serendipity found

Awaking on friday morning, I opened my front door and found my daily CT Post and scanned the front section and noticed in the happenings section a forum in Fairfield called the Poet's turn at the Fairfield Arts Center which was happening that evening. I quickly went to a couple of my pieces and printed out them so I could share them that evening.
It is a fine find when I see how God answers small prayers of long ago of opportunities to share my work and to have it happen in this way. To be able to go and be a part of an exciting evening of 11 local poets, 2 of whom had a book each for sale. To be able to share my life amongst theirs and to hear how words as common building blocks build different structures that have somewhat similar meanings. One of the poets expressed her concern of a friend or relative that was in a school system that was challenged under No Child Left Behind and how it was a struggle for this child to keep up. I then decided when it was time for additional readings to share a piece I wrote last June that gave first hand insight into that struggle.

Hello Santa Rita Mountains

This morning in the local newspaper, The Connecticut Post. there was a picture of a grove of cacti that were covered with 2 inches of snow. Several years ago, my mom and dad saved a snowball that was made one winter from a few inches of a quick snow that was brought out of the freezer of our home on Casa del Mundo. A quick snapshot of an event from a few weeks prior to my visit, carefully preserved for me to see.

I will not be visiting you, Çacti, this year since I will not be visiting my parents in Arizona since we have given up our base of the last 18 years of going down there. But I am glad to see your cousins and relatives in the print and media that show your presence down there still. I will still miss you but nature has a way of staying within our souls and when we reach out to it, we can see the impact that it has on us.
Elephant Head, I won't be seeing you as the Stagecoach limo approaches you, but I will always remember your stately presence on the indian landscape of the Santa Rita Mountains and of your neighbors that have been naturally etched by erosion. Glad to still have glimpses of your stately sights within my imagination=even if slightly faded from the last sight of you.

A few musings while thawing out

Muy Frio today. The day was very cold today. Especially with a bus number 11 that never showed up at 11am after my haircut on Black Rock Turnpike. The sun did obey me in a way when I asked it to shine but the wind kept howiling. I am not a lover of the cold weather. I'd rather spend time with the warmth but cycles of nature are part of human life. Not much activity was present on the street except for those braving the winter cold for the bus or to do errrands on the street.
It must be tough for those who live out on the street with their cups in hand. I forget about the plight of those less fortunate who have no place to go except for a shelter for a roof. I have the blessings of a home and being able to get around. I had to make today's errand since I made the announcement that I was getting my haircut done and eyebrows trimmed. If that did not happen , I would have been very unhappy as shaggy dog for week #3. If I only did it when the tropics were present, that would have been great!!!!!

Back to the nature of being semi-frozen, believers in the christian church are often called frozen, especially in the Northeast. I am that way sometimes since I don't make advances in my faith. That was made clear when I took a survey from Joni and Friends on biblical literacy and from a study that I am doing on the book of Revelations with my friends that asked how do we evaluate our faith. I am staying relatively constant-not advancing or shrinking in my faith. Sort of stuck in neutral.. I realized now that if I stay stuck, I will still be frozen but maybe unable to move forward to accomplish God's plans.

Left over party favors

Looking out at the window, I see the left over balloons tied with red and orange ribbons fighting to keep themsleves up and in place. The balloons are bouncing back and forth as they hang tethered between the branches. Gently dancing and flapping in the breeze. Taking the time to celebrate along amongst themselves after having been in a loud and boisterous celebration the night before. To provide a bit of color in the drab of the new cold of a long delayed winter. A way to dress up this time of year and a time for celebration for those who look out their windows.
A week later that balloon is still doing its dance out there. Oblivious to the cold and the changes to the temperatures, it is keeping its shape and form.

Gandalf's Corner. Pull up a stool and a long-stem pipe...

Gandalf's Corner. Pull up a stool and a long-stem pipe...

Building up Bridgeport

Growing up in the town of Fairfield , I rarely visited Bridgeport except to go to the scientific shoe fitters on Broad Street or to go to some local doctors that were in Bridgeport. They were a drive in and out of the city. And then there were the visits to the psychologist ,Dr. Ralph Welch, at 2591 Main street in Bridgeport. Dr. Welch was a man who had a white beard and wore glasses. He had a friendly outgoing personality to him. When I walked into his office, he got up from his chair and greeted me and asked me to sit down. We talked on different issues that were going on in my life at the time.
His office was in a two family home . The home was on the corner of the street . His walls had wood paneling and a huge head of a lion hung on one of the walls behind him glowed at me as I went through my counseling sessions bi-weekly after school.
To get to these meetings, I called the Fairfield Cab company and returned home when my dad picked me up in his green maverick.

At that time, I was a twenty year adult about to transition in to the world outside of the public education system and had no idea of how I was going to improve and adjust to the world of college. The social service agency, Department of Vocational Rehab services felt it would be good to provide me a way to make the transition and be there if needed. At that time, I felt Dr. Welch's office was a place where I would find some comfort and solace. It was a place where I could talk about my concerns and focused mainly on myself. I thought that if I could talk about what was bothering me and find a release for my concerns that it would resolve them. Yet it was a revolving door that never shut completely. When a door gets closed and discussions are held and then are used outside in the world with our thoughts and agendas, it can sometimes be like a fire that only causes more damage than the healing. I regret the way that I caused arguments with my parents over some rather trivial stuff that was important at the time yet do not know now what they were.

Looking back on being in the world then when I was twenty, I was much younger and also still tied to to my nest at home. The counseling had the goal of trying to help me emerge into the world-getting out of my cocoon so I could find my way into it. Emerging from the cocoon has struggles and as I went through that process, there were a few fragments of that cocoon that were torn and left hanging from the branch of the caterpillar.
Looking forward from that point, I found that emergence as I did enter Fairfield University as a citizen of Connecticut from amonst the other 49 states present. I gained a broader perspective of the world.

The Second day of the new year

The days are roling along now within the new year. Old habits die hard. Back to the mountain of work that never seems to end and I am becoming more aware of my faults of announcing when I am to drop off a report when someone is on the phone. I will just leave it and move on-being silent will not be all that bad.

People at the office said that I was missed when I was out on vacation this past week. They gave me plenty to do to keep me busy. I only wish that I had some more time in the day to get the work done as I used to but it is nice to be able to follow through with work in a more leisurely manner than to rush through it and feel as much pressure as I used to.

The sky was a bright red this morning as I was commuting and at the end of the day, in the sky, there was a full moon which felt good to see. yet, sight does not have a physcial feel, yet I like the sound of the feeling of sight.

Blessings. Scott

the first day of the new year

Rolling over from the stomach to the knees and then crawling was a challenge when I was growing up. I had some challenges at that time. Even now that I am mature and an adult, the movement from the belly( old habits) to the knees( new transformed life) takes a lot of time since I like to hang around in the environments that I have been used to.

Why do our old habits die so hard. It is the terrain that we have grown accustomed to and are used to those ways and they are awfully hard to depart from. I only wish I could take a metal spade that has etched dirt marks from the past and get on my knees and dig out the rough spots. In the mind, it is a lot harder to replace those thoughts that just will not leave our minds in peace.

A Walt Whitman sampler

Today was a day to celebrate art. Our writing workshop at the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport featured a look at the poem by him, A Poem to Myself . It was of his life as he worked on the Blades of Grass. We explored how grass relates to our liives.
Good to be in Dianna's poetry group again-a good way to end 2006.

It is Christmastime

When I think of the word, light, this is an appropriate image I can find for Christmas. From the first Christmas,9 months after the angel announced the birth of the savior to Mary and Joseph, a star appeared in the Eastern Sky to guide the magi to the creche where Jesus lay. Light serves as a spotlight to significant events in history whether it is a new store opening up or to commemorate an important celebration such as Christmas.

Lights bring back memories of when I was a kid growing up in Fairfield. After thanksgiving, my dad would go to the attic and bring down the boxe which had the artificial Christmas tree and the ornaments. We would open up the boxes that had an aroma from being in the attic during the year. We took the garland , ornaments, stars and homemade treasures from my brother and myself that I made growing up at the Henry Viscardi School in Long Island. We would put on some Christmas music and laid the branches to the tree and the base of the tree on the floor and assembled the tree according to the color codes-red being matched to red and green to green. Then we strung the lights around the branches and then the garlands. The stars and balls were hung in between the lights and the garlands. Mom and I had to be careful not to miss any spots and to take turns to carefully rest the angels and the stars so that they would not fall off or get hidden by another ornament. We enjoyed doing this as a family in the living room each year.When looking back, I miss those days of trimming the tree as a family on a Saturday morning after thanksgiving.
Another way that we decorated our home in Fairfield was with lighted candles. Dad and I took the candles out of the boxes and placed them on 14 white window sills of our home. I placed a piece of masking tape around the base of each candle to hold it in place at the center of the narrow window sill. Each night at dusk,after turning on the tree, I went around the house and turned on the lights and looked outside the window onto our street dimly lit by a streetlight.

When I have been on vacation for Christmas break at work, I have enjoyed seeing the christmas lights that others have put up at the retirement community of Arizona and Maine. There seemed to be a competition amongst the retirees in Arizona as to who was to be the brightest and boldest. There was never a scrimping as to the amount of lights put up or the boldness of the displays. There were plenty of Santas and reindeer and snowmen on display. Luminari lined the sidewalks of the homes and signs of lights that said, "Noel" lined the displays. Lights also were on the pilings from the mining of shale that southern Arizona does. These tailings had a christmas tree perched on them and was lit from the distance as we approached.
When I have been in Maine for Christmas, some of the docks are lit with lights for the holidays and the homes had more modest displays of lights without the garishness of a competition since the homes are not as densely packed together and Mainers are known to be a little more frugal and careful with their money. I am glad that I have this annual pilgrimage of almost 19 years in enjoying the celebration of Christmas in either Arizona and Maine.

Currently, when I walk home at night from the bus, I look forward to the moment of seeing our Christmas tree lit at Cartright Park. The tree holds its shape well as the wind rustles through its branches. I like seeing the lights dancing and sparkling from the tree. As I walk down my street in the snow, I see the glistening of the snow next to the tree. I also see lit windows in some of the apartments with a lit tree in some of the apartments and lights lining the balconies. In our lobby,the tree is lit and decorated with angels and balls. As I make this walk down my street, these are a very welcoming sight as I come home from a very busy day at work.