The Like Soul. Lyons, Tigers, and Bears.

While living with my Grandparents I can remember evenings were I would want to be alone and read, or rather I would want to not watch tv for the whole evening. Still there were other times in which my Grandparents would get on the phone and call friends. My Grandpa would dial someone up on the land line telephone and than he would set the phone on speaker and you could hear the call going through throughout the house. “ Hello this is Jim Johnson calling you just to say hello,” the voice on the other end of the call would echo out, “ Is Mary Ann there with you?” Grandma would echo out, “ I am here.” It was at the being on this month that I was able to travel and visit some loved friends of mine. We sat up around the living room late each night talking. It is now in my new living that I find the ability to stop someone and to talk with them a rare quality. Mostly because a good conversation requires a good amount of back story. With no one here to be strongly tied to in prior actions, I feel that story telling about my life would be a prideful venture. I guess I say all of this to give a caution of how you take the journey and who you keep with you along the way.

My dad is working in Lyons, Kansas. I can't even spell Kansas correctly while typing this out. Yesterday my mom told me that my dad was being called out to work on a job in bad weather. In a brief passing the television flashed a update, “ we will have more about those storms in the Mid-West coming up next.” Years back again when I was six to seven years old, our family sat down to eat dinner at the table. One of us kids, I think it was Jenni noticed a spark of light on a hill far out in the distances. We all watched it grow and grow until at last it was identified as a wild fire. Our community that we lived in had a volunteer fire department, which included my Dad and all my Uncles. The call came and Dad began dressing in clothes needed as all of us kids watched the fire continue to grow from view of our sliding glass doors. I can still remember where I was watching the whole event. We were looking at where my Dad was heading. The memory is not laid out in my mind in a clean order. It is mostly just small moving pictures of memory. The whole hill was on fire. It was no longer the question of a flickering light in the night. The fire had engulfed the hill and run down its sides as though water runs off the top of a basket ball. My Dad was down there. I can remember trying to imagine where my dad was on the hill trying to stop this fire. I can remember the feeling of impossible odds coming over me. I can remember my Mom getting a call from Dad and the relief in our little home to hear that he was okay.

"I see you everywhere I go". A Small Wager. Circus Elephant

I am filled with the idea that I need to make books relate to my own life in a way. And when I make a friend I also make connections of how they relate into my own life as well. The end result is reminders through out my life.

I lived with my grandparents for a nearly a year. On occasion I would find the time to watch a sporting event with my Grandfather on tv. He would ask me who I was going for and than he would cheer for the other team. He always wanted a wager of money to be placed upon the game. I don't consider myself a avid sports watcher, but I did realize that no matter how familiar I was with the teams playing I was always picking a side. In truth my Grandfather brought it out in me when he would ask me, “ who are you going for?” I was always reluctant to answer that question, because in turn I knew it meant that he was to pick the other side. Still, I appreciate the question being asked. Because even today I feel as though I am needing to draw up sides in my own life and I am needing the clear call to come forward, “ Who are you routing for?”

Yesterday I sketched out a drawing for a future painting. Recently I have been doing artwork at other peoples need. I have not done any for my own sake and enjoyment. The results end, was a picture of a elephant dressed as a man sitting down cast at a table, while from behind him his circus girls holds him and leans against his head. Secretly I want to say a phrase like, “ Never Forget” For my own amusement I am wanting to style it as though it is a old advertisement poster. Oh to love to paint.

"Mother" written on your arm over the top of a rattle snake and a revolver crossed.

Its my Mom's Birthday. Years back when I was the age of 7, my Dad along with all my Uncle's took a logging job in a place called Trinity Center. The distance was too far to travel from the new work site to home each day. Our families all went to Trinity Center and we camped in trailers out in the woods. Each morning my dad would be woken up by the sound of his windup alarm clock the camp would become alive at 3 and 4 in the morning by the sounds of diesel engines and the men would go off to work. All of us cousin's would play together and attend school together outside our trailers. It was in Trinity Center that I was bite by the Flying Squirrel. But this story is about my Mom. One day while doing school work, My cousin Troy and his friend looked down from the table to see a rattle snake crawling toward their table. They jumped on top of the table and began to yell. My Mom came running with the 22 revolver pistol and shoot the head off the rattle snake. My Mom is the Woman who will shoot the head of the rattle snake for the safety of her kids. Happy Birthday Mom, I love you. 

 My family has a Reunion and I go every year. For three days we sit out in the sun, drink black coffee and eat a lot of food. At night we all sit around the campfire and talk. We talk every night, and I would be willing say that that all of us relatives have a particular way in which we talk when around the campfire. We bring outsiders in every year, family friends, fiances, boy friends and girlfriends, but it takes years for a outsider to learn how to talk out at the campfire. Maybe its a lack of courage, but mostly I think that they are unclear of how to share in the common exchange of conversation at the campfire. Also we are always sharing personal stories of one another and retelling old stories in bigger and better fashion. If anything the new comer is placed on center stage as we all take turns telling them about years prior and relatives to watch out for. The young kids in our family crave the title of being a “ Big Kids” . Parents use the expression, “ The Big Kids can only stay out here this late around the fire.” The kids are wishful each Reunion that this year they will be a Big Kid and get to sit around the campfire and talk till the morning hours. Its hard to image going without those three days of campfires this year.

Is it too much to assume that Nature's course and pattern also has a direct affect upon you? The little male bird is making big his chest and pushing his bright colors forward, for hopes of his mate. “ Winter is cold for those who have no warm memories.” Thus enters the Stage the Character of Spring.

Row Buddy. Half Moon Thought. Jules Verne

I was terribly excited to spend some time reading on my plane flight the other day. Reading on planes and in airports is so wonderful to me. Because lets face it, a airport is good for little more than talking yourself into odd souvenir items and bad food. Having more than a hour in your life to read a book is wonder, and a good challenge at concentration. I prepared myself in my airplane seat, distinguishing myself as a stern displeased plane rider. This act of preparation was to throw off any first expressions of greetings to my row buddies on the flight. This did not work, although I buried my head strongly into my book, I was brought out of it all by the woman claiming that I was in her seat. Well, in truth she was claiming that the row 9 had taken her assigned seat found in row 8. Once she recovered from that social blunder she continued on to ask me, ( her row 8 buddy) if I was in the right seat or not. She caught me off balance, I was not sure as to whether or not I was in the right seat. It wasn't long after this, that her foot hold into my emotions were able to pull me out of my book to talk about “ what we do for a living.” ahh

While walking tonight I began to stare at the moon. A half moon burning its image through large floating cloud. And if not for this cloud the moon would have been free to shine in its black night sea sky. Our own earth blocks the moon from being entirely visible. Our own shadow is placed upon the moon. The largest shadow we will ever see, the shadow of our planet. I than thought about Peter and Wendy and how Wendy sewed Peter's Shadow back on to his foot. I imagined the earth's shadow becoming impatient with the moon and leaving it just as Peter. The repercussion were that earth's waters were to rise in light of the full moon. Which also made me ask what power is there in a reflection of the sun that makes water rise to the full moon? Or is the moon also at its full lunar cycle when it is closest to the earth?

I am reading Jules Verne right now. Wonderful, and yet not terribly entertaining at this moment in time. I am in the beginning of the book, where everything must be set to a description that I will later not remember the importance of why. Still every time that I sit down to read I am excited that I have. He is placing a lot of thoughts into my head that are making me take observations of the world around me. In the book, “ Mysterious Island” the stranded survivors are just now taking readings of the stars and sun to see where there island is at both by longitude and latitude to the rest of the world. The engineer of the group made the compass out of sticks, and is guessing with a knowledgeable accuracy as to where they are in the world. He is pretty much a stud, but my modern day mind is waiting for him to do something that John Locke would do, if you know what I mean.

( 5/03/2011). Don't Read Yourself Into This. Few and Far Between.

The emotions are as follows.( 5/03/2011) I am here in Spokane Washington in the process of painting a mural for a famous homeless shelter. I say famous, because it has served over 5,000,000 meals to the homeless and has been around for over 60 years. Yesterday was my first day of work on the mural. Its size is 4 feet high and 16 feet long. The theme that we all decided on yesterday is “ Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the Law of Christ.” In truth I believe this will also be a time for me to consider my actions in my life in bearing another's burden. 

I talk myself into assuming friendships for my personal comfort. But since I have arrived at this state by self pity, my creativity is dried up for true inspiration in engaging a friend. Friendships can be selfish, but that is after both friends have agreed upon suitable selfish boundary's that the other one can express to them. When we go out starving for friendship I can only assume that we eat anything that appeals half decently to us.

The man's name was Gal. He had a gray beard to be envious of. He was the Lead Carpenter at the Union Gospel Mission in Spokane, Washington. I spent three and half days at the mission this last week painting a mural for them. On the first day I meet Gal he was with two other men from his team. We all were talking shop, since I was to paint a mural on boards spanning a height and width of 4feet by 16feet. The image was to mounted on the wall. The crew of contractors were debating the process of mounting the boards. It was on that first day that I heard Gal drop a few key references in regards to art work. I told my friend's “ Gal is Arty.” Sure enough on the last day of my paint, Gal came back around by himself to talk to me. Is was not long before I was in a wonderfully rich conversation about art work, the hopes, the dreams, the failures and the pursuits. Gal is a wonderful print maker, who has allowed himself to get busy with life and has not found the excitement to do artwork as of recent. The last few words that we exchanged with one another were, “ Thank you for talking artwork with me.” We both expressed that conversations as such were few and far between.