harold_maude's journal

When bits of my dreams are so real that it makes me ask those who are awake if certian things happen, when I do come fully awake, I ususally feel a bit shaken.

This afternoon was no exception. Everything in my dream was in vivid color. Brilliant and real. What woke me was the sound and glimps of a man walking behind me and away from me. I was asleep and I saw and heard him.
My eyes poped open and I sat straight up. There was no one there. A few minuets earlier, as I found out, there had been someone there walking behind me and out the back door.

In my dream the house we are in was elongated sideways but when you looked at it, it was elongated from front to back.
An optical illusion for the mind, I think would be the best description.
We had somehow turned all the walls into gallery walls and every creative work I've ever done was there.
Some of the things, like the quilts, were folded and stacked on chairs.
The lighting was so bad on the main floor and the basement was all dirt on the floor and there was old lumber strewn about.
The beams that held the upper floors up were rotting.

It was hard to see the art on the walls where the lighting was bad, but everything was framed and behind glass.
The frames were very ornate.

There were two women trying to go through the basement to see the art in the darkest corners of the room, and they kept tripping over boards, and then I fell asleep in my dream.

I woke to find someone I work with waking me up and telling me that I needed to get up, and finish hanging up the art.
But all the room on all the walls were filled.
I asked her if the man who wanted to take the art class and because he was the only one, the class didn't go, was angry.

She said no as she began to unfold the quilts and hang them from the ceiling.
That's when I heard the man behind me.

As I think about it, I think the whole dream has to do with the stress I'm feeling most of the time. Everything seems like it's never enough, no matter how much I do.
It's kind of like having sheets on your bed that are three sizes too small.
All the time. There is no break. No way to catch my breath. No way to stop the feelings of falling so short.

I've tried. But it always ends up not enough. I wonder if the feelings of my father have come to settle on me.
That no matter what I did, or where I went, it would never be good enough.

Some days I feel like I'm being chased by wild dogs. Some days I wake up feeling like I'm being smothered.
It takes a while to get my self in gear so that I can go to work, or even do things around here.
I would love to find a key that would stop the feelings.

Another weird thing has been happening lately. I will turn the oven on to a certian tempature, and walk away, and no one goes near it, but when the time for what ever to be done, and go to take it out the temprature has been changed. Either lowered or highered.
No one has been anywhere close to the oven. I think we have a ghost or two in this house. I think they have been here a while and are just getting bold about the things they do.

The foundation was laid in 1909, and kevin found papers in the wall from 1923, and this farm has seen it's share of death. Unnessary death.
Like the sheep that someone tried to raise and neglected and the lambs got wet tail and started dying and then the adults got sick and then there had to be bon fires to take care of the dead bodies.

Just down the road, or up the road is a house. There has been at least two people who have commited sucide there. Maybe it's just some dead people passing through here who like to mess with things.

Maybe it's all nothing, or maybe it's all connected. I don't know. I know I feel at home here. And I love this farm. Maybe some things are comming back. Like doing things and not remembering. I hope that isn't happening. Out here it could be bad if that's what's going on.
One thing is sure, that sooner or later the answer will come.
Answers to why my dreams have been like the one today, why I wake up feeling like I do, and why the oven temprature changes on it's own. It just started doing this a couple of days ago. The oven is only a few years old and the nobs take a bit to turn them.

Anyway....I think I'm just really really stressed out. And too tired to do anything about anything.

The evening news is on. I couldn't watch. I can't stand the threads that dangle and we are suppose to just listen and wring our hands...or somthing like that.

All the what if's can make a person, well, a little nuts. No safe place to live, or go. No safe this. No safe that. Have you ever taken the time to count the number of bad news stories that are the first thing that slaps you in the face when you watch the news?

I would love to see good things make the news at the top of the hour instead of some last minuet after thought.
It kind of feels like eating bad food and then there is a great desert to top it off and your feeling really lousy by the time it arrives so you can't enjoy it.

Why is it that there is this insane zeroing in on bad stuff?

After pondering this thing, I can only come up with one answer, bad news sells.
Good news doesn't. No one would ever listen to a talk show where there was nothing but good stuff on it. And no one would ever buy into a reality show where nothing bad could happen.

We love misery. According to the entertainment industry who puts this mess together.
We love to see the cronic pain, dismemberment of anything or any body, that's why crime shows are so big. And we definately love to see people play games where there are all kinds of loosers and there is some big winner.
But no one remembers that when the new tale of soap opera live game show, thrills and chills come on.

The people you buy cars from, food from, clothes from, shoes from and anything else from sponsor this stuff.

I think somewhere along the line, when the sterile cookie cutter smiles got thrown out the attitude was we want to see reality....

But how much of it is "real" and how much is staged?
How much is edited out to give it that razors edge of throat cutting feel?

I don't watch the news. It's mostly entertainment. Or at least that's what it's suppose to be.

Walter Cronkite decited to get out of news reporting because he said it was no longer just reporting the news. It had become entertainment.
I tend to agree with him.

I quit watching everything but the weather several years ago.
I can read the news in the paper. That way if I get a few lines into it and I start getting angry I can just set it aside.
News papers are more useful than what comes out of the t.v.
You can line a bird cage with them, wrap messy moldy food in it, clean windows with it, put it on the floor for a new puppy or kitty.
And you can make paper mache with it or use it as a fire starter so you can have a barbq in the great out doors.

You can't do any of thoes things with a bad news cast on t.v. all you can do it turn the chanel or turn it off.
Nothing to show for the time spent watching bad news.

Well so much for the evening news. I think I'm gonna go paint for a while.
Then off to bed, and hopefully tomorrow will be blue skies and sunshine.

And I have to believe that somewhere some good news is happening. At least to one person in the world.

As it gets closer to Christmas the more depressed I feel. I find the rush to buy things depressing.
Even watching people do it is depressing. I would love to get a different view of how people behave when something this big is approaching.

But year after year, it's the same. And when it's over, as fast as you can blink, all the decorations are pulled down and the next big what ever is underway.

It's rush to this, rush to that, and if anyone gets in the way, scream at them and then if they don't move fast enough, shove them out of the way.

Driving is like that right now too. We were on our way back here the other day and some girl in a car smaller than ours almost took the part of the truck off. She missed it by about 3 inches and never bothered to slow down.
Kevin was crossing the street and almost got hit by a van who's driver was in way too much of a rush.

It was maddening to say the least.

In the Grocery stores and other places I've been since Thanksgiving came and went, the air of impatients has been building. I don't like how people behave durring this time of year. It would seem that scrooge is alive and well.

At the store where I work, people who come in seem like crazed wild animals. They are impatient and rude and just plain ugly.
If we have every register in the place going, and there are lines that go around the corner on every single one, they get pissed off because they have to wait.

Yet those same people go into walmart, which in this town is a super store, only a fraction of the regesters are going, they have to wait longer and they never get bent out of shape over it.
On the rare occasion I go to walmart, I've seen it go on.
I don't like walmart for several reasons, the least of them being they are way too big and very easy to loose your way in.

The ugly level of impatients is evident everywhere, in the parking lots, in the stores, and even just out on the street.
For once I would love to be around some people in a place of business where the meaning of the season would be far more important than how much money is made. And how much stuff gets sold that will in a short time be thrown into the trash, at least part of it anyway, adding to the over flowing landfills.

What a wonderful thought. Lets buy more stuff we don't need so that we can dump it on the land and in the water supply and then bitch and moan about the problem we've created.

For once I would love to see something different. I would love to see people care more about each other, durring this time, then making scheduals so they can tear through paper to get to stuff that other people have gone into debt for that they will spend the rest of the year trying to pay off.

The last 10 years or so, the Christmases I have experienced have been low key. I've purposely kept decorations up long into March simply because their pretty.
I've made the halloween decorations part of the normal decor in this house by the way. I like the funny faces of the pumpkins and kitties that remind me of the art of Frank L. Balum.
I will add to the decor with Christmas stuff and leave it up all year.

It's my way of protesting the attitude of the world. Of the market, of the rush of the american life style.

In my perfect world, everything would slow down. Money would be of little value in the big scheme of things, and bartering would be the norm.
People would be gentle with each other, and children would experience childhood without all the latest fads that make their rooms look like a store room for the leftovers from a stampeed at k-mart after some holiday sale.

Children would be allowed to have a childhood. Long into their teens, and parents would spend time getting to know these people from the time they arrive on the scene instead of having to worry about who the babysitter is going to be, because they have to work so many hours to pay the bills.

T.V.'s would be more of a foriegn word than a part of everyday life, and games that fuel the immagination would be normal.
There wouldn't be so much underlaying anger mixed with emense bordom that gives birth to intense impatients.

The children wouldn't have to deal with adult emotions, and the results of ignorance that ends up producing unwanted children would be rare.

There wouldn't be a need for hospitals to have adopted the policy of if you don't want your baby, you can leave it here, no questions asked.
And the ever growing incidents of finding new borns in trash cans would never exist.

Hospitals that double charges for thoes who can't afford care would be forced to do community service, and doctors who's fees are astronmical so they can live in huge houses and drive cars that are rediculous would be fined, heavily.

There would be a cap on lawyer's fees as well. And any public office, including that of the president would have a cap on their salary as well, Oh say 30 thousand dollars a year, instead of what they are.

And after a person left the office there would be no perks that the american people continue to pay for until the person dies.

Corporations would be required to do community service, escpecially if they were CEO's of a company.
If they failed to do that, they would be fired from their possition.
Some of that community service would be working in nursing homes and half way houses, and serving food to the indgent.
They would also be required to spend time homeless, so that they could have a better understanding of what that's like.
Especially if they were in a goverment job.

In my perfect world the things that didn't sell off store shelves that weren't parishable, would become availble to the poor and people living in towns out in the middle of no where.
The product wouldn't be distroyed and end up in the over flowing landfills.
Old coats would be recycled in a unique way. Thoes that weren't given to thoes that don't have coats would be taken apart and turned into useful items, like tent floor coverings and bed rolls, instead of sending them to places where there is no need of coats because the weather doesn't require them to have coats.

The energy put tord fighting wars over power and oil and other stupid things would be put into more useful things. Like making houses and buisnesses solar and wind powered. There wouldn't be the need for so much oil if the only things that required it were the modes of transportation.
And thoes too would under go huge changes as well. The freeway and streets would be changed into monorail systems. The tracks would be magnetic. Just like other countries who use thoes systems they would be brought here.
The millitary would be employed to build the systems, and that would keep them busy.

The chemicals used in farming would become obsolete as all farms would be required to become organic. And the clear cutting of old growth forests would be come illegal.
Responsible forest management, the thinning of trees would become the normal way of doing things.
Strip mining that scars the land would stop. And hemp would be legal.
It has been proven that the hemp plant puts nutrients back into the soil, and the uses for the plant are numerous. The products we import into this country alone generate 300 million dollars a year. Nothing to sneeze at.
Hemp is mold resistant, and so building materials made of hemp stand up longer to the test of time.
Paper made of hemp last longer than that made of cotton.

The plant it self is one of the most perfect plants that exist on the planet. It's nutrional value is amazing, and things that are made of non renewable recources can be made from hemp.
These things are documented.

But my perfect world doesn't exist. I know it will never exist.
As long as greed and coruption exists things will only get worse, and more people, our children and their children will pay a higher and higher price for the money mongers that are in control.
I greive for them and us. I see no bright future, only one of further destruction.
I can see how it's very possible that we will mirror the movie "Soylant Green" in a very few short years.
Where people will be bred to feed the masses of people.
There won't be anything left.
We will become canibles and never know that we are. Only those in power will know it.

...deep sigh....

The sky is a brilliant blue. No clouds in the sky which at this late hour of the day is a pitty because that means the tempature will be droping as night falls and it will keep droping into the hours of darkness.

I'm exausted. A normal state of existance after working. It takes a couple of days of rest to get enough energy built back up to deal with the next long days that are comming.

Went into the place were I work today to show one of the people who work there some of my art.
The person who teaches watercolor there was present, and so I showed the peices I brought in. It felt like I was parading a part of my soul.
It was aweful. That feeling. I've learned that there are some places I don't want to touch parts of me.

It feels like I'm standing in front of moving cars when I do.
An emotionally expensive lesson.

Work is simply work. I need to keep the things that I value away from there. I realized that after I did a demonstration of how I work in the media that I do, and the attitude of passing people that this place was no place to put a part of me out there.
I had thought that maybe I could, in one brief chunk of time open some doors of some kind. But I was wrong.

Now I hope that the remaining two classes don't go. I don't want to further cause any damage to this part of me.

Art and my soul, heart, and spirit are very intertwined. I'm not just a good technition as some out there are. I don't believe that art of value just follows some kind of set of rules that when you do them then presto you have art.

I believe that kind of "art" is the same cousin to elevator music and no one is touched or changed by it's presence and it essentally causes irreversable damage to people's perception of their own creativity and the art world in general.

It's kind of like the people who have used and abused certian things so much, that in order to stop the abuses, rules are set in place to stop them and when someone who is in need comes along they are the ones to suffer the concequences.

So now I've resigned myself to continuing my studies in art in private. If I never take it out anywhere it's not important. I've felt that way for a long time, and now those feelings are even stronger.

I've also made another decision. After the first of the year, I'm going to look for another job. I like the people I work with, but my convictions concerning corporations and the people I encounter every day, like little leaches they are, that I can't keep working there.
Outside of the kids I work with, the adults that come in are so afraid of their own creativity that they take and take and take, and don't care about what they are doing in their wake.

If nothing comes up then I will have to change my approach to how I work there.
I will have to become this ugly hard ass who is cold and not caring about anything but what's in their wallet.
And that sucks big time.

Well, that's the moment for today. I wish I could get back to writing observations like I was doing for a long time. I like being an observer rather than a participant in a meat grinder.

It's sunday morning and as usual, I'm working. Every weekend. With out fail, or a break or a change.
There are times I would like my weekends not to be filled with things that "have to be done now!"
And when their done, it wasn't that important after all.

Most things that fill my day arn't that important after all.
Many of them could be done without, and so it goes.

Kind of like jerking down the road in a car who's clutch cable is breaking.

This morning the house is quiet. And I like the quiet. I enjoy not having to rush around like someone who's clothes have caught fire and the only concern is where is there water to put out the fire.

I keep thinking about years down the road and wondering how much, if anything, will remain that I have done over the last two years.
Does that even matter?

I don't know. I probably won't be around years down the road to know if it mattered or not.
When I think about different times in history there are certian people who's names and who they were that come to mind.
Names that ring a bell and are familiar to the retelling of a time in history.

Hmmm....I can hear the wind blowing outside. It will be here down the road. Even after every house has crumbled to dust, the wind will be here.
I wonder what it would be like to drink the wind. Or eat the sky, or swim in the dirt...

I think I need more sleep. I'm pretty happy about one thing right now. At 6 this evening this work day will be over.
I've been thinking about that every morning lately when I have to work,
The good thing about work is finishing the day of it.
Then I can come home. And not think about it anymore for the day. I like that.

I can hardly wait for the day to be done. All the impatient moments of hurry up get it done so we can let it sit...because it isn't that important really.
We just want you to think it is, so that you will work hard, and we can reward you with a chopped up paycheck that the goverment has first dipped into.

Oh well, I'm excited about getting off at 6 pm from work. I won't have to think about it anymore for today.
It's the best part of my day at work. When I'm done.

At this moment, things are taking place. Events. Some as small and insignificant as the opening of a flower. And some as momentous as the first breath of a child.

Somewhere. In this moment. Right now. And when this is read again, it doesn't matter at what time, or what day or what year, these very same things somewhere will be happening.

A spirial of cycle that goes on as far as you want to look or not look.

That is the nature of life. Here. Now. Tomorrow.

A single universal moment. Repeated over and over. The music found inside the movment of time.

If you could slow your self down enough that every second seemed a year, what would you learn in that time, and what could you do in that span of time?

If you could preserve a rainbow so that each moloclue of color you could explore fully, what would you precieve? About the world and yourself?

Would it be like watching bubbles as they shift in their nature to finally break before our eyes?

How fragile are the teachers that stay so briefly and then leave us with memories of wonderment. How beautiful thoes moments are. So rare the glass like surface as it turns and bends to the energy with in and with out.
The glass that seperates inner world from the outter world grows tired and looses it's strength.
How much alike we are. The buble and us. Each sucumbing to break through the barriers that keep what's inside from melting into the outside.

What if the only barrier we ever had to break through was fear?
How powerful and possible would our dreams become, knowing that anything is truely possible?

What wisdom would we employ to not abuse the freedom we suddenly gain?
How long would it be before we knew the balance and walked accordingly?

Indeed we are strangers even to ourselves. We don't know so very much, even though we know more than we can grasp.
A strange paradox we find ourselves in.
To go forward too quickly we miss so much, and yet to linger means that we may stay in one place long enough to bring about our demise.

I have tasted singluar moments so perfect that there was no need to say or do anything. And because I didn't want to loose what was going on, I have been almost afraid to move or even breathe.

I've often thought that a moment can encoumpass many changes in seasons.
Moments, it would seem, can pass time completely by.

Pick up a pebble and look closely. What do you see?
A pebble or the mountian it was once part of, or can you see the history of that pebble reading before your eyes?

Watch a drop of rain run down a window. What do you see?
Only a drop of rain? And though it's journey down the glass is beautiful, do you ever ponder where that water has been, or if it was once the tears of someone who had lost or gained something and the event was so powerful that the only responsse was to weep?

An event so small, yet with so many bits of journey and life to it.
A life time could be spent pondering it and still not come to the end of it.
It would and could teach you so many things, because like you, it comes from star stuff.
And that makes you one with it.

We are not alone. We have never been alone, and we won't ever be alone.

Our skin, and our thoughts based on what we've been taught are the only barriers that hold us captive to the feeling that comes that says we are, each of us, alone, inside ourselves.

We are, much of our lives, at constant war with ourselves, arguing some point to shift things around and around and around, as if we are looking for a place to get comfortable in so that we can stay there.

When we experience peace, deep powerful peace, we don't know what it is, as we have no referacne to judge what we are emersed in by.

The world around us will continue and change, inspite of us, and in some cases because of us.

We hold so much possiblity, and yet remain ignorant of who we are.
We resign ourselves to unnessary things, as though they are set in stone, and give up at some point trying to find a way out...

There is so much. And when I go back and read this I don't know if what I can see now will be what I see then.

I live in my own paradox, even as I struggle to break another box.

to be continued...