Entry Note To Self...memories

Journal Entry: 1/5/19

Morning Meditation 

“Perhaps one of those special things we keep around to remind us of certain feelings and affections of time past.”

There is a story behind this photo entitled Morning Meditation. It is the creation by the late John Donnels of New Orleans. Just a memory. 

For most of my productive years, at least those that had any value, were the ones I spent working alongside Catholic Sisters in healthcare.  A strong and dedicated group of women. Since I am deeply rooted in religion, but not a deeply rooted religious man, I have always remembered that I was raised by a Holy Man and worked most of my life with Sister’s of Charity. My entire life has been around people with purpose. So in a way that has become my religion. Just sensing the beauty of those serving others is a form of worship. At least for me.

 About twenty years ago I remember visiting with Sister Margret each morning. As I entered her office I always noticed this picture hanging on her wall. Each morningI would gave it acknowledgment. 

When my career ended with this Order, Sister Margret presented me with this photo. What a gift. I entitled it People With Purpose. I look at it each day with fond memories. Perhaps one of those special things we keep around to remind us of certain feelings and affections of times past?

Years later, I just happened to be in New Orleans during the French Quarter Festival. It was one of those short trips that turned into a longer trip and I made it a purpose to stop by Mr Donnels Photo Gallery down on St. Peter Street. St. Peter’s Street is nestled in close to Jackson Square. 

What a nice walk it is to revisit anytime I return to New Orleans. I usually take St. Ann down to Cafe Du Monde, have a cup of dark coffee, stroll the River levee and pick up St. Peter to Mr. Donnels studio. It’s like I have a need to check in again with all those first impressions made years ago.

Mr. Donnels did not know me, but I felt I knew him, maybe just a little. After all, I had admired his photo each day for many years. His gallery was filled with pictures of his neighborhood and its people. His kind demeanor, only confirmed my belief in his purpose.

Mr. Donnels died in 2009 at the age of 84. Donnels had his gallery near Jackson Square for more than 50 years. He lived in the Quarter for most of his life, and was playwright Tennessee Williams’ neighbor in the 1940s.

His work, chronicled in a 1999 book, has been exhibited at the Kennedy Center, Harvard University, the Ford Times Collection of American Art, the National Academy of Design, the New Orleans Museum of Art and Historic New Orleans Collection.

Although he was a renowned photographer, Donnels began his career as a painter. For a time, he worked as a police sketch artist. In the 1960s, Donnels bartered a painting for a camera, and a career change followed.

After his death there was local documentary was made of him. It was called the “Pink Satin Suit”:

The Pink Satin Suit documented the struggles, perseverance and discipline that go into the making of a self-made man. Johnny Donnels is an icon of the French Quarter, as was his gallery, filled with his own art. His great love was The French Quarter and his art was revealed like a lover’s embrace with the life that he saw and captured. He was, to many, the last of the great Bohemians: a symbol of freedom and ease.

Life Inside The Sane Asylum...last post 2018

Window of Life

“I stand before the window of life,
Tall & strong, chin held high.
Stripped of my defenses,
Clothed in my pride.
Naked to all,
Revealed to none.”

”Where new friends come,
And old friends stay
To listen to my tales of
adventure and strife.
While i stand my post
at the window of life...”

May all your journeys in 2019 bring you ease...if by chance it should take you in the wrong direction, don’t forget to adjust your sails...Doc

Life Inside The Sane Asylum...As I Sit Here

Life Inside The Sane Asylum 

As I Sit Here...

Inside The Sane Asylum...Jeffery’s Asylum

Journal Entry: 12/22/18
Jeffery’s  Asylum

I think most people like the idea of The Sane Asylum. I’ve never really asked that question out right, but when I tell people my hobby is my Blog, writing about life Inside The Sane Asylum, they nod and smile. When I tell them that the author of the blog is Dr. Ego Prozac, they nod and smile.

So I can tell, from their demeanor, they like the idea, they just don’t know what to say...so they just nod and smile. And all of that is fine with me, I just nod and smile back and say, “look me up sometimes”. They nod and smile. It came to me the other day that I am doing nothing more than entertaining myself with some nods and smiles. And that’s also ok with me.

There is this theory going around, that one day Sane behaviors will be considered Insane behaviors...as in... no one does that anymore. So the thought came to me that one day we may be locked away for our Sane behaviors. Locked away in a Sane Asylum.

Nothing like being proactive, so I just went ahead and established my Sane Asylum. The Asylum itself has no form but it has no boundaries either. No description really, other than what I might give it. “Then what is it” you say?

It is nothing more than the preservation of distinctions I make about  living. Perhaps it extends into my beliefs.  I’m quiet sure it does, for through the past three score and twelve years, many of my beliefs have changed and they continue changing as I make more distinctions about living, about relationships, peace, war, gods, demons and the like.

So I guess you could say that my Sane Asylum is nothing more than my consciousness, just as it is yours. That place where one can go to observe themselves in this world and give behaviors meaning...The Observer of  behavior in this world...called, consciously living.

Christopher Bryson, tells a story of one man’s Asylum. His name was Jeffery, as I recall.

”A man that has been everywhere, as he starts his story...a man that knows everything about music and about food. He’ll ask you what you like as you pass him by, then he’ll ask you why? He’s not always good with eye contact, but he’s friendly, humorous, and engaging. He sings to himself. Sometimes, he talks to himself. Sometimes he is loud. He minds his own business. He hurts nobody...

I see Jeffery almost every morning. He hangs at the corner bodega, or paces the block to the bar. It's a short stretch, but you'll usually find him on it, or sitting a stoop, or the bench at Buffa's. I hadn't seen him in a few days and found out this morning that he had been beaten to death by three men-unrecognizable. It was bad.

Sometimes, Jeffery scolds himself. Loudly. My hunch is that the men thought he was talking to them, and didn't take the time to get any answers before they engaged him, before they beat him.”

He's been everywhere, man. He's been everywhere. That's how it is this morning in The Sane Asylum...Doc

Footnote: Maybe  The Sane Asylum is nothing more than a preservation site for those of Sound Mind. It's not so much that this Blog Spot creates the preservation site, but it is you making the distinction, that there are a lot of characters out there like you and I, just trying to make peace with ourselves  and get along with it all. It is important that we keep making that distinction!

Entry Note To Self...2018

Last Entry Note To Self...2018
Journal Entry:  12/19/18

It’s hard to believe another year is pulling down It’s evening shades. Looking back, I have wandered about in adventure, and wondered with adventure in my mind. I have Scribbled in my personal journal, of sorts, and along the journey I have captured a few pictures that still frame my mind. Especially those that captured the essence in a special moment.

New friends I have been blessed with and ole friends I have loved. I have stood up for beliefs when I felt it right to do so. I have seen things that took my breath away and others that troubled me well into the night. I have stopped and asked questions to strangers, and not at all a surprise, their answers changed my life. I saw Goodness in so many that it has lead me to believe, that deep down, there must be a little shred of good in us all.

We are simple joy, we are unashamed laughter. Will we stay this way? Seems some dances may never end...

Thank you for this strong veil of friendship we have created, if nothing more than the shear validation that we are here.  Some say we are just imaginary friends in a grand social experiment, but just to see another take in the good for being cared about or the goodness in your thought word or deed, reflects positive intentions of kindness no matter what we call ourselves. Maybe there needs to be a new word for these connections?

Each person I met along the way became a part of me and in a sense will always be a part of each of us. Knowing our own goodness, we are more able to recognize it in others. Seeing the good in ourselves and others, we are more likely to do what we can to build the good in the world we share together.

Because I know that I don't always get it right, and that not everything I pen is great, I just wanted to quite genuinely say: thank you. Whether you read everything or almost nothing, it all means more than you know.

I'm not sure why I started writing almost four years ago, and I still don't know where I'm going. But it's all been strange. And interesting. And meaningful. And humbling. I may not have known why I wanted to scribble back then but I definitely thought I had something to say. I now know that I don't. And I guess that's progress.

So I make my final entry and close my Personal Journal, Of Sorts, and push it aside until the morning breaks a new... wishing you and yours a spirit of ease.

”Once we fly in our dreams, our walk in life will never be the same...thank you! Best wishes” ...Doc

Entry Note To Self... enlightenment

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go."

Inside The Sane Asylum...waiting

Waiting
Journal Entry: 12/13/18

Today, I had to wait for 45 minutes for something in a waiting room full of people. To most people, that may sound quite tedious. However, I didn’t mind. I like waiting. I know... that is strange. But I really do.

Why do I like waiting? Older people are just good at waiting. We don’t mind, or we don’t show that we mind, to a point. If we do mind or get to the point when we start minding, we complain, but only in a very jolly sarcastic way. We complain with humor. We complain apologetically. That is, if we complain at all. Mostly, we just put up and shut up.

Now I have my reasons. Firstly, if I am waiting then I am not engaged in real life. This is especially so if I have no phone signal (as was the case today). Nobody can get hold of me while I am waiting. They can wait. Bliss.

Secondly, waiting gives me thinking space. All I can do is think while I wait. Thinking is healthy. We all should stop and just think now and then. It’s amazing what your mind can come up with if left with it’s own vices.

Thirdly, I love reading really old copies of Women’s Weekly. Who doesn’t? I wonder what happen to all the old Readers Digest?

Fourthly, I love reading the random signs and notices that are always present in places of waiting: the adverts for coping with dementia, what to do if you think you have an STD, how much water you should drink a day, where the local support group for people with random unusual disease meet or the signs that tell you ‘please be patient if you have been waiting a long time’.

Finally, and most importantly, I love people watching and eavesdropping on those people. So for me, waiting is like being in the Frozen Frog Yogurt shop.

Today, while waiting, I heard all about one woman’s issues renovating her house and what happened when a curtain rod fell down on her sleeping husband during the night. I helped an elderly lady of 85 work out what day it was. I amused a random man with my desperate need to know more about a ‘Tilt Test’. He asked the receptionist for me, she wasn’t sure. I exchanged mutual society horror stories with a lady called Julie . I watched as a doddery old man with a thatched head of pure white hair called John, (the man, not the hair) as he was called into his appointment. I observed a lady called Florence amble past to her appointment shortly after John. I created a life for her in my head, (lives in the country, higgldy piggldy house, too many books and cats, loves Walmart, eats a lot of potato chips). I saw a youngish man called Paul with a funny hat get called into his appointment. I amused a random couple with my grammatical pedantry.

If only I had my sketch pad today. The adventures my pen and I would have told. As it were, I decided that an hour in a random waiting room would make for a great Broadway play or a Samuel Beckett story. It was an existentialist’s dream- waiting for something you don’t want to experience, and waiting patiently at that, and more importantly, being forced to consider your mortality and meaning on this planet while waiting for that thing you don’t want to happen. Arguably, there isn’t anything more existential than that.

When my time waiting came to an end, 45 minutes after it began, I hate to admit it but I was sad. For I will miss my new friends: John, Julie, Florence and Paul to name but a few. Perhaps our paths will cross again, in another waiting room somewhere else?

P.S. hope you like my Andy Warhol selfie???
Waiting Patiently...Doc

Entry Note To Self...the offering

Once upon a time men took into your temple the first fruits of their harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering you really want, the offering you mysteriously need every day to appease your hunger, to shake your thirst is nothing less than the growth of the world borne ever onwards in the stream of universal becoming. Teilhard de Chardin, “Mass on the World”

Journal Entry: 12/12/18

Wishing you peace and joy this special time of year. Enjoy your adventure...Doc

Entry Note To Self...the art of living

Journal Entry: 12/12/18
The Art Of Living

How we choose what we do, and how we approach it…will determine whether the sum of our days adds up to a formless blur, or to something resembling a work of art.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi


All of us must make fundamental life choices and decide what is most valuable to us. We may opt for a life of reason and knowledge; one of faith and discipline; one of nature and freedom; one of community and altruism; or one of originality and style. We may even choose to live our lives as though they were works of art. In every case, hard work is required: Our lives are not just given to us, but need to be made. To live well is, in fact, to practice an art of living. The ways in which we find meaning, make fundamental life choices, and construct beautiful and well-lived lives for ourselves is an art form just as much as any beautiful painting.

We know what it means for a painting to be beautiful. But what about a life? Like great works of art, great people exhibit style, originality, and creativity. Maybe, then, to live well is just to practice an ART of living. But what should the values be that are important to a good life? Experiencing joyful moments, moral goodness, or friendship, for example – Are these not qualities of aesthetic beauty? Are the qualities that make a work of art good, that different from the qualities that make a life good? Is there really such thing as a "beautiful" life?

Image by: Dado

Reflections From The World

“I’m feeling rather cynical this morning.”

Strasser was the art critic for a small public radio station in upstate New York. He always arrived at the gallery early to avoid the annoying pretentious crowds that he felt always came to these openings. He looked at the white on white that was the interior of the gallery and wondered if perhaps there was something he was not getting. Was it art? While standing there contemplating the work, it hit him. My god, he thought, it is the nature of unlimited possibilities, the unwritten future, the blank slate of a newborn baby. It is genius. Sadly, Phillip Strasser had misread the invitation and arrived the day before the art was installed. He was after all the very same critic who once mistakenly took a power failure for a performance piece on the darkness of the human soul.

Entry Note To Self...gratitude

Gratitude

 entry note-12/7/any year 

”When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

Gratitude is the practice of finding the good in each day. Life can easily become stagnant, mundane, and monotonous, but that changes depending on what we choose to see. There’s always a silver lining, if you look for it...Pablo Coelho 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS...See you soon...Doc

Reflections From The World

The Christopher Bryson Series...

There are times when, in your zeal to rediscover the mythology of a place, you create your own fresh mythology. It may be known only to you, maybe to your dog, the people you meet during your travels. It may straddle the partition between real, and unreal—the brittle crust between night and day, right and wrong. The margins, the gradients. It may buttress ancient notions, or create a whole new visual architecture. You may subvert the dominant paradigm. You never know until you get out there and expose yourself to some unknowns, unfamiliars. Or, at the very least, look at something familiar in a different way. Stay curious. That's how it is for me.

Buttresses, not flying
Pirate Alley
French Quarter
New Orleans
2018

#architecture

Entry Note To Self...the edge

Journal Entry: 12/11/18

The Ecology of the Mind...where the sky meets the sea

On my morning walk I noticed the beauty of the the sea meeting the shore. The ecotone, that defined space where two habitats merge. That threshold where water meets the shore, where the forest comes to meadow, or where woodland ends at a cultivated lawn. It is the edge habitat where everything — soil content, vegetation, moisture, humidity, light, pollination — changes. It’s also where species from both sides converge, rendering it a place of complex interaction and diversity. The edge...

Things are always happening there. The small sea birds as they scramble from the edge of the waves, poking their beaks in the sand looking for that bite size crustacean. The Osprey as they break the edge of the water then towers to the sky with their next meal. Life just seems to happen on the edge.

It is a place of constant change and unexpected appearances. Such a distinction can be helpful when you are trying to distill a nebulous idea into a handful of words, or just in reflecting on a memory from our past. It is nothing more than noticing that space where broken sea shells become the sandy shore... just a glance is enough to remind us of the intensity and yet simple complexity in these places of transition, where one thing manages to become another. Edge walking with our mind and bodies.

We are all edge walkers when you really think about it. Always looking at the edge for our inspiration, our thrill our transition. Looking outward at the horizon or inward trying to discern the edge of our soul. That edge between depression and happiness, between control and freedom. The edge between love and hate, compassion and resentment. Life happens on the edge and we all are just edge walkers between life and death...make your distinctions well my friends...Doc

From Inside The Sane Asylum...Give me a break

From Inside The Sane Asylum...give me a break

Every language has its own collection of wise sayings. They offer advice about how to live and also transfer some underlying ideas, principles and values of a given culture / society. These sayings are called "idioms" - or proverbs if they are longer. These combinations of words have (rarely complete sentences) a "figurative meaning" meaning, they basically work with "pictures". Like "birds of a feather flock together."

I don't want to pull any wool over your eyes, but to make a long story short and  please take this with a grain of sand, since it comes from the horses mouth and not hearing this through the grape vine. At times I don't play with a full deck of cards. Off my rocker you could say. There are times I go barking up the wrong tree and at the drop of a hat will beat around the bush. I don't think I have ever cried over spilled milk, but I am guilty of adding insult to injury and I have been known to put all my eggs in one basket...

Enough of this bull shit, I need a break before I taste a dose of my own medicine. I don't want to ever be caught dead...what a visual that is...be back soon...your guess is good as mine. Just experienced a blooming idiom...Doc