Ponderings, Poems & Pictures - 2011...A Life...

“…the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country…”

I woke up and I fell asleep

I was lost; I was found, lost again and maybe found now and then again.

Was told that, “You have to live your adolescence” by Christine in Soho, London

Lived in liminal space most of the time and at moments thought there is life on the other side of all that I have been experiencing and that “Although your (my) former state was ordinary, your (my) future will be extraordinary” (Job 8:7 CEB).

Realized at brief moments and for fleeting seconds that as Kris Kristofferson wrote, “The going up was worth the coming down.”  

Went to Cinque Terra, Italy 

Drank Little Creatures beer in Freemantle

There was a walk through Stephen’s Green on a rainy afternoon in Dublin

Came to the conclusion that:

More than money, one needs a will,

More than a will, one needs a passion,

And with passion, one can do anything.

Discovered that love is heavy more often than not

Brantford, The Blue Dog Cafe

 Oxford

 

The British Museum

The Globe Theater

Abbey Road

There was time at Liberty Bounds Pub and Leadenhall Market and street coffee on Brick Lane

Redgate Beach and rogue waves

Watching dolphins in the Swan River

The Merchant Café on Cappuccino Alley

Justin Townes Earl at Mojo’

Crab legs and butter

Room 101 and the Matrix and 1984

Simulacrum and Simulacra

Walked through St. Paul’s in London and St. Peter’s in Rome

Creativity and Flow




The Seine

 

           

                                                     Sunsets

Ate kangaroo

Walkabout Bar

Vauxbough – all night party and walking out into the sunshine.

The Tube and DLR – reminded to mind the gap

Walked through Soho at night

The M Bar

  Paris Breakfast

Full Body Massage

Sun, Ocean, Warm Sand

Freemantle

The Left Bank Cafe

Perth

Saw the Southern Cross for the first time

My first tattoo by Spider at Freemantle tattoo studio

Margaret River – Xanadu and River Trails

Rottnest Island

 Diamond Jacks, Soho - London

Daryl

Spice of Life Pub

Second tattoo – 3

Madame Jo Jo’s

Dublin

The Temple Bar

The Brazen Head

Killarney

The Grand

Siobhan

Third tattoo – the parking spot

Two Harbors

Siobhan’s visit

Camping

Canada

London

Rome

The Coliseum and the Spanish Steps

The Tiber, wine and food, walking the streets of Rome at night

Grosseto

Pisa

La Spesia

Trains, planes, taxi’s

Absinthe

Stella

Kronenberg

Smithwicks

"God has a brown voice, as soft and as full as beer."

~ Anne Sexton

Guinness

Powers

Red Wine

“Little Lion Man” ~ Munford and Sons

And there was the…

Fucking Rain

Pouring on me

Dousing my heart’s fire

With its menacing, demure moistness

Black, black, black

Fucking Rain 

“Midnight in Paris”

“The Razor’s Edge”

Reading – lots of reading

A Time that I thought…

I am cold

I am alone

I am fucked

I want to stop

And I became aware that I too, was one of those, “…who were but a few of the beaten and butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the earth.” ~ William Styron, Sophie’s Choice

“Sarah’s Key”

Experienced my “…exquisite fragility…” and learned that it is what is a part of my soul and that I am not needy.

Lived through depression and anxiety again and continually – took Lorazapam and Celexa.

Then read and believed that, “Wounds to the soul take a long, long, time, only time can help, and patience, and a certain difficult repentance.” ~ D.H. Lawrence

Failed at forgiveness and love

Felt like an alien to my children

Prayed to God and I think he heard some of the time

Was a hypocrite most of the time – an acrobat of a tangled life

Felt this…

Suffocating

Choking on the smoke of my existence

Anxious

Not able to settle in place

Squirming and agitated

Bar Church continued
AP story about Bar Church
Bar Church hiatus
EMT Refresher
Resigned from Ambulance Service and CISM Team
Quit Bartending


Drove all night to Sudbury

   Met Samantha 

Drank coffee…lots of coffee

Walked along the Thames, the Seine and the Liffey

 Was in Toronto and Hong Kong

Met Lucia in Apt. 5A

Time collapsed and felt as it continued collapsing

The Atlantic

The Irish Sea

The Indian Ocean

Walked on Heath Ledgers favorite beach             
Salt water
Australian caves

Flat Whites

The Doctor

Joe Pug

Sex – “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” ~ Saint Augustine, Confessions

Blue Eyes

Storms and Soft Rain

Cold and Heat

And through it all, there were...

Dissolving images

Burning pictures

Faded memories

Emotions turned cold

Passion faded

Fooled no more

Live for me

Love myself

Grow strong alone

Follow my heart

Live my dreams

Confusion
Invisible and then visible
Loved and hated

Kissed and was kissed – where is your kiss Trinity?

Missed Catherine terribly ...3...

Surreal

Exhausting

Trapped

Then…

I slept to be alone

Even while someone was in my bed

I closed my eyes and fell into a place of solitude.

Storms and Tranquility

KLN

“It's no secret that a friend is someone who lets you help.
It's no secret that a liar won't believe anyone else.
They say a secret is something you tell one other person
So I'm telling you, child…” ~ U2

Looked at epistemology painted on canvas

Ate lunch in Montmartre

Felt closeness and the collapse of space

There was intimacy with strangers while distance with friends and family


Wrote this in Paris on March 24, 2011: 

I could be lost in it’s space; it’s time, it’s being

Red wine, food, beer, coffee

Beautiful people sitting close to me

Tonight while drinking wine I watched the sun set over this city

A city full with the past, vibrant with each present moment, and full of possibility for the future –

Stunning!
Brilliant!
Alive!
Fresh!

Le Saint Regis

Moulin Rouge

La Formy Café

Saint-Jean de Montmartre

Corso Café

The sex shop pushers are not all that different from the Jesus pushers – each on their own street corners.

Mama Mia and Chicago live in London’s West End

The Royal Opera House

Caer Baris in Builth Wells

Odysseus

Ulysses

A “lie in” and “you drink a wee bit”?

Learned how to pour a pint of Guinness

Craic

Lads

Lir Café

Ireland

Green misty hills

Lyrical voices

Pubs – ale and whiskey

Blue eyes, green eyes

Drizzling skies

Glistening sea

Celtic memories, history

Churches and castles

Cemeteries filled with lives lived.

Wrote The Irish Poems

“Tonight’s gonna be a good, good night.” ~ The Black Eyed Peas

Thought that an idea can shake Europe and the tsunami rolls over America.


Officiated at a funeral


Went to two weddings

Tuscany

U2 concert in the Twin Cities – brilliant!

TT  & HB

Thought about living with someone as a sequel to marriage?

Had this written in my journal one night by a friend (thanks Mel) and now know how true the words are…

“Lovers leave and friends all let you down,

I should of known that you would come around.

My old friend the blues…” ~ Steve Earle

This is a truth - there are a lot of beautiful women in the world so remember:

“When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.” ~ Victor Hugo

“And boredom, ennui, depression

Are long slow vibrations of pain
The possess the whole body
And cannot be localized.”
~ D.H. Lawrence

And yet…and yet…through all this living and experience and travel and all that has gone through my heart and mind in 2011 this remains true…

“Your absence has gone through me

Like a thread through a needle

Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

~ W.S. Merwin, Separation

I miss your body next to mine, your voice at the end of the day, coffee in the morning, your miniature guitar strumming and Elvis lip…

Still this is true too…

At the end of the day, when the work is done and I am ready to relax with something to eat and a glass of wine – that is the time that I wish there was someone to share these moments with.

And on all our journeys know:

“We shall not cease from exploration and in the end of all of our exploring,

Will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time…” ~ T.S. Elliot

“…But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' "'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"  ~ Luke 15:29-32

 

We all bleed, feel, despair, agonize and wonder with the beauty of all of those we meet along the way on our shared journey's our shared story - Jesus too was a prodigal son.

  “Equally, wherever Jesus went he met an endless supply of people whose lives had gone badly wrong. Sick people, sad people, people in doubt, people in despair, people covering up their uncertainties with arrogant bluster, people using religion as a screen against harsh reality. And though Jesus healed many of them, it wasn’t like waving a magic wand. He shared the pain. He was deeply grieved at the sight of a leper and the thought of all that the man had gone through. He wept at the tomb of a close friend. Toward the end of the story, he himself was in agony, agony of soul before he faced the same agony in his body.”

~N.T Wright