Confession Tuesday on Wednesday

Dear Reader:

It’s been 8 days, two rejection letters, a flat tire and a novel finished reading since my last confession. I’m cranking this out at lunch time so let’s going to the confessional.

I confess I’ve over the unplanned expense of a new tire. I was over the rejection letters as soon as I read them. I don’t dwell on work rejected. I always consider that in order to have work accepted I am going to get rejections so I expect that I will be told no many times and that getting a no means there is a yes coming soon.

This time of year is odd because I enjoy the cooler weather. I don’t like extreme cold but we get some pretty nice fall days. Then there are the rainy ones like today when the coolness and the overcast skies tend to bring you down a bit. I confess days like today I want to stay home and under the covers. Of course I don’t do that but the thought is nice.

It seems like any more it’s always cold and rainy on Halloween here so if today Xeroxes itself for tomorrow it will be right in style. I confess that while I realize Halloween has become almost as much an adult holiday as it is for children, I or we’ve never every gotten into the adult dress-up party mode and so the day seems rather remote for us.We have dressed up the dogs a time or two but that’s usually been with the help of one or another of my daughters.

Speaking of help and daughter, I left work last night to go to the new home of one of my daughters to help her with the hookup of a washer. I had only been to the house twice and one of those times I did not drive and I didn’t come from downtown so I was trying to get there as direct and quickly as I could in rush hour traffic. I used voice input to put the address into my phone GPS and what should have been the number 68 was understood to be sixty or 60.  I confess I was nearly to the 60 destination before I realized it did not hear 68. I pulled over and restated the address. Again it read it as 60. I tried again annunciating v e r y   s l o w l y and it heard something else altogether that was not a number. I confess at this point I was about as angry as one can get with an inanimate object. This was disturbing to me as I realized how unbecoming it was. No one else was in the car but it did incense my own sensibilities that I was so angry over this. I finally typed it in after numerous voice attempts all failed. I though what a jerk this person is in the car…  I confess he’s not coming along next time.

The Mag 191

le Jardin, 1962, by Max Ernst 

Cartographers Woman

He is one given to meticulous detail,

appreciates boundaries, and topography.

He has an eye for cityscapes, rolling hills-

the arches and clefts.

He sees beauty in the world

where others see the mundane.

Everywhere the lines and curves 

converge for him and they come to life.

A rivers path carved out of the land

over time reveals swaying hips. 

In rolling hills he sees the waves of hair

falling over shoulders and too the fullness

of breasts and the cleavage that runs between

the rounded tops that softens out into the larger plains.

In the contours of it all he sees her face, 

her long white legs and feels her every bit alive.

He believes he is the luckiest man for he sees

his woman is everywhere. 

Michael A. Wells

The Mag

Confession Tuesday - Safe Place Edition

Dear Reader...

It's been one rejection, one home office reclamation and a week since my last confession.

This morning I stopped for a Diet Coke in route to work and when I cam back into the parking lot and entered my car I looked up and saw the Safe Place sign. I confess I don't know if these exist in other metropolitan areas but here certain public establishments are designated as such primarily for that children facing eminent harm within the community have a very public place to retreat to for safety. The idea is marvelous but that's not my point here.

I confess that as I looked at this sign it caused me to consider the reason we even need a safe places. The sad fact of the matter is that society is so saturated with things that pose significant threats to the safety of everyone.

For instance, many times I see people who are so short on patience with others in stores, while driving, at sporting events, there is a degree of hostility that is so potentially volatile that these very public places seem to breed unhealthy conduct between persons who often have little or no connection in life but decide to spew forth impatience that sparks rudeness and sooner or later people are in each others faces, flipping each other off, and now with most states having concealed carry somebody draws a gun.

Guns seem to be everywhere these days. Children get access to guns at home and tote them to school and the next thing you know we are reading in the paper that three-four or  maybe a dozen or more are dead in some school.

I confess that this sign this morning really brought to mind how many places that are not safe.  We hear of gunmen in Offices, Malls, Theaters and this says nothing of domestic violence in our homes where the perpetrator and the victim actually know each other.

I confess I think of places like Syria and Afghanistan and wonder what they would think about safe zones or houses that people could flea to to safety. Wouldn't they all be there? We aren't a nation at war with an occupying army... or are we? Have we become our own enemy?

What is safe? Where is it? I confess this is becoming  unclear. We are a terribly polarized nation. For a country that is supposed to be a shining example of freedom, so many are ready to tell everyone else what is right and what is wrong. Who we can marry, who we can worship, what personal health care their employees should have. Where we have to pray.

I confess that I have no answer to the question, how do we become a caring and unified nation again? Maybe we never were. Perhaps this nation was all smoke and mirrors. But I do know that it is too easy for people to get their hands on firearms.

I confess that next week I will still likely be wondering about the irony of an America that needs to designate safe places for children to run to. And where do the victim of domestic violence go, where to the children trapped in a room with a gunman go, or a Shopping Mall or a late night movie at a theater?

Just Saying....

Reclaiming My Office

The past few weeks I have been in the process of reclaiming my office.  This was vacated when my daughter Meghan and her husband Brandon came here post college until they could get work and save for a place of their own.

Note the San Francisco Giants banner - re-personalizing it one of the first acts that has to occur. Actually I plan for everything to be pretty functional by tonight.

Confession Tuesday - On the ledge edition

Dear Readers:

It's been a week since my last confession. I've impressed myself that I'm here on time.

This past week I stepped out on a ledge so to speak.  I've been toying with trying watercolors and acrylics. I painted in oils when I was a teenager but not since them and we are talking  oh about  #@ years.  So I've had material that I purchased about a month ago and I've wavered back and forth between starting with watercolor at one point and acrylic and finally back to watercolor. I don't really have a reason that I can put my finger one for what I decided to start with, but I'm pretty sure that the wavering was simply procrastination to stave off the fear that I had of actually putting  the brush to the paint and then onto the medium.

I confess that when I pulled out the material the week and finally started, I felt a tiny bit of success. Not so much in what I did (generally I am just working on some technique exercises) but I felt some success in meeting my fear head on. This is a good thing. No?

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit unhappy with my writing these past few days and I confess that I am wondering if it is due to divided attention. I suppose it could be, or it could be me just trying whip up another reason to engage in fear.

I confess that I ready to continue to tackle my fears this next week and not let them own me. I will continue to work on some painting and I will write and write and write through this period until I again feel that  what I'm getting on the page is worthy.

MAG 190

Dog by scavangercat808

 

 

My Parallel Universe

another world out there

framed in my view— 

a world of ruckus

fast moving cars

I can chase

only in my imagination 

a postman strolls unflinched

oblivious to my bark

 

children chasing balls

will pass and give a nod

hey you they offer

no hand to pat my head 

there are noises

I can’t even identify

people   cats   birds

smells the permeate

my universe 

I know these things exist

all beyond my reach



Michael A. Wells


The Mag