To continue to write. To write better. To learn. I have been studying social justice. It’s been an underlying theme in my life. I have found myself at odds with people in Jacksonville FL concerning race issues. I seek peace. Discovering Thomas Sowell has been a huge plus. I would like to enroll at the University of Peace, here in Costa Rica. One term, one class. Conflict Resolution. My main opposition often insults the poor and uneducated. I don’t want to do battle. There has to be a better way. A higher road.
I am a Cracker by Birth, A Redneck by Default, and a Peace Seeker Through Reading Writing and Education.
Oh hell yeah – I stayed one step ahead of the shoe shine, two steps away from the county line. Just trying to keep my customers satisfied. Satisfied.
*I have written about it throughout my blog* My writing is full of the truth. Confessional. That is why it is obscured. But it can be unearthed. You have to want to know.
*The photo is of my 1991 Toyota that I drive on Amelia Island, FL. Land of the rich and famous. One time sunny place for shady characters. Some consider keeping this rusted, mule of a vehicle, on the road – criminal. I have fun.
*Catch me if you can.
*Whitehouse/Westide is a part of Jacksonville FL – It is called Zone 4 – which is across the board, known as a heart rate zone. It is where I am from.
This (my writing and viewpoint) reminds me of my life. My history as an artist. My years of living. “Girl, you don’t know where your bread is buttered.”
“Yes I do, I smear wonderful tasting butter on Ezekiel bread. I do what is good for my health. Mental, spiritual and physical. It has made me vastly unpopular. Well, as unpopular as I can get, being a nobody amongst nobodies.
When one sets out to do something, write a story, buy a house, catch a wave, track fish, deal with social climbing South Afrikaners, wrestle with new age realty contracts, log a WOD, pull a weed, read a book, share about a book, there are always decisions to be made.
Life can be complicated.
So, they built the bridge too short. Just don’t tell anybody.
Last night, I gathered with twenty two other Jacksonville writers. We had a party. Hosted by Brad and Darlyn Kuhn, at their Trout River Home, it couldn’t have been better. It was a comfortable setting, with a beautiful view.
Our motive for gathering was to meet each other, and to read our writings.
Most there were professionals. All were talented. It was an enlightening experience.
After committing, to this party participation, I believe writers are a somewhat like skaters. You put yourself out there. Getting up to read is like climbing up the pipe, knowing your getting ready to make the drop. If you don’t climb, if you don’t go, there’s nothing. But if you do, and you take that chance, you can fly. And like the skaters, the writers have bit the dust and practiced enough, to be able to put on a good show. Each take their turn. They support one another, and have fun, including ups and downs.
JaxbyJax.com is community. It’s about Jacksonville, Florida. It’s about making our hometown a better place. It’s a gathering and it takes heart!
One must be strong ~ to be a writer.
This is the advertisement for the event which is happening next week, October 15th and 16th, at the Jesse DuPont Center, which I am fond of calling, the old Haydon Burns Library. 40 East Adams St.
Come out and support your local writers, watch them skate. They make some tricky turns. It’s heady and colorful. It’s art and it’s free!
I was in her apartment. It was a two bedroom, one bath, concrete hovel. It was navy housing. The war was going on and I loved to smoke pot and listen to Cat Stevens. I was in the company, of a stranger, strange neighbor.
She shared with me that her parents were in the KKK. She had been so proud, of her father in his robes. Attending rallies was the family pastime. She told me about the philosophies, of the KKK. They wanted to keep the white race white.
She boasted that her boyfriend, in 1964 was the National Leader of the KKK. She attended St. Augustine Rallies. She claimed they fed a black man, to the hogs. She laughed.
I was silent. I loved Cat Stevens. I was twelve.
I went to visit a relative, who worked in the Georgia education system. She was so proud of her job. She told me how stupid the black students were. The faculty just had to deal with them, but it was so difficult and a waste a time. My backbone straightened and I came down upon her with an intellectual vengeance. I showed her who was stupid.
I walked out, went home and rarely ever visited again. I was 36..
I had a friend that I admired. She was an artist and a middle school teacher. I went to her class, to see the students work. She let me know, which work was created by black children. She said they had zero creativity.
I could no longer be her friend. I was 40
I was close to an older woman, who told me her Daddy owned nigger town. She made the claim, that black people could only go so far in education. They couldn’t cut it. They would quit and give up. And she abhorred Venus Williams. She believed that Venus had destroyed women’s tennis. She was a highly respected and affluent member, of the Jacksonville community.
I stayed by her side, until her death. I was continually shocked at her class consciousness and racism. I am in my sixties.
I still like Cat Stevens
Racism, friends and family, and overgrown children who don’t know how to be civil.
Yes, for God’s sake, don’t ever speak up. Don’t loose it. Hold it inside. Sing a song. Look the other way. Take it on the chin. Pull yourselves up by the bootstraps. Dodge the bullet. Don’t throw water on the burning cross, that would be too uncivil.
I saw a post on Facebook, concerning a protest. It was a rally, planned for today, to solicit, once again, the removal of a Confederate soldier from it’s high perch, in Hemming Park. It’s centered in, the ever angry and racist city, of Jacksonville, Florida. My hometown.
It’s a city, with a large black population. People who were brought here from Senegal, Africa, to be slaves. They are mostly all hemm-ed up, in a part of town, the North West Quadrant.
If you didn’t intentionally, or accidentally drive through there, you would never know it existed. – It’s shocking.
Last year, the muses inspired me, to go down there and do some photography. It never happened.
I had planned to attend the rally today. However, things changed. The Confederate soldier was removed, from the park. Now that some time has passed, I suspect, to keep it safe, for a future re-positioning. But let’s hope not. Maybe, it will be put in a museum.
Today, the rally is going to be in front of the Jax Courthouse. They are protesting police violence.
My still small voice, said, Don’t go. So, I’m not going.
I will be in my house, in my chair, breathing and meditating.
The rally is at three. I will be present, I will have my eyes closed and I will be One with the Universe.
Fish Eye Farm 