Stamford news - Curley's diner

Many have said that there has been little good coming from the current mayor, but i will say that i have found a significant one.
two sides of the fence that encircled Curley's diner has been taken down.
This was put up as an act of punishment for not selling out to a new development and it caused many problems for a long time for the establishment. but it is gone mow and I am glad!

Days of rememberance

Tomorrow is Memorial day,
a day to remember those who died.
My mom called earlier in the week,
to remind me that it was the day my dad had died.
I know it is important to her, the day he dies,
but for me, it is all the days that he lived.
He fought in the World War, but he survived
and lived a long and interesting life.
It is that life that i remember, not the moment of his death.
My mom, i understand,
remembers the day she was left alone.
it is important to her.
But with me.
the same will be for her,
when she goes,
i will remember her life....

It's Sunday

But it feels like a Saturday,
this is how the week was.
Moving to fast,
being to busy,
full of confusion.
yesterday is a blur,
i was not a t work,
but the sticky strands stayed with me.
Today is peaceful,
it feels like Saturday.
It is quiet.
I am quiet,
the neighborhood is quiet.
and we still have one more day to go of this long weekend!

Back to the Garden

A little dry post here today.
What would you think the most difficult thing to do in the garden is for me?

Squatting or knelling down?

Planting the plants?
Picking weeds?
Standing up?
watering?
No, its moving myself between the rows so i do not crush anything.
My balance is very, very bad and i have sticks forced into the ground so i can grab on and not fall down, killing everything!

Of course, i was working in the garden today!

the heart and mind

My heart and mind live in opposite worlds,
yet they co-exist.
My heart says this problem will pass,
my mind says to learn to live with it,
They do not fight,
there is room for both.
They are not contradictions,
for one gives me hope
and the other life,

After a particularly rough week

Many, many challenges at work and i go home and perform the most challenging thing of all...
i work in my garden...
Walking in between the rows is difficult, standing upright and then bending down is tough, but i love my garden!
It is worth it!
In a few days we will have lettuce, we all ready have chives and oregano and cilantro.
It is worth the challenge!

in my head

The thoughts in my head are loud,
they overwhelm the outside confusion,
the outside noise,
the outside misdirection.
I do not always speak those thoughts,
or write them down,
but they are there
and they are not silent.
They are not voices in my head,
they are my own thoughts,
looking deeply into my heart,
looking and what needs to be done,
at how it should be accomplished.
The world is a busy place,
creating distractions
and mis-directions
and wrong turns,
but it no longer influences me,
my thoughts are too loud.
I know what i want,
what i seek from each individual i meet.
It is not hard to find,
but most try to hide it,
behind facades of want and desire and need.
I think i know how to find it.
I think i have found it in each person i meet.

And there is peace.

A full moon rises,
creating chaos,
but not in me.
I am tired of the struggle,
but i will not give up.
I am tired of being tired,
i will not give up.
i struggle,
i go on,
finding new meaning in life each day!

a line

there is a line

between fantasy

and reality.

A line not quite real, yet not unreal,

shadows without form,

forms without shadow.

I seem to walk this line daily,

not knowing truth from fiction,

Wandering endlessly in a landscape familiar, 

yet not recognizable.

It is from this place, i see you.

A walk with the outcasts

Most morning, on the way to work,
 i walk past those who would be the outcast of this society,
the alcoholics. the mentally ill, the drug users.
From past jobs, i recognize some.
i will not judge,
for i have not lived their life,
felt their pain,
had their experiences.
They also recognize me,
through their delusions or stupor
and i greet them.
They meet me in the way they are able,
but always civilly,
without anger or judgment.
and many times i find kindness from them,
a look,
a wave of the hand
and in some cases...
a back rub.
The receive whatever kindness they give with thankfulness.

musings of surprise

I have surprised my self.
I did not think i had it in me...

The sun warms me and makes me think of ... different times.

I wonder,
Is it true?
Adversity does strengthen us?

I look at the plants that i tend and the growth and the beauty,
i helped them along?

So much i do,
i am very surprised.
I do not hold back,
i keep going.

I think of preparing dinner...

something short.

It is always funny,
how a breeze can make me smile,
a beautiful day make me sigh.
It is as if life is breathed into me with each gust.

A matter of how we look at things

I was speaking to a friend, who i consider spiritual.
There was nothing wrong with how she sees things, but i realized it is not my way.
I want to feel everything, the pain, the confusion, the not understanding, in all my situations,
but for what she was saying, that was all unimportant, God would take care of a situation.
I also believe God will take care of the things most troubling me, but in the meanwhile, i want to feel it all.
Every drop of discomfort,
every bit of pain,
every bit of confusion
because it makes all the good things so much more, alive!
I am good with that.

What is it all about

Strange and busy days
Life in a whirl,
but laughter still prevails.
Today i talked with a true geek, a genius geek.
The phone conversation was long and lofty.
You know the kind,
when yours eyes glaze over and you say "yes" to every thing the person says,
tho you do not understand?
But i understood everything he said, in those long technical terms,
but i kept bringing i t back to earth.
Who have i become,
to be able to do that,
to bridge an unfathomable gap.
I laughed after,it felt good.
When i came home, i help some one in their garden.

Random, Random

On an early Sunday morning,
i sit quietly,
remembering that i have forgotten the lessons learned.

The lessons of life,
that in the business of living,
have been put aside.

lessons of what is important and hanging on to those things.

The deep sharing i had with her is missing,
for we met soul to soul,
nothing covered.
Naked, all thoughts and emotions on the table,
nothing covered.
The feelings she learned to hide so long ago,
were there to touch and feel.
they were raw and strong,
they had been caged so long.
To caress that soul, to free those thought and emotions was my goal.
to allow her to feel, she so desperately wanted to feel.
Another came to distract and she went away
and all was covered again.
i will not cage a bird and so i let it go,
longing for those days of nakedness.

In the morning, still another.
Games, others played and toyed with her heart,
but i would not.
confused and heart broken she was, but strong and resilient.
She found her strength and lives,
but i miss her smile in the morning for the game players took her away.

Slow down, i say.
Why are you rushing?
we all come to the same end, why hurry?
The beauty that surrounds us, the flowers and the trees,
are there for us to see.
Stop!
Reach out!
Touch someone, really touch someone.
Feel the curves of their heart,
the jagged edges of hurt
and feel.
They know you are there,
you have not gone away.

Escape

Okay, so I have not blogged, am i a bad boy for not doing so?

But i do have some interesting observations, every morning, when i walk to work, i pass a recovery program, which houses people who were hooked on some kind of substance and are trying to get off it.
They hang out there,with it seems like nothing to do and sometimes on the first of the month,they are drinking.
I understand a bit of what they deal with,some form of pain that they do not want to see or feel.  It has sapped their strength and i guess their will.
I do not feel sorry for them, i do not hate them or feel disgusted.  I know a couple who are also mentally ill, i not not blame them.
But i can not relate to not wanting to feel.
In all of my struggles, i have never wanted to give up, i have never wanted NOT to feel.
I want to feel it all, the pain, the joy, the struggle and happiness, ALL of it.
Sometimes, i almost wish i could escape the struggle, but i am to "in to it" to want to escape.
The various pains, in my eyes, in the back of my head, in my throat, i examine closely to try to understand where i might be headed.
My mother, who is quite old, i know is dying.
I am embracing that also, as best as i can.
I will not shrink back.
Maybe this is the stuff that i m made of, stubborn, willful and i will not stop.
I remember the one lesson i found most important coming out of the operation and realizing i had almost not made it.
The lesson was to hold on to the things most important to me, family, friends, people who allowed me to be close.
There is nothing more important.

Reading recommendation

I used to read really fast and a lot.
Now it seems, i still read very fast, but am very limited in how much my eyes can take.
So i was given a book to read, "Tuesday with Morrie".
I recommend it highly.
It is on life's lessons that we learn,
it is heart felt and soul rendering.
It has brought many tears to my eyes.
I have been reading a few minutes a day and cover a chapter at each sitting.
Read it, it might teach us all something.

Missing

When i was very young. i had several bouts with the normal childhood illnesses, measles, mumps and chicken pox all in a month period.
 I got through them okay, 'cept the last one in its finishing touch left me with a massive ear infection, which was not caught until it was very late in the game .
My parents thought i was just being a normal child and ignoring what they said till one day with my back turned they asked if i wanted to go out for ice cream.
I did not respond and finally they knew something was wrong.
The doctor cleared up the infection, but damage was done in my left ear to the inner ear.  It not only left me mostly deaf in that ear, it took out that portion of the "balance three.
The three things which we rely on to have balance are the inner ear, our sight and our feet.
 I learned to deal with having just 2, it took longer for me to ride a bike, cross a log over a stream, etc... but i did them.
I overcame it enough to get a black belt in Tea Kwon Do, a kicking martial art.
Now i have lost another element in the balance equation, so i have enough trouble walking on rough ground that i use a cane.
Last night i went to a birthday party and there was food and drink and...dancing.
i used to dance and enjoy it, i can not anymore.  Any sudden movement with my head will make me lose all sense of direction and if i do not hang on to something, i will fall.
I suppose i could slow dance, but i would be hanging on to my partner for dear life, not for any other reason.
So i am missing dancing in a big way.
Not a biggy, but just another limitation to work around.

Life's gifts

They came into my life bearing gifts.
They did not know it, but they were there with those gift,
and i accepted each one as it came,
with graciousness, humility and above all thankfulness.
any times the emotions of those thoughts were misunderstood
and soon they went away,
but they left those gifts behind.
Those gifts that i still cherish,
even tho they who gave them, are gone.
Will they return with understanding?
I do not know,
i only know that for the time we had,
I was thankful!

I was holding my breath

It has been a very busy week, lots occurring.
Very, very busy at work and i came home late and exhausted.
But that was not the main thing.
John, the one who has been helping me a great deal, had a fatty tumor removed from his neck yesterday.
He went in, not worrying and I got the call that everything was okay at 11:30 Am.
It was only then i let go a bit sigh of relief and realized I was the one nervous.
He was brought home by another mutual friend at the same time i got home from work and was fine.
Big relief otherwise who knows, i guess i carry the worry with me about what happened to me.
It does not happen often, but enough.
I am glad in is finished.

Limited

As i have struggled the past year and a half to understand what has happened to me,
I have been somewhat dismayed to find an answer that satisfied me.
Although i felt disabled or handicapped, neither truly fit.
I thought of the word, Limited and knew there was depth in the meaning
and so much, much more.
For we are all limited in our abilities in some way for a jet pilot may not be able to wash windows on a skyscraper or paint a picture or sculpt.
We do not have the ability to everything.
And we should not.

So right now i am limited in certain things i used to not be limited in.
I dare not drive a car for fear of injuring myself or others.
I get tired quickly, so do not have the stamina that i used to.
I would say those are the direct result of the vision issue.
It is not trivial.
The whole process has opened something else,
something which did not exist before.
I used to take things apart to their smallest pieces and that would be my description of them.
A leaf on a tree would be green because the pigment representing cellular growth, chlorophyll, was in greater concentration than the pigment re[presenting cellular decay, Pheophytin and the leaf was attached to the tree through one of the many polymers of sugars that gave it structure.

Now a leaf flutters in the wind, 

like a butterfly on a tether. 

stretching to be free.

Its emerald green glistening in the sun like a jewel.

The difference is amazing, but i never saw the second way before.

Now i see both.

I am i really limited or has my perspective changed?

With new ways of looking at things very present,

sing a song in my heart.

I am no longer frightened.

Confusion between light and dark

Some where or when,

between waking and sleep,

comes a vision or dream or day dream.

Like a vision of seeing, 

but one image 

or is it a memory?

Some where,
two heart blend together,
it is sensual and i dare not write
nor shall i speak
for is it imaginary
or a dream
or a memory?
Two souls
or is it the spirits
or is it the bodies?
They meet,
comforting each other,
holding on for dear life
as if separation will cause death.

I dare not speak,

for the pain is intense

and the shadows fade into light

and i,

i,

awake.

And there are two images i see,

the doubleness is not gone.

and it is but a pillow i hold,

lifeless and not another part of my soul.

I sigh and go on.

wind

The breeze is strong today,
especially around the new Trump tower, that monstrosity.
In the winter the wind howled around that building,
tearing at my soul with its bitter cold,
freezing my fingers and toes,
but today,
Today, it was a welcome breeze,
cooling my brow and
i wished to stay in its cool for a longer time,
But home beckon me on and there i find rest.

More on Saturday morning

 Jake

What is it about Saturday mornings?
is it the quietness of the morning with no work to attend.
Is it the companion wanting attention?
Or is it just a morning that lays so sweet?

It is Saturday morning

Growing up:

When we are young,
the world is filled with wonder,
endless possibilities to explore.
Light and sunshine is the rule.
As we grow,
the beauty becomes marred with a harsh reality,
and things grow dark quickly.
We face still another choice as we continue to grow, 

to become with the dark, black, without joy or
to find still something more.
I am in the still something more portion now.

Pieces of Love

To be found in many places and people,
if we but let ourselves see.
It is offered
in a gesture
or a hug
or a kiss.
A kind act that does not go unnoticed,
if we but take the time.
Not to grasp after the whole thing in one bite,
but the small seemingly insignificant items of daily life.
To recognize,
to acknowledge,
to reciprocate,
That brings the pieces from many people into a whole that is greater than one,
And then,
and then
that is when it grows!