17th tuesday 10.29am
Somedays I simply feel that life is too much for me.
Today, sitting in my newly reorganized garage studio, I am watching a sequence of my Pakeha & Pearl film, where I am sitting on a hill, a rock, high above Morro Bay in Central California, it’s 2004. Newly divorced, newly rejected :). I am talking to camera and ostensibly talking to my recent tart, Sharon. And sitting here in my mobility chair, I weep for myself. Everything I am addressing to Sharon I realize that I am actually addressing to my self. My self needs to hear what I am saying. “I love you” – “You are special” – etc, etc,. “ I wish you were here with me”.
19th thursday 1I 2.38pm
And now that I have trolled, once more, through my 20 chapters of ‘Searching for Zane Grey’s America’ aka ‘Pakeha & Pearl’, there is a film, some sort of film at least. It may simply be my personal odyssey, and that, I accept for today, may be enough. My journey, my view, my style, my art, no expectations for anything more or grand or even less than that. I am learning from reflecting and going back over this footage has helped me to be more sympathetic to my self, more compassionate. Writing that brought up a coughing fit, an emotional earthquake and has me aware of how badly I have treated my self this life time. It’s not others, it’s simply me. I am the one who has taken myself prisoner, fearful of my truth. And right here, right now, I can accept that. I pray for forgiveness, I pray for acceptance and I pray for the strength to continue on my journey. With compassion for my self. This is not about Zane Grey, this is about me. It’s my Sherman’s March in a sense, it’s my Battle of Culloden even. Merde! Life has been very good to me and that is my truth. Pure and simple. No one can take away or cheapen what I have accomplished except me. No more do I need to excuse, abuse or lose myself. As A. B. Faice wrote, I have lived and enjoyed ‘A Fortunate Life’. Amen.
“In every artists development the germ of the later work is always found in the earlier. The nucleus around which the artist’s intellect builds his work is himself . . . And this changes little from birth to death. The only real influence I had was myself.” – Edward Hopper
