a comment from the newlyweds

'My warrior friend. Your Norcal warrior compadre here. You've been on our minds and Lynn went to your site and we were moved by your words. You have a heart of a lion and a soul that is infinite in its glory.

Flesh is transitory but the soul is forever on its journey, strong, resolute and filled with wonder...

"Let's take a walk. ALong the lines of existence. Becoming one as we stop to ponder a reason to live, a reason to recollect, a reason to reconstruct a season...gone." '

Scott and Lynn- The wedding crashed couple

'sami'

The limo driver to the DFW airport was Turkish and the accent thick. He called himself 'Sami' and I as well. During our ride I spoke as did he and he learned of my plight and I learned of his grandmothers, in the eighties. As I listened, 'Sami' told me of the forbidden honey in a village, a single village, in Turkey. Not near a city or town to speak, but a village isolated in Northern Turkey, he thought, for the maps do not show it and there, in this remote village, off a dirt road in a dialect not often understood in Northern Turkey, we think, are the bees that make the honey that is expensive, over one hundred thousand US dollars, used to cure illness and disease, cancers and the terminal as I did for his Grandmother and the cure is mine, for the taking he told me, for the right money. And he, 'Sami', having graduated from Texas A&M in business, continued to drive me and promised to give me the name of the village in a climate that was for the tough and rugged so that I too could be cured for a price, not his price, but a high price and he wanted nothing, nothing in return for information that he and only he, could share with me.

So to my surprise I was humbled when 'Sami' called to give me the news that the honey, unlike that you put on a morning strudel, could be found on a website, a Turkish website and the villagers were selling the honey for a price, not one hundred thousand dollars, but possibly very much less and maybe one thousand dollars or three hundred dollars and it is the wish of 'Sami', who knows my address, to visit me this week to interpret the website to purchase the honey to cure my disease to continue to live disease free as his grandmother does somewhere in a town, not the honey village, in Turkey.

friday 30.06

My tears dissipate before they reach my cheek. Like the red blood in my heart, they are real as I think, not too deep and feel the destruction that has possessed my internal organs. Infection after infection, so much cypro, so very my cypro and the relief is sparing at best. The neubulizer of morphine hums, the steam that surrounds me as mysterious as the afterlife. The feeling of warmth soothing but not a cure for another day living mess and chaos, inward formed, without consent and permission but definitely with a hateful vengeance.

I try to motivate, to move in a normal fashion and another tear falls, the real me realizing I know not what normal is anymore.

I am a puppet and the strings are worn, hinges rusty and soon I will be shelved with a sense of permanence and completion.

vintage New Mexico

ABQ after hours

spirit dancing

I left for Albuquerque with little expectation and this I am proud of as the journey, now finished, feels complete, done. The city was awe inspiring and simple and the combination left for an imagination run wild.

I did feel the indirect pressure that my illness places on another and in turn, me and the awareness frightened me more than the religion so unwanted and thrown down my throat.

The feelings were real feelings and the consequence of my seen before reality damaged me with physical ramifications of exhaustion, body pains, bloat and wonder. The fact that there was no air conditioning only complicated my situation and made me think of a home.

The feelings, no longer suppressed, have heightened my awareness of the known importance of the word NO, proper rest, dignity, and mortality not by want, but by my body's need.

I did not pay homage to Jehovah's mess. I sat in solace and paid respect for self and otherwise out of comfort, believe and knowledge, of my experience, my truth and my ability to feel it proud and silent as I 'witnessed' spirit dancing in place of a bunch of words that spoke hatred and immaturity, the thought still making me cringe.

southwest culture

pre-K

I just was outside speaking with a neighbor and his young (five and a half she told me) daughter and I happened to ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up. This was after I put the idea of ice cream and barbie dolls in her head to the shaking NO of her father as it is bed time...

She replied, 'I want to be a teacher'. So I asked here what kind of teacher and she said without hesitation, 'pre-K'. Next week she will want a cell phone and her own personal laptop. Tomorrow she will draw me a 'home made' kitty party picture at school. Yes, school year round and she loves it. Reading on the second grade level and a brother following in her footsteps. So innocent and so many streaks ofbrillance. Her parents will have their hands full.

Thousands of days ago, we used to ask my brother what he wanted to be and he would tell us an elephant. And the eggs, when asked how he wanted them cooked at a local Sambo's, he replied, 'well done' to the waitress, to my eight year old laughter.

wednesday 28.06

It puzzles me to know that my mother just left for Las Vegas and I was asked to watch my father while she is gone. Instead of being an active participant, I play the role of enabler and give her the time she needs to re group , while wondering why relatives are distant and family acquaintances are a memory prior to my arrival, after a twenty- three year absence from any direct family ties.

monday 26.06

I am back late this evening from my journey to New Mexico, filled with green chilies, much needed laughter, stories to tell over the next few days and memories to post. As I unwind and take my body pulse, I yawn, and think of the next journey, short or long, and plan greater adventures, even before my laundry can be sorted and washed. Who else do you know spends the night in a motel with a roach, offends a Jehovah Witness for not 'witnessing' and receives the phone number of an American flight attendant all in a completed day? It is good to be back 'in the saddle' in Dallas. I need oxygen, pasta and a smoke and not in that order...