artist up the road. And the rug that I found in a basement hanging on the back of a door over a decade ago. The rug was not pretty or remarkable but I couldn't toss it away then or now because I am a scavenger. For years as I moved from place to place I wanted to put it in the garbage but my conscious would not allow it. I rang the bell at the oriental rug shop at the end of the alley by my house and when the middle eastern accented man buzzed the secure door I told him I was moving and had this rug. His eyes lit up and was excited to see the tiny rug, he said it was a lot of money. Now, I have been wanting to throw it away for years so I asked him to do for me if it had to be done. The rug had a price but the look on his face to receive it as a gift was priceless.
One less thing.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Letting go, and my Birthday...

It is funny that some say 'careful what you ask for, you might get it.' When I look back on my life over the years, some things stick with me, some memories and moments don't fade while other things are lost, only reminded of them by friends or family. I remember my 3rd birthday where my parents got me a tricycle. The thing was huge. I, of coarse, wrecked and skinned both knees badly. I still remember the sting of the disinfectant spray; the loving caress and care of my parents. When I was in elementary school and instead of the lawnmower I had asked for my mother sent flowers to me in class. I was tortured all day looking at the beautiful bouquet, feeling so loved by the gesture while some of my highly evolved classmates poked fun at me for being sent flowers, and knowing there would be no shining new lawnmower waiting for me when I got home. Then there was the sixth grade birthday cake incident. Let me just recommend you clear your throat before blowing out a large number of candles...Not my best memory. Then there was the year where the city was devastated by a tornado and my parents were out in the community for two days helping with the relief efforts. I waited, looking at my favorite cake Mom had made, till we were all there together; I think it tasted best that year. It became better with age. My sons birthday is the only day in my life with a special place in my heart, another thing that appreciates with age. Two weeks before my father died he nearly broke into tears because he feared he would pass on my birthday. I assured him that I would not be scarred by it any more than when he did; he died at sunset on the day after...I took a long walk that night. I have spent a birthday alone, nice. This will be the last birthday I spend in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville, my address will soon be outside it's boundaries. Forty three years I have made residence within a mile from where I now lay my head. The Tubes wrote a song- My Head is My Only House, Unless it Rains... I like that. When I walk along Bardstown Road, the stopping off point for travelers since before I can remember, I appreciate the richness and diversity the mile long stretch of shops and restaurants contain. Every race and class can be seen here from Senator to Crusty Train Kid, Black to Red, Business executive to Artist, even a Panhandling Cat-lady or a Guy rolling the Whole World in his hands. ( I just had to stick that in there.) I have been taught a life of knowledge by the streets of Louisville, have risen and fallen by it's lessons; I have grown from the failures and losses probably more than the days of frolic and pleasure. "Until you let go of what you were in the past you can't be fully engaged with what will be." I have the best gift on this Birthday, appreciation of the World around me. Life is great when I let it.
Don't forget... Love Yourself.