Zero Zone 10/09/09

I am an artist. I am here to live out loud.

Emile Zola
***************
Stand over here please.
________________
I am angry. I'm in a spike jabbing, venom spitting rage.

Yesterday I was hit with another law suit. The disgusting irony about this one is that I had to make a very painful walk to the post office, which took me an hour because of my hip, to pick up the documents.

Furthermore it isn't even my money they are suing me for. It's sky rocketing interest they have assessed to my debt while I was trying to pay off the balance. We have a law in this land that allows the rich to plunder the poor, to create poverty through excessive charges upon charges and then punish people for their poverty.

I have a large, growing stack of paper on my desk, most of it telling me what kind of trouble I'm in. I'm an expert at making trouble for myself, but this stack is not about self made trouble, it's about the devious means others have devised to make trouble for me and many of my fellow citizens. As Shaw put it "The lack of money is the root of all evil."

I spent the last two days thinking about my life. I watched the large branch break off from it's mother/father tree and fall to the ground and wondered if it was a metaphor, a sign that it was time for me to follow it. Contemplating that wrought a change in me. It wasn't the tree that fell, it was a major branch. And what do I need to let go of, if anything?

My life has been trouble since I was 4 years old and my father died. My family splintered up to various places and we soon reached the poverty level. The influences on me were poor and improper. There was no intelligent guidance. I relied upon friends and employers for any human relationships that I had. I sought a family wherever I went and whomever I was with. Some of those relationships were good, but others produced disastrous results. I tried to make a family out of whatever theatre company I worked with, to my detriment and sorrow. My inheritance was meager and inappropriate.

Lopping off a branch from the family tree is nothing less than agonizing. I can forgive the wrongs done to me when I am graciously given the chance to do so. The rest I can ignore. Forgiving myself is a harder task. I have ignored my own past wrongs. But I've lived with my regrets so often and for so long that they tend not to bother me now. I have changed. I am not the same man I was a few days ago. Things change, people change. I always hope and foolishly expect things will change for the better. So what is it time to get rid of? I have thought of closing down this journal and continuing my journey in some other way, and I may do that.

I may be a fool, most probably so, but I write because I must. Whatever the changes are they are happening in some invisible bed rock, the same place the invisible fighter comes from that keeps punching me in the head.

I thank those of you who wrote words of encouragement and support yesterday. They have influenced me a lot. I haven't been even free to make any final decision about the future of Vagabond Journeys. But for now I must go out with shield and spear to battle the legions. I don't expect to win the war. The other side is just too powerful. But how many wounds do I have to endure before I win the battle? That's the question.

DB - The Vagabond
***************
Please send me some joy.
======================