...almost out of money, I am fortunate that this time was only for a short period, I am, as they say, gainfully employed, but for the first time in longer than that, I was digging into change. Again fortunate that I had about $50 in quarters, nickles and dimes. I say this in part as I took some fun photos of the change when it was on my coffee table, the Lane table that is the last thing I have of my departed mom (1927-1988 RIP) besides a chipped Rubbermaid rubber spatula from the'60s (when they made shit to last)...
...but this all got me thinking of my childhood and young adulthood...
This is 'Treep,'so named as I bought him at a Native American reservation stop (I do not remember the tribe, sorry, SE US) on one of the Treepeople reunion tours we did in 2018. It is a cat carved out of marble. Treep watched over the silver.
...I grew up pretty dirt poor, but was graced with a mother who had for most of her adult life the super hard job of running a house full of kids, and not having gone and gotten a job outside the home because in her generation (WWII generation) most women were expected to stay in that home and raise the children and do the tons of different jobs involved in running a household...
...then she found herself having to enter the workforce, after the divorce from my father - all my siblings are half blood, some a different father, some a different mother. I always reference The Brady Bunch to help understand it all, and to understand how the hell I could have nieces older than I, I could even pull a master tangential karate conversation mode move here and go into how I was the accident of a person who had already mostly raised 5 kids, a 40ish 2nd generation Irish Catholic woman who would never use contraceptives, and a dad who either didn't care or thought 'the rhythm method' worked (a shout out to the many Rhythm Method Accident People out there!)...
...so after the oldest kids moved out into the world, it was young me (7/8), mother, and my next in age older sister for a time, then she eventually moved out and it was just Mom and I, and she went out and worked a few jobs at one point. She kept me fed and in school. Helped me learn to fill out grant paperwork for college and I went a while, Boise State University ('87-'88) not to finish my degree until after 21 years out, here in Portland, Oregon. I was preoccupied by rock and roll semi-professionally for a time (a good thing), before the tech career ate my life for a decade... Mom, she died penniless.
...I have had a period of ten years making good money, in Seattle and Boston respectively, I won't bore you with the details of the biz, but it was tech stuff, late '90s to 2008, but other than that and the last couple years, I have been used to being poor, so when I become poor again...
...I fall easily back into old survival habits.
Of course the ultimate privilege is what I was born as, a white man, something I never take for granted or waste when I navigate the world and I can be an ally when I am needed to be for others and always, to listen to and learn from people who have a system stacked against them.
...to me, there is no 'woke,' just waking; Always learning and waking, until death, a lot of deprogramming to be done, that mirror sucks, white people. But look in it with me. I digress. But not for nothing.
You must...
...be the flower in the pavement...
Everything IS made of stories, of information. That carved figure is from Germany, a gift from my older brother, who returned from the military service he had done in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I have cherished it since. I guess I am in a reminiscent mood tonight. Here we are...
There is no up or down in space.
Slow motion battle of the squares
Violators will be removed
How baby carts are made
Felinus Dorkus, Denni (expect many photos of this one. Deal with it!)....
"It rained today inside my head." ~ Train graffiti, SE Portland, Oregon, or it is somewhere down the line by now =={ }-[ ]-[ ]>
All photos by Wayne R. Flower
~(((([[[[{{{{}}}}]]]]))))~
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