From Inside The Sane Asylum...Jess

Don't let the clowns scare you, as they seem to do for many these days. I have a good friend of about forty years and in my scribblings I just call him Jess B Rambling in the present tense and Jess Ben Rambling in past tense. 

I never know of his where a bouts...he just shows up from time to time. I like it that way. Long periods with Jess makes me question many things about my self and requires way to many days of recovering after his visits. One of his favorite lines is "get down get back up again." The getting back up again is always a problem with Jess around.

Well , Jess informed me he may be showing up in the next few days. I'm trying hard to get my game face on in preparation. Trying to grin more and see what that feels like. The visual of Jess and me happens to be this picture of two clowns pondering life's meaning as they peer out to sea. He always tells me some cock a mania story and I always relate a once upon a time story to him. Sometimes he believes me, sometimes not...this is a once upon a time story I told him on his last visit...I think he believed this one...by the way, Jess is the one caring the suit case...:)

Jess, did I tell you about the time I played bingo...?

I don't like playing Bingo in a psych ward setting. Since it's a game that involves no skill but sheer luck, and since I tend not to win very often, it can be damaging to my sense of self-worth, when I'm already so fragile that I'm in a psych ward, for Pete's sake. 

I get to thinking that not even luck is on my side. The staff starts cheerleading, creating a sense of competitiveness that need not exist: "Come on, men, get going, the ladies are winning too many!!" As if anything can be done to change that. 

The token prizes aren't worth much, the same handful of people win repeatedly, because that's the way luck is, and then staff starts imposing a pity rule: "OK, after you win four times you have to give your next prize to somebody who hasn't won yet." Hey, it may be a nothing prize, but if I didn't win it myself, I don't want it!

Still, they really like for you to participate in those things, so I agreed to be the caller. I started making jokes about the numbers I called out. "B9. As in, the tumor was not malignant, but B9." (That got a big laugh out of the nurses.) "B4. As in, stop in the naaame of looove, beee-fore you breeeeak my heaaaart...." It earned me the participation points without actually having to play the stupid game..

Just a story I made up. Never been a patient, but maybe I should be?

Footnote: Since this scribbling, Jess showed up and departed...like I said, I am questioning many things about myself...:) Where he comes from nobody knows,

Or where he goes to, but on he goes!...

Reflections From The World...Timothy

The River Keeps Moving

And like an ancient lava, the sun sprayed those muted golds and oranges across the slick surface of that slow-yawning river. And Timothy had upended the trash barrel, stood erect with his pipes, straight faced, motionless, like a Scottish Moai. And the tribes had begun to gather. And there was no talk of The Mohammad, of The Christ, of The Buddah, of the differences between them, between all of us. And there was talk of the beauty of it: the sun, the air, the water, the morning, the gathering. And the river kept moving, even despite the attention from them, from the sun. 

Then, the water glow slowly paled, then vanished, along with the tribes, and the remnants of the night. Timothy was still playing as we walked upriver, away, and then toward home. We could still hear him at Café du Monde, Pirates Alley, and even now, as I write this. And it was good.

Timothy, pipes

Mississippi River, Easter Sunday

New Orleans, LA 

2017

Words and photo By: Christopher Bryson

Entry Note To Self..thresholds

Life Thresholds

If you go back to the etymology of the word ‘threshold,’ it comes from ‘threshing,’ which is to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness. 

There are huge thresholds in every life. You know that, for instance, if you are in the middle of your life in a busy evening, fifty things to do and you get a phone call that somebody you love is suddenly dying, it takes ten seconds to communicate that information. But when you put the phone down, you are already standing in a different world. Suddenly everything that seems so important before is all gone and now you are thinking of this. 

So the given world that we think is there and the solid ground we are on is so tentative. And a threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit, and very often how we cross is the key thing.

Entry Note To Self...scrolling down

I usually spend about two hours a day on my iPad and consider it one of my hobbies. I save a lot of things that might interest me. Sometimes wonder why I save so many. I think it is now an impossible task to review all of them. Guess you could call me a hoarder of stuff that interest me. It must be like a flea market of bits and parcels of information. The same goes for my photo collection. I find and take great photos all the time. I tend to collect between two and three thousand at a time. See, a hoarder of interesting photos also. I do try and keep them purged after use, but that in itself my friend is a daunting task in trying to decide if I really want to delete that beauty. I seem to become friends with all the things I save, and how can we just delete a friend?

My process of posting is like a craft room for thoughts and ideas. I tend to go for my saved documents first. That's where I store all the interesting thoughts and writings. I name my documents in a way I can find words that my mind is craving at that moment. Now here is the problem...I find these great words that sends fireworks off in my brain and It's one of those Humanity  saving thoughts that must be shared with the universe...Now! Not only have I found the words, I have an ole friend in my photos that resembles that thought in my mind...there in starts the second problem...how to find that friend among three thousand Ole friends. I usually start scrolling through my photos, thinking I know about the time period I saved that photo. Yea, right. More times than not, I usually find the photo scrolling back down. Sometimes on the second or third back down..:) I'm working on albums to make it a little easier, but if you have ever experienced that time consuming activity, you know why I'm am not finished. Anyway, I like taking a quick glance at my ole fiends each day.

It would be interesting to know the Best Practices In Posting...

Not half bad on a good day! TAOL

P.S. I saved this piece about four weeks ago and just found it...now to find a picture to match while scrolling down.

I was asked by a friend the other day what I worry about. A lot of worry thoughts pass through my mind. I usually don't find a good worry until I'm scrolling down. I found one the other day that I had forgotten about and it's my only worry I will share..."I worry about the approaching day my body will become stooped and I will be looking down most of the time...

Entry Note To Self...Matanza Inlet

Latitude, 29° 54" 32'. Longitude, -81° 17" 12'...

Towards the Matanza's seaward turn, the flow is slow, meandering. Wide tidal flat at the sea’s low tide support a spread of hungry birds. Silt brought down from inland fans the delta, between the reeds. Here crustaceans breed.

To the eyes of walkers on the white dunes, where only the lonely skylark nests among the sea oats and palmetto palms, the white sand flats must seem a bland expanse. But to Kingfisher the casts of sea fleas & crab are treasured finds. They stun their prey with single stabs.

Brown Pelicans bob in shallow water just beyond the mud. Full or not, they slowly move to their roost inland, where they will wait for the sea to ebb once more.

Sand Pipers abundant where the marsh grass grows. They all gather as the sun fades and the walkers watch nature and once again are amazed... 

I note these quietly in my field book at days end...