FIRE: 12/23/04

Fire @ the Apartment Complex. I had noticed it at about 2pm but it had started around 12noonas the City Fire Department arrived all in tow.R. came out with nothing but the clothes on his back and many others were panicking about their pass-ports.There only copy.
Can't believe how crapping long it took put it out as each time it appeared to have died down; the flames popped directly back up.
Invited R. into my apartment to use my phone and call his daughter & then opened my place to anyone standing nearbye who needed to get out of the cold or use the bathroom.
Alfredo and his mother were in my place for a good long while.Made hot chocolate for him and talked to him about the 911 song . Felt that it was better to talk about the good and helpful fireman instead of discussing topics that might be scarey for him. His mother doesn't speak English much and so when a firewoman came to use the Bathroom Alfredo translated for his mother. What a responsibility for such a small boy.
I had met so many people at the complex that I have lost count, however everyone miraculously worked together. Children whose family apartments were up in flames were moved to friends in other apartments. The minister across the street opened up his house for
many people.
I had fallen asleep at 3a.m and slept until 6.am the next day.

Day After The Fire: 12/24/04

Woke up @ 6:am-with not much sleep but kept dreaming that I was still watching billowing
high red/ orange flames up to the night sky. Fire trucks were still there. Ugh! - althought the main part of the fire had been extinguished about 4:3o a.m - The families on the first floor were being allowed in w/ just enough time to get into the apartments to try to locate their important documents.
Afterall that It looked like a wasteland.

R's truck was still parked in its' original spot with ice and soot- small debri all around it and tryed to little avail to scrape as much of the ice off. After I had returned K. the fella from Ethopia had dropped by and I had suggested that he come in and rest after returning from work.
another tenant arrived back from work in terrible despair. Just a young guy with a son.

Christmas 2004 " What does Christmas mean to you"

"What Does Christmas Mean To You?"
placed on the front sign of the Church of the Nazerene

This last Saturday went to an christmas party with my Indian upstairs neighbors who have recently joined a more conservative Church. All the guests were from India with the exception of myself and I believe that many were also Hindu's. How exciting.. all these people that I have met over the years thru the apartment complex. Some now married.
I was asked to say the prayer before supper and began it with , " Dear Creator etc............."
The children were everywhere... Joy .... Joy.... and more Joy.

then on Sunday my next door neighbor invited me to his Christmas Party-
J. is Gay and his partner is a Cross-dresser. The Christmas Party was for the Cross-dresser support grp. I admit to being a little nervous as I've not been in a room of cross dressers before.
Was trying to think about what my fears were because whatever they were I simply found a pocket of humanity. Small talk of Cats, movies and the usual stuff individuals talk about at gatherings. Food was sumptous.

And What does Christmas mean to me? As a Christian Unitarian.
Newness. Celebration of the birth of : Jesus of Nazareth. What things am I giving birth to?

Christmas: Las Posadas 1966 (?)

I was perusing amongst some books that I got out of the Public Library. I was trying to study various religious approaches and relationships to the concept of "Light" & amongst the books I found one by various Latin American Authors on Christmas. One was just a short story one on the Posadas; A re-enactment of Joseph and Mary going searching for a warm place to stay the night.

I was thinking of the Homeless . Aren't they all our Joseph and Mary 's looking for a place to stay the night. Searching for the light in the darkness.
I must spend this Sunday working with Food not Bombs to assist them in a soup kitchen type of thing out at Legislative Plaza.

N. My brother took me down into New York City . That would make him about 16 or 17 & myself 8 or 9 yrs old. My brother was a teenage drug addict and dealer.
Las Posadas.
My brother feverishly digging thru a garbadge dump and in a drug induced haze excitedly finding a cabbage and a soup kitchen. The light in the darkness. I remember a soup kitchen. In from the Cold and the warm hot soup & N. singing Christmas Carols all the way back home in the Purple Dodge Dart.


Advent 2004

The War on the Home Front

Couldn't sleep last night.
& wrote in my journal for a short time. Max, the cat, enjoys situating himself directly against me. What an incredible little spirit he has.

abolutely infuriated. Utterly.
and so I wrote a Letter of appeal to God. Moses was on the right track -I think. All his arguments and questions. The line between him and God evidently seemed to have a link of that at times seemed stretched out for such along ways-but thier relationship certainly never wore out.
This time last year was before my fathers accident and there have been so many changes that am only now begining to catch up with them.
So
Dad at 83. His usually stubborn old man self decided to take it upon himself to take a walk up on a Wilderness Area. Miles and Miles of Nothing in sight but the Wilderness and the Road.
Surgeon thought that perhaps that someonemay have run over him with their car and left him unconscious until some stranger had found him or perhaps he went into went into a funk of some kind and went off the beaten track. No One will ever know.

My appeal to God last night was that of: Why did you return him to us? Why didn't you let him die out out there & why was he returned as the man he is today and not the father of yesterday?

The one who was a racist, bigot and man of violent memories. Wife beating and child punisher and the one who would say, " if you can't finish your dinner I'm putting it in the fridge and you will have for breakfast, lunch and next supper until it is ."
"My love for you is in my fist" Open hands and whip. In other words he was a brutal man with random moments of love. He didn't know how to love himself and he didn't know how to love us.
and now he sits with late stage Dementia in an assisted living facility.
I always tell him that I love him, before I leave, because it is truly felt. Because he is not the same man and the old one did die and a new father took his place. Because I just don't have it in me to be cruel in return.
and lastly; My 2 siblings and I returned back home. We didn't have to .

Survivors of the Family War Zone.

This Monday I am going to attend a gathering w/ Music. And a discussion with an Army National Guardsman who has gone AWOL. This all being organized by a local Anarchist Community.
Ironically I don't consider myself an Anarchist per se; however some of their ideas are very positive and thought provoking. Other than that I don't know where I am with this issue & am okay with sitting on this with a while.

Quite a number of years ago my Father had said that if her were younger he would have joined the Irish Repuplican Army. Looking back, that quite a strong statement from a man born and raised in the United Kingdom.

Thats my Father. A British World War2 Veteran who spent his time as a medic in the Middle East.- full of so many answers to un asked questions.
An Enigma sitting with late stage Dementia in an Assisted Living Facility.

Some of the hardest things that I have done lately has been to sit in my Father's room at the Center.
No longer able to control his bladder, in a room that permeates the air with an awful stench and pretending
that its odor is not there.

Dignity.

Listening to democracynow on the Internet. (http://democracynow.org) and listened with a sick sinking to the story of our military in Guatanamo putting Duck Tape over the mouth of a terrorfied man reciting the Koran outload.

This whole situation sickens me.

I have placed candles out for the dead, the murdered and even the assassins.
and cryed when I heard a Japanese citizen beg for his life.

Makes me wonder Where does the Smoke and Ashes of war go to?
.

US

Thanksgiving

My 3 siblings and my sisters daughter met up with my parents who are now in an assisted living house. The three of us: my brother N. my Sister J all meeting together for the first in about 35 years.
and at the same table at that.
My father feeling sick and my Mother placed at the front of the Table. I think that trying to aleviate some of the tension we snickered at Mother as the Matriarch however she had fallen asleep at the table mid meal.

So there we were the 3 of us.
My brother and I who had barely spoken to each other in about 20 years.
Together seated with secrets and memories that we all have of one another.

What Could it be?

My Debut of The Furry Tea-Cup.
& what could it possibly become. (?)
Perhaps a bit of everything.

dj