The Hunt

The new creature we artists are hunting for will not "live" so much, as like time itself, "elapse."

Lawrence Durrell
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Hello Bruce
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The hunt goes on. The original thinker paces out and measures out areas of the mind that no one has visited before. It is the challenge of darkness, the always elusive forms, invisible but adjacent to reality.

"Come and find me" says the Creature, but is it my voice I hear? I cannot tread these dangerous paths forever. Or can I? Can't we trust the eternality of truth? I have forgotten, like the rest, what the truth is made of, or rather how to recognize it. What is it that hides behind the headlines? What was it that deformed the light and then said "What light?" The hunt goes on.

I do not want to live in a time or place when children turn against each other and the world. There is no explanation given but the truthless, lightless one. I have almost forgotten, like the rest, that the light was deformed and thus so was reason. I have not forgotten the creature who hides before me, invisible but adjacent to reality. And the hunt goes on.

The hunt goes on in the dangerous places where human thought has not been before, where time and space are inventions, like gravity or the wheel, where the inevitable measure of earth light is used up by children in their special games.

There and then, when everything is lost, everything will be gained, and I, like the rest, will remember. One of us artists will be there as it passes by in it's eternal cycle. The uncertainty of living truth is accepted, acceptable. Will my mnemonics or yours see the creature hidden there before us? Will you, or I, or one of us catch it in the net?

So far so good. The hunt goes on.

DB - Vagabond Journeys (The Original)
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

3 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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The Sorrow

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

Shakespeare
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Sometimes a great sadness settles over me like a cold, cloudy day. It happened to me yesterday, and I don't understand it because yesterday was a beautiful spring like day, a day in which I should have been happy to be alive, to be active and involved in things. I was busy and I did and saw many things that were joyful. Then why this anchor in my heart?

Certain things I know from experience, and one of them is that the feeling will not last. It comes and goes like bad weather and is usually based on nothing in particular or nothing important. The important stuff we deal with and solve. The unimportant stuff is stuff we don't know about or where it comes from.

On Thursday I bought a bamboo wind chime, it had some strings and a wooden weight to catch the wind. When the sales woman put it in the bag she said she hoped it didn't get in a tangle. I said if it did I would untangle it. Then I said "Life is a tangle." She looked up at me with a smile and nodded her head.

Part of my sadness is elemental, it's the sadness that knows there always is and always will be untangling to do, mine or someone else's. We are human, we make tangles. I could paraphrase Decartes "I make tangles therefore I am."

I enjoy writing and reading what others write on the Internet, but my systems present almost daily misbehavior and so many of my lovely free hours are spent on the phone waiting to talk to a technician in order to explain my current problem which is usually something they've never heard of. Knowing that I have to do that makes me sad.

Life is unfinished business. Accepting that some of that business will never be finished also makes me sad. I see the children down on the sidewalk going back and forth to the library. I remember some of my own childhood and how I had an unquestioned hope that certain things would surely take place in my life that never did. I feel sad knowing that those youngsters will someday suffer the same disappointments.

I live a reasonably safe and secure life, for which I'm grateful, but I can't help feeling sad for the agonies going on in Japan, Africa and the middle east.

I went into a very friendly family store a few days ago to buy something which was kept behind the counter. The woman said that sooner or later the whole store would be behind the counter because every day something gets stolen. I said "What a shame."

I'm grateful also to have a sense of humor and I know it will get me through the clouds of sorrow that beset me at the moment, but I also know how important it is to embrace the sorrows of life and untangle them.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Will you get your act together and answer this question, please?
Only 9 responses so far. Today is your last chance to respond.
Don't let the vagabond clock run out on you.

DB
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At The Lie Berry

What is more important in a library than anything else - is the fact that it exists.

Archibald MacLeish
(Thank you Bruce)
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One block down the street from me is the public library. As libraries go it isn't very big. It's one floor of a small building but it's chock full of books, magazines, newspapers, CDs, DVDs, computers and kids. I can look out my window of an afternoon and see a parade of children on their way to the library and feel a quiet sense of pride that I live in a country where education is available to the young. Opening up the minds of youngsters to the knowledge and wisdom of the world, even if it sometimes means the loss of some degree of innocence, is a precious endeavor and so preferable to some places in the world where education is a luxury, denied to many, and in some cases even punished.

I also feel a bit of satisfaction that I live in a state, Pennsylvania, which determinately provides its students with the right to an open minded approach to learning. It is sad to say that there are some places in this country where that open mindedness is not so graciously provided. Unless all points of view are available to people, of whatever age, there is no freedom of thought, instruction is doctrinaire and education suffers. If the Board of Education in Texas or any other state rewrites its textbooks to conform to a limited and specialized point of view, no one will benefit but the bigots and the children will be deprived.

The purpose of education is to allow people to think for themselves not to teach them what to think. In this local library there are separate rooms where workshops are conducted in all sorts of cultural and educational programs with enthusiastic students under the guidance of adults who care and donate their time. In one of the rooms there is an art exhibit of works by local artists. I have 2 pictures hanging in there. It is open all the time the library is. Anyone can go in and look at the pieces, including the children. No one is telling them what they can or cannot see.

Every time I go in there and need help with something, the librarians are always polite and ready to help me as they are with everyone.

Due to fiscal problems across the land many libraries are cutting back in hours or closing altogether. The demise of the public library is one of the greatest potential dangers to our nation. The ruination would not be seen for years to come but it would be devastating. I may never be exposed to more than .05% or less of what is in my library but imagine what life would be like if all that information was not available to me or to the children who walk down my street.

DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 7 days.
3 entries so far.

APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.

On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______

Good luck
DB
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Natural Nepotism 7/06/09

They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind.

Native American proverb
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Salutations
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On July 4th last year my brother died. Saturday afternoon his ashes were spread into the Atlantic Ocean from a sail boat. The ceremony was conducted by his two children, my niece and nephew, whom I hardly know. They were carrying out my brother's wishes. He was a man of the sea.

Over the years I have lost four grandparents, only one of whom I ever met, both parents, a bunch of aunts and uncles, some of whom I never met, cousins I know nothing about, my sister and eventually my brother. I am the only remaining member of my family.

So now I would seem to be in a state of disconnectedness and anonymity. I definitely fell that way most of the time; more of a vagabond than ever. I have no grandchildren to ask me questions, no birthdays to celebrate, no college graduates to congratulate, no brides and grooms to send good wishes to. I sit and write my journal entry every day hoping it will be read by a few friends and some total strangers, that it will have a meaning for someone, touch someone's life in a positive way. But I only get at most about 20 readers everyday.

But this past Independence Day got me thinking about just how large my family really is. Since I can't have my feet firmly planted in some family environment I have to look around at exactly what it is I am a part of. I think about the wigs, bonnets and coon skin caps of the early settlers of my country and what they went through to make a new nation come alive. Those are my ancestors. There were hard winters in a hostile environment. There was a desperate war, which they won. There was disagreement, rivalry, fist fights in Congress, duals, failures and successes. A country was being hammered out on the anvil of danger with a blacksmith's will to shape it and make it work.

Then the others came, the immigrants, looking for freedom and the right to live up to their potential in a new world, unfettered by a suppressive government. Those are my ancestors. They came, established themselves, learned how to live here and become a part of the new nation, contributing their cultures and it's wisdom to the grand mix.

As the nation grew a new enemy arose that had to be destroyed, the native. But the natives fought back. Those are my ancestors. It seemed that the Native American was the unwelcome immigrant. But eventually the earth turned, the smoke settled on reservations and tribal councils and the native began a slow process of learning about and insisting on his rights, becoming part of a new nation, accepting and being accepted, and now being allowed the dignity to bring his culture and wisdom to the grand mix. I support that process. They are my brothers and sisters.

Ruthless businessmen imported men, women and children from Africa, in chains, and sold them on an open market. Those Africans are my ancestors. They worked the land and made the crops grow. Many of them were horribly treated. But they were humans and they also had rights. My ancestors fought a war over those rights. The war was won. Though there are still struggles, which I also support. The African is now free to vote, get an education, take a respected place in society and hold public office. They are my bothers and sisters.

Almost every day there is a parade of cheerful students from the local elementary school on their way to the local library just down the street. I like to see them passing by and hear their chattering, I think that there go the scientists, artists, doctors, teachers, astronauts of the future, Those are my children.

I have a very large family.

DB - The Vagabond
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Thank you for reading this.
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