Featured Family #1

 This is the first of my new series, Featured Family.

This is my trainer and his family. If you don’t think you have the best trainer in the world, then you don’t have the right trainer.

This is Chris’s son, surfing grommet style.

This is one of my favorite shots. This little girl loves her Daddy.

Who says American values died in the fifties?

They look alive and well to me!

*I didn’t like any of the definitions of grommet~in the manner that I have used it So this is my definition. Surfers started calling kid surfers, more or less, 15 and under, groms. Grom is short for grommet, which is a mechanical term for a small steel ball.  

Detecting Sound

Radar could hear the choppers delivering the wounded to the MASH Unit in the Korean War. He had that sense.

Old timers on the trail west could put their ear to the ground and hear the hooves of approaching horses, be them friend or foe.

What do I hear?

I hear the chatter of distant cyber antics. I hear the past and the present.  I mean the future.  I mean the present.  Those two just won’t stay still.

I also hear the fan running.

A Sprinkle of Chemicals

I was asked to share about my old life. I care enough about the person that made this request, to do so. 

 I have journaled for many years. This particular page, Chemicals was written in May, 2011, on a day of reflection.

Chemicals in me. Chemicals in others. The ones I took. The ones they are on. The ones that become upset in our bodies due to our emotions.

From time to time, I still have the image of the LA bathroom flash in my mind. I can remember how I wanted to capture the moment. I wanted people to know about the intensity of that bathroom; as if it wasn’t me that was there. And everyone needed to know. I would be the liaison of information. I wanted pictures. I wanted to paint. I wanted people to know.

It was probably a 3 by 5 space. Entering into that bathroom to shoot heroin with people I didn’t know. People I had never even seen before. How crazy is that? How desperate is that? What was I thinking? It seems like there was a bare bulb that hung over my head. I know there was. I would feel that feeling and feel the rush in my head. And I wanted everyone to know what it was like to be a junkie. I wanted them to know that it was not what they thought. I was just a regular person.

There was nothing regular about me.

Living in East Los Angeles has to be one of the more crazy things that I have ever done in my life. It was colorful, fast and explosive. We moved  to Echo Park, my husband, myself and my daughter, along with our dog named Fido, in July, 1985. We found an apartment for three hundred dollars, which was an outrageous price for a tiny downstairs room. The landlady’s son lived on the top floor and we soon learned that he was on methadone and had been in prison for killing his father.

It was the summer of the Night Stalker. My husband and I, both got jobs right away and my daughter went to Elysian Elementary. He would go down to Echo Park and fish in the lake. My husband is an avid fisherman, no matter where he lives. There were dead rats floating on the surface of the water. A dead body was dragged out of the lake the day after he had caught a few fish from the bank. Only someone in the euphoric state of heroin induced bliss can accept this as an average daily occurrence. We didn’t eat the fish.

We bought two cars from a Mexican man down the road. One was a 62 Impala and one was a 63 Ford Fairlane. We ended up losing the Impala in Vegas, but kept the Ford and drove it all the way home back to Florida. What a great car. We pulled a trailer carrying our treasured washer and dryer that we had acquired from the side of the road in Hollywood Hills. They have the best trash there.

We were there from July to September, but it seemed a lot longer than that. Everyday was action packed. Over the course of those three months, which seemed like three years, I became a light weight junkie and knew I had to flee. We had gone to LA, running from a Mexican coke connection. I was always running. He wasn’t after us, like we owed him anything. We had become guinea pigs for quality control and I had lost it. With a Mexican drug dealer pumping your veins full of coke on a daily basis, you can become toxic pretty quick. In both Texas and California we lived in Mexican communities and we experienced the other side of prejudice. It was hard.

When we ran from California, we returned to the Island, where we discovered, we had escaped the influx of crack. I was filled with gratitude for my good luck. B E and K had come to town, filling all of our old friends pockets, just long enough to turn it over to the crack dealer. I always felt like I escaped the tragedies and hardships that so many others stepped in to. I escaped them by being “out of town”. I escaped them by being smarter than the average; independent person that I was.

It was all in my mind and in my perspective. My outlooks saved me and they were killing me at the same time. I was just a short time from death. A death that I would survive. Lucky me.

NOT a Leapord

                     

I am NOT a leopard..

I use to be told by my mother, “A leopard cannot change its spots.” It always left me feeling, that I was going to be stuck-with all of my bad habits and bad attitude. It would squelch my attempts to change. Then, one day, some congenial person informed me, that I was not a leopard. ~What can I say, I need all the help that I can get!

Dream-in-the-Hole

I dream in the hole. “Nature abhors a vacuum.” So, I will not let my God hole go empty.

There are infinite possibilities.

Gratitude

I came to Starbucks today to establish an internet connection. I had in mind to write about gratitude. The reason being, I am inundated with stuff. I had to get the tumbler, in my ignition, replaced. It took two days and a rental car. I have had to work on getting a permit, for a building on my property. I’ve never liked bureaucracy, however, through this process, I actually have made some friends. Good things happen when you least expect it.

Having said that, I want to share with you, that right when I was getting out of my car, I received a text. My granddaughter has graduated. She didn’t graduate with her class. She had to do summer school. She’s always had to do summer school. I’ve been suspicious that she does this, because she likes to be at school.

My gratitude morphed into happiness.

I come from a long line of drop-outs. My mother was a succesful, business woman. However, she only went to the ninth grade. I don’t know what I was thinking when I quit. So, I certainly don’t know what my daughter was thinking of when she quit.

Today, I’m a believer in education.

And today I am so happy.

My granddaughter graduated from a real High School.

I heard it once said, “you can go to school for the rest of your life, but graduating from high school is a one time thing.”

YOU GO GIRL! YOU ROCK~CONGRATULATIONS!

Unplugged

In my last post, I stated that I was seeking serenity. Peace of mind, is high on my list of priorities. So, I packed my ditty bag and headed to downtown, Jacksonville.

That might not sound like a destination, for a spiritual retreat, but for me, it was. I wanted away from the currents of confusion.  I found a place off Main Street.

I rented this room for a very reasonable price. It was not a hostel, but similar. Like I said before, I’m a shoe-string traveller.

I went for walks. Browsed at Chamberlains Book Store and coffee shop. I did a lot of people watching.

I walked by the tracks. Train songs sang in my head.

I saw this billboard and thought to myself, “Do people really think that is real fruit?”

Then I saw this piece of paper at my feet.

I bent over and read it. I thought to myself, “That’s cool.” I kept on walking. Then I was stopped in my tracks. I wear a diamond ring that I found, just like I found those words on that tattered piece of paper. I went back, picked it up and put it in my pocket. I am still carrying it. I’ve worn my diamond for twenty-eight years. I’ll have to see how long I carry the paper. I know which one is more valuable.

Being raised in the Bible belt, I use to resent people asking me if I was saved. No matter what I said, I couldn’t convince them. I know today, I don’t have to convince anyone and I certainly don’t have to defend myself to God.

I’m back to work now with a new perspective. It’s always nice to take some time out. What a beautiful world we live in~hostel or hostile~it’s a choice.

Those few days in the city, offered the perfect spiritual retreat. 

I think God knows what he’s doing~ I can’t, he can, I think I’ll let him!