90 Orbits around the Sun : Gerald "Jerry" Alexander

1932 - 2022

My dearest and oldest friend crossed the road

 for the last time.

 My variation of an age-old joke askes, "which crossed the road first, the chicken or the egg?" With age comes some wisdom? Answer: "At the same time!" He acknowledged that this may have been my best joke yet to create. He said he would share that one. "My master class was complete!"

We are all connected to each other and 

"No beginning, no end."

He carried all the many jokes with him that have lightened my load over the years.

We only talked of the most important issues for us both in the last months. Not to waste any time for laughter about our country's tribulations, the worlds future and our own destinies.

The uncertain climate and political future, he would not experience, was his main concern for his grandchildren, most of all.

His next journey was very dim and dark to him, until we agreed that

he was loved and gave love.

Albert Einstein came up and I asked him if he knew why he was a physicist? "To find out how God thinks." And now with our explorations we can take a selfie of our home.

  I concluded to see what God sees.

Mirror image of a nebula from Webb Telescope

As my Blogg askes about love and God, I reminded him LOVE is our creator shining through us to give to others. I let him know in one conversation that he did not have to believe in God. Jerrys love for me kept me on this earth longer at a time I could see no other way than to "Get Out". I said this was my proof.

Many times we shared about his loss of his wife and daughter and his failures.

 What he learned may have saved my life.

Jerry was a grateful man who loved to eat, and my last contribution was my rich banana bread. As a former cook and caterer having Jerry as a neighbor was a treat to share my culinary dishes.

 

Our last meeting, along with his two surviving sons, was short and yet very sweet.

When I received the news on Labor Day afternoon. I drove out to the oceanside and reminded myself that life is so precious. Any of my heartache will now remind me that love is the source of this pain and the joy in our relationship. 

Until our next joke together

My Prayer for Jerry

"Hear O Israel"

On the one year 

Memorial September 2023

I shared with his sons

"He is with me every time I laugh out loud".. 

 

" Out My Window" July 2022 Series

To Love my country's Declaration of Freedoms

July 4 2022

The first Port Angeles Wa  parade since 2020 lockdown mandate was smaller and very few floats. Even the large, loaded logging trucks were missing. I remembered at the 2019 parade shouting out, " lets morn the trees." Logging a main source of industry, employment and shipping to the orient countries for Port Angeles. It was not appreciated. Wrinkled foreheads told it all.

This year was very intimate and full of children lining the streets with their family groups. Camp chairs and coolers of drinks lined the sidewalk below my window.  The elements were there with marching band and music from floats along with candy flying through the air.

Celebrating our country's birthday along with the evening fireworks reminds me of the battles to 

 declare our freedom from the tyranny and taxation with no representation in England.

No representation is the main issue and taxation with no voice, no vote.  With voting scheduled in the fall, I pray all those who are in need of safe abortion healthcare will be heard and supported by the majority by voting. Now we are experiencing a minority imposing religious beliefs over healthcare for the poor. A heated issue and rightly so. For me our voting process needs reform. We are 50 states and many territories with population concentrations now dictating. Currently Midwest over west and east coast with larger population centers. Major legislation affecting ALL women needs to be voted on a national level.. Not by the states separately...noting the states now banning abortion have the larger poor populations in need of care and equal access to healthcare.

Teaching: to vote and not become discouraged. As a country we are 246 yrs old and have yet to accomplish what the Declaration of independence says as written:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note: women have only been included since 1926, and Black voters provided enforcement of the Rights to vote in the 1960's.

We are in a process to become all we have written as laws, and we must vote to keep our government representatives from abusing their power. At any time politicians can ignore enforcement of these laws..so the strong discrimination of Blacks was dismissed by the prevailing attitudes in a part of this large land.  Equally women faced being treated as " unequal". I consider this country is only 50 years into a full voting representation. Now is the time after two presidential elections ignored the popular votes over electoral ones!  Reform the electoral college in this age of technology is necessary and NOT relying on horseback transportation to cast votes

in the 1800's our norm!

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Footnote

Active gunman event during a parade in Highland Park Illinois. Seven dead including children.

 Voting has not 

resulted in gun control legislation over the last 30 years of mass shootings.....How can this happen? 

money and gun lobbyists have VOTED without our representation......and almost anyone can buy a lethal weapon and not to defend from overtake by another country as the Bill of Rights amendment stresses, so as not to be colonized again, but to mass murder of children by children?.......

 

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July 11 2022

July 11 2022

This late Sunday morning I find the shop owner is watering the doorway flower tubs. The Alley Cat boutique is painted in a pale pink. It borders the alley I walk to the lot where my car is parked. It has whimsical women's clothing, much like the ones I would have passed by while living in the "Haight Ashbury Street" neighborhood in the 70's. I made extra money-making clothing for sale in a consignment shop. Jean skirts were my specialty. Sewn from recycled jeans and sewn on a treadle sewing machine.  It is quite impossible for me to not reference my past experiences. 

Especially the creative ones and sharing them with others. My quilted part of the skirt was usually of mountains, oceans, and trees. Not city life, but where my heart was longing to be.

I have yet to go in. My sizes are usually not found in boutiques of this kind. Yet I fancy this woman has her story to tell me and it would be nice to see how she finds her stores treasures.

Teaching: For me to find a common ground and reach out more in my neighborhood. We all have more in common than differences. The pandemic for me was a time to live in a mood of mistrust and a need to just survive. Time to thrive again.

July 11 2022

I could no longer wait to drive out to the point on the 3-mile spit that surrounds the coastline of Port Angeles. I drove out to the end that houses the Coast Guard Station. It is visible from my studio window and look back from across the water. In the photo I aimed it to be right above the stump to find it easily in the photo.

My apartment is in a historic building former Hotel Lee Plaza. It is the tallest building in town and easy to see from this distance. Saved from destruction 20 years age it now houses apartments for low income and disabled. 

I has been two years since I took my small convertible smart Car for a drive to my favorite spot in Port Angeles. Early morning brings only a few residents and visitors out to walk, run and walk their pups.

Meditation on the spot directly across from my apartment brings me a sense of belonging. A sense of "place" I have not felt since moving here a few months before Pandemic lockdown. 

Teaching: Remember to give myself the opportunity to see from as many angles, views and locations. My apartment is not the only safe place to explore. I am ok., I made it through the worst of it. 

Hopefully.

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Roads Past and Present and Future

It is time for me to arrive back to my journey, no matter where it leads or from where I already have emanated from in my previous 73 years.

July 4, 2022, turns out to be my time for revived personal independence and freedom. I again, after the lockdown, to write about my world , my mirror, in this Blogg. This does also include the many people I come in contact with on my travels and who I am grateful to for enlightening my foggy view at times. I fell in love with this wallpaper image I found and did not know why at first. This has been true for me as an artist to notice the attractions in my world around me without judgement. 

I create artwork from these attractions, a form of love. My timeless episodes of painting, sculpting, or writing always helps me, like a mirror, find my place of healing. I believe now it comes from the soul, always and forever. My soul speaks through my art, and I am so grateful to have been shown and encouraged as a young child. My few years of teaching art, 2012-2019, to all ages, was a gift to me. To watch others, trust their personal creations and become enthusiastic. {meaning full of the spirit within}

 

This photo of a road heading into a fog seems obvious it represents our futures, yet I also saw it include the road already traveled. 

My last couple of years has spurred on my desire to heal from my traumas, PTSD, and hopefully find 

a renewed zeal for my future, of which I can see clearer each day the final horizon looming.

The current healing therapy has been very intense and so much more advanced from my early days of the 70's. I feel blessed to have lived long enough to take advantage of these new treatments, yet my time here is limited. This foggy photo has reminded me it will be okay to let some of my past be forgiven and let it go from my view or memory or even understanding. 

The clear, in focus and divided road in the forefront of the image represents the HERE and NOW. This is where we stand each moment. We can choose to move forward with a willingness to embrace what comes in to view. A person, place, or event that will teach me what my heart yearns for. Life has been clearly a time for learning and most of all for making mistakes. A humbling experience yet the door we need to point us in the next direction, classroom so to speak. Most difficult for me has been the many meetings of persons on my highway. I have no doubt each has collided with me for a reason, for a chance to love and be loved perhaps? My many pets have at times been the most loyal with the gift of a being to express my love to too. Most important of all is To Love over being Loved.  Note either way for me has been full of great joy and greater sorrow...................

     This has happened may times, too many to count now.

I say thank you too All.

The foggy area engulfing the trees, road, view and even direction is also a blessing in disguise. Yes, because the foggy cold damp air is misleading.  My periodic boughts of depression have made me so fearful at times. After so many in my lifetime I named a dear pet "Blue Sky". There is always somewhere a place above my dim view to catch the sun and continue to play out my future. 

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A Footnote

On July 4, 2022 from 6-7pm Port Angeles' 4th parade passed by my window along that 2-lane street out my window. Early that morning I ran out to move my car off the main street parking spot to make room for the events to follow. It was the first one since Pandemic surge. I moved into the Lee Plaza Apartments a couple of weeks prior and was so impressed by the hour-long train of "Small town America" that passed before me. As I sat curbside right in front of Lee's doorway., I saw the bands, the politicians, animals, pets, floats, and of course the many bright red Fire trucks.

I was able to break away from my grieving for a short time, that I had moved from a home I loved so much. Anderson Island was a place I planted myself and I was blooming in so many ways. A small community where I could find a place for me to express myself to others. Art community, church fellowship and asked to be an honorary family member by my neighbor, to be another daughter, on her deathbed. " Her sunshine", I felt I was no longer invisible, instead like a bright light in her life. Her final conversation with me was a reminder of many others. Her feeling I was there so she could do this passage. "I cannot do this without you, "sunshine." and a declaration that I was to get on with my life and be happy.

 I was to light up the way? yet I knew it was her faith and her knowing her rebirth was soon to come. 

she was my sunshine too.

 September 5, 2018, 8:30 am

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I am looking for inspiration and blessings each day I wake up now each morning. I found this beautiful Jewish Blessing written in  100 B.C.E. by the Qumran community outside Jerusalem. This is from a Hebrew translation of the Dead Sea scrolls.

A BLESSING of LUCID FIRE and SECRET GRACE

May the being of the Universe

breathe into you the light of blessing and ripeness, 

the fulfillment of health and balance.

May it protect you from

distractions brittle and bent

with a sphere of Lucid Fire.

May it enlighten

the heart of your passion

with the contemplation of living energy.

May it uncover the

hidden strength within you,

insight gathered from the eternal now. and

May it show you its face

of secret grace and silent refuge in a 

communion of deep 

PEACE.

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in memory for Cocomoe

Portrait for Karen

  

 

Freedom in the United States of America 2022

my image creation  June 2022

His words speak for me  June 2022

 

My Dark Tunnel Has Led Me to Light Up The Past

 2021    to    2022

   

My View In The Darkness

This past year has seen several anniversaries go by in my lifetime. I want to mark these events and say goodbye to many of the decades I have survived long before this Pandemic. The lockdown and vaccines have spared me so far the life-threatening symptoms. Yet the toll on my mental and physical health has suffered. 

1991 * 2001 * 2011 * 2021

My first cousin and his partner, before legal marriage was possible, died in their homes of AIDS complications with me by their side.

July 5 and 21st.of 1991

Theirs was a virus called 

HIV was of pandemic proportions, the world over by the 1990s. We did not learn much from its first outbreak in the 1980s because of the stigma of its being just a "Gay Disease".

Their early exposure in the mid-80s from frequent visits to San Francisco made their survival not possible, til the new drug treatments were available to extend their lives. Was this also a part of the result of it being thought of as a way to eliminate these "amoral" citizens? 

Honeymoon in San Francisco

Richard and Philip

They were both accomplished professionals in the prime of their lives, mid-40s.

A lawyer and Portland State University professor. Philip was editor of the Portland Gay newspaper and also a member of Gay Men's Chorus.  Richard was active in philanthropy with sports and the youth of Portland. My cousin did not live to see his only nephew get legally married to his love in 2012.

2001

This is known the world around as the 9/11 attack on World Trade Center

One of the pages in the newspaper. I still have these from Vermont.

I also was in preparation in September for my Grand Opening of a country store and catering outlet, FOOD & BLOOM.   A dream of mine. The atmosphere gave rise to big box store buying and events including weddings were put on hold. I closed the store the following spring.

2011

This was the year that ended with the foreclosure and resale of my home of 10 years. The Bank Mortgage Crisis of  2009  was the cause of refinancing obstacles and high unemployment for myself and the renters in my duplex.  In 2011 I found myself in a homeless transitional housing facility after my move to family in NW resulted in no place, even temporarily live. It has been now a decade since I have heard from my family. Their lives with Covid 19 pandemic are unknown to me as of this date.

2021

My dear friend in August 2021 became a USA citizen after waiting 10 years. Her son has arrived

from Russia , June 2, 2020 , when  his long awaited Visa was finally accepted during the war in the Ukraine. I discovered that the writer/poet of the famous quote ,"Give me your tired, your poor....." on a Statue of Liberty plaque,  was written by  another woman of Russian Jewish heritage. She also felt the phrase  in the quote "....yearning to BREATHE free .."   was exactly how she felt coming to this country. I am blessed to have her as a friend from a very low and sad time in my life. Both of  us being homeless, we found each other and started our lives again. Her a new immigrant, victim of domestic violence and myself a  disabled senior,  with low income and in need of rental assistance.

We often share our blessings and gratefulness with each other.