It's Still Me But I Have Changed

My son Tom is standing with me in the first picture. He has been writing his blog for some time and he is an excellent writer. You can find his blog at http://www.kindaconfusing.blogspot.com/. Sevel years ago he set up a blog site for me. I called it "I Ain't Dead Yet," but I seldom wrote anything. I reasoned that no one wouls read my thoughts. Tonight I decided to begin again, though I am unsure of my audience. The man you see in the first picture with his son, is sixty years old. I have lived a full life as Zorba the Greek puts it "Wife, house, children, the full catastrophy." In my case, four children, a wonderful wife for thirty eight years, a manufactured hime, an old Saturn and an old Pontiac Grand Am (given to me by a friend for $500).

I have manged to live an interesting life without climbing the ladder of success and without acquiring material wealth, but as My grandmother Gertrude once said, "I'm just as happy as if I had good sense." Happiness has little to do with being rich, or having a career which leads you to the top of the ladder. It has a lot to do with having and loving a soulmate, and my wife Sharon fuels the passion behind love poems and the keeps the fire burning in my hearth. It has a lot to do with seeing the gifts in ordinary moments, and saving the memory of them in the treasure box of our minds. During the Great Depression my gandfather Fredrick found great strength in a humble life affirmation, "They can take everything from me but my memories. I keep them in the treasure box of my mind and take them out on rainy days.

Pictures shouldn't stay packed away in boxes. I discovered that I had lots of those clear plastic picture boxes with cardboard backings. I sorted through hundres of old pictures and selected a set of pictures for each of my children. Four clear plastic picture boxes were placed on my bedroom wall. I created all sorts of picture boxes after that and pictures of my sisters, my mom, sharon's om, my dad and sharon's dad, and on and on until I covered our bedroom walls and our living room walls with memories from the treasure box of my mind. When I arrive home at the end of the day, I greeted by wonderful memories.

I bought a scanner/printer for fifty dollars at Walmart and scanned hundres of pictures into organized picture files, made picture mugs for Sharon and I, to take to work, and scrapbook pages with clever sayings. I intend to have scrapbooks on our coffee table waiting to take our family on journies through treasured memories.

I designed a quilt with Sharon's help, a story quilt with images that symbols of moments in our life. Soon I will stitch together my tapestry quilt and hang it on the dinning room wall. Perhaps it will become another step into the journey of memories, which adds new meaning and purpose to our lives each day. I have learned that we all of memories wich we can celebrate in created ways. We can focus on the good things in our lives instead of complaining or getting lost in regrets.

The second picture is my poetry reading before a packed house. The audience laughed, and cried, and applauded spontaniously. I will share some of those poems later. I come from a long line of storytellers. I tell stories as my father did when I was a child. I took a six hour graduate class in how to teach students to write. Elanor Michaels a professor of education at the University oF Idaho introduced us to the Northwest Inland Writers' Project, part of a natioanl moment to encourage teachers to teach their studenhts to write and inspire them to love writing. The idea behind my presentation was to teach them how to use storytelling as prompt for writing. I dressed in black and put white make up on my face. I held my storytellers staff while the teachers waited in a circle. I turned and faced them and handed my staff to one of them. It was fashioned i China from fine wood and was over five feet tall, As I told my holocaust story I gave them parts to act out. Soon my words and their words were transformed into rhythmic poetry, words became the dance of life, as my main characters song of a freedom, to great to be contained by a concentration camp, gradually led him closer and closer to his death, "I am free like the eagle. No fence can hold my soul. You can destroy my body, but my spirit remains whole. I'm am free." His sacrifice gave new life to each prisoner and as they joined him in his song, freedom transformed their souls. When I finished my holocaust story, tears flooded the teachers faces, and they were too moved by the story to write. The story came akive in each of them and for a few miutes they were the prisoners in a concentration camp witnessing the courage of the singer who refused to quit singing his song. I failed. My story did not serve as a writing prompt, but the story succeeded in something much greater. We connected is human/inhumane experience and together we found the fullness of our humanity.

The third picture shows me breaking bricks for the first time. I was in graduate school at the University of Arizona and I needed exercise. I signed up for lessons in Kenpo karate. It wasn't easy for me because I am uncoordinated. My muscles complained about the new martial arts discipline, but their resistence gradually gave way to the will of my instructor. Years later, I took lessons from Al Tracy, the grandmaster of our Kenpo system, and one of the greatest martial arts teachers of our time. I earned a brown belt after I mastered eleven katas and over one hundred and sixty self defense tecniques. I had my own Kenpo school for four years and I saw many boys and girls, men and women change dramaticly as they learned Kenpo.

My sister, Barbara Lee, who now calls herself Micayla, used to say, "When the student is ready, the teacher will come." Though I lost her because of a family conflict, I will always carry her in my heart. She was my teacher many times in my life, and I celebrate what I learned from her. I regret losing her, ut she lives in so many wonderful memories in the the treasure box of my mind. There is a place there for the people we lose. My father died when I was fifteen, but he lives there. My mother has passed away, but she also lives there.

I am old and I have changed, but I refuse to complain. I treat each new day as a gift and I am still collecting memories for the treasure box in my mind. If we are meant to journey together, you find. Perhaps you will share some of the memories in the treasure box in your mind.