Poking in inner watery electric fire of the mind for flame and ember, you sense what you're looking for, to explore, write about.

A picture of a young woman thirty years after you last saw her.

The brain is an organ, it collects, records, exchanges remembered.  It has done its Shakespearean job, laborious, saving words and feelings, like a cherished tool box waiting to be put to use with some old craft.

And the brain has a reaction.  The picture, a lesson, the disappearance of all regret, a sudden thing.

You'd waited for what?  This, probably, this freedom to breathe again and live.

"No, honey, you were too fancy for me.  You could never have accompanied me on my voyage physical and spiritual, and a lot of other people came to bear me along, my body and my time.  And you see, I was, and remain, a sort of politician, a man, a creature whose bearing deserves the fable and dignity we all deserve."  Something like that.

That was how you acted then, and how you would act now, I'm afraid.  I didn't see it as mutual;  it was, I, going one way. my own way.

I kept writing.  That was all I could do.  I give that person, myself, I guess, some credit.


Storms in the mind clear, winters are passed through, clouds break, the sun comes out finally.  You've got to give the weather time.  You have to walk through the woods in all seasons for years and years.
A private person, I took care of my business, on a daily basis, living, even when the whole old thing and memories would kick me almost everyday, first thing.


The bigger, the longer the telling of the joke, the better the punchline.  It was only through writing that I could see clearly and work things out, achieving peace, see the good in myself, the part that was ready to do some work, mysterious, strange as it was.

I had the artist's love of simplicity, a cot with a Buddha statue, incense, a bottle of wine maybe, something to eat, a guitar to strum.  She was too fancy for me.  She was my own embodiment of the selfishness the Buddha shows us to be illusion.  I kept the thought of her for years, until one day I found a picture of her on the web and it all disappeared.



Sketches, Irish Wake.:


Lincoln, as a young fellow, in the failing tavern in the town no longer on any map, the dignity of going broke, into debt.  A story.  The dignity of work, failures and all.  The storied quality of his life, the web of craziness below the surface, of all ancestors in all situations.

Lincoln, in the ideal realm, bridges, almost, the ideal politician and the problem of finding 'right profession.'  He was strong, a  wrestler, ambitious politician of the 19th Century perfect for him.  Was he 'just a politician...'