I meditated today and after the meditation I looked at how I tried to solve a problem i had with my sister's kid
these are the steps i took and it may help you see how a mind with A.D.D. works and why it takes me so long to do something other than art
Problem is that i am anxiety ridden over my niece and sister and had concerns
these are the steps I took just to speak to her about it
anne called when i went home mon went to therapist..... got worse upset
called gen
emailed friends tim phil susan
called helen
emailed helen
emailed helen
emailed tim
emailed phil
emailed susan
emailed dad
emailed anne finally
called susan
called helen
emailed tim
emailed phil
emailed therapist
emailed annes therapist
called tim
called susan
called dad
called gen
emailed helen
emailed helen
emailed phil
emailed tim
got promptly sick
emailed anne
called helen
meditated
saw my really round about way to speak to anne about my concerns
paul
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
leaving for america
i found myself not part of american culture ... well part of it and then told i wasn't and believing it
i grew up with my mother....father....aunt mary...grandmother.....two sisters and my aunts gerry, and Frieda ..who would visit with their combined 15 kids ..... my uncle came for coffee every morning.... after my father left for work at 6am he would smoke and have coffee with my mother ..... then go off to work at the same time as my aunt would go to her job at the hospital and my grandmother to assemble toys for milton bradley...
i usually got up with my grandmother too and aunt... i would have coffee and a drag on my aunts cigarette ....and dunk buttered royal crackers in my coffee then go back to bed and be woken up by my mother who always gave me a bowl of rice crispies.....
my mother was the only mother who stayed home in my extended family.... all the other women worked;;;and usually were making more than the men..... I came from a group of italian women...... i wonder if the women work and made more in italy in the 1960s?????????
i thought everyone lived with their whole entire mother's family around...... later i discovered that wasn't true... and felt bad for the rest of the united states......
my family appeared quite modern and had beautiful clothes and cars and everything one could imagine having in the united states in the 60s... but we lived in a very tiny home...it was called a cape cod house and had just 4 very small bedrooms..and housed seven people with lots of visitors.....it was communal living at its best.... my mother and grandmother cooked magnificent italian food ...and my mother tried to make an american meal every sunday ...roast beef and potatoes... the roast beef would always be very over cooked... and my aunt would complain Phyllis why do you have to make the roast like leather????
but she never listened and would continue to make leather and every one would eat it ..... and besides she got a new thing called an electric knife....... we would have coca cola and leather beef and iceberg lettuce
very american my mother would think....... the rest of the week was filled with unbelievable italian food and i would wait for holidays that would encompass weekends so we would still have the home made feasts.................
strange and terrible things happened to my family as we live our lives separate from the Americans as my mother would sometimes call other people... but she never thought of herself as not american... only when speaking of they....................................... growing up this blond,,, blond boy with a german last name in a household of women from a neapolitan background ..... who lived as if they were still in naples was odd and a little confusing ...... the rules they generated i couldn't really understand but i did live by them....
when i was 16 my father decide to bail and then returned when i was 17....
and said come with me
and that was when we had to leave to live like the rest of america........... i cried
and cried and was beside myself as we drove away from the small cape cod house
i ended up liking the freedom that the new america gave me
but still mourned the old country which was only a few miles away
my grandmother died the following year
i felt pain... but i lived in a new country now and life was different
paul
i grew up with my mother....father....aunt mary...grandmother.....two sisters and my aunts gerry, and Frieda ..who would visit with their combined 15 kids ..... my uncle came for coffee every morning.... after my father left for work at 6am he would smoke and have coffee with my mother ..... then go off to work at the same time as my aunt would go to her job at the hospital and my grandmother to assemble toys for milton bradley...
i usually got up with my grandmother too and aunt... i would have coffee and a drag on my aunts cigarette ....and dunk buttered royal crackers in my coffee then go back to bed and be woken up by my mother who always gave me a bowl of rice crispies.....
my mother was the only mother who stayed home in my extended family.... all the other women worked;;;and usually were making more than the men..... I came from a group of italian women...... i wonder if the women work and made more in italy in the 1960s?????????
i thought everyone lived with their whole entire mother's family around...... later i discovered that wasn't true... and felt bad for the rest of the united states......
my family appeared quite modern and had beautiful clothes and cars and everything one could imagine having in the united states in the 60s... but we lived in a very tiny home...it was called a cape cod house and had just 4 very small bedrooms..and housed seven people with lots of visitors.....it was communal living at its best.... my mother and grandmother cooked magnificent italian food ...and my mother tried to make an american meal every sunday ...roast beef and potatoes... the roast beef would always be very over cooked... and my aunt would complain Phyllis why do you have to make the roast like leather????
but she never listened and would continue to make leather and every one would eat it ..... and besides she got a new thing called an electric knife....... we would have coca cola and leather beef and iceberg lettuce
very american my mother would think....... the rest of the week was filled with unbelievable italian food and i would wait for holidays that would encompass weekends so we would still have the home made feasts.................
strange and terrible things happened to my family as we live our lives separate from the Americans as my mother would sometimes call other people... but she never thought of herself as not american... only when speaking of they....................................... growing up this blond,,, blond boy with a german last name in a household of women from a neapolitan background ..... who lived as if they were still in naples was odd and a little confusing ...... the rules they generated i couldn't really understand but i did live by them....
when i was 16 my father decide to bail and then returned when i was 17....
and said come with me
and that was when we had to leave to live like the rest of america........... i cried
and cried and was beside myself as we drove away from the small cape cod house
i ended up liking the freedom that the new america gave me
but still mourned the old country which was only a few miles away
my grandmother died the following year
i felt pain... but i lived in a new country now and life was different
paul
fishing on land
when i was a kid my father tried everything to get me to like fishing....
he still goes fishing on the ocean every week,,,,, I used to go fishing with him for pumpkin seeds... i think thats what we called them...but i ended up catching cat fish..... who could enjoy catching something identified with cats....???????????????? i did enjoy fishing until i got caught with a hook... which was really painful ......
my father didnt give up ... he bought me a lot of poles and strung red striped bobbins i think that what they are called...they are little white balls with red stripes and you attach them on the fishing line....
my dad attached them with out hooks so i could practice my casting.....
i loved it
i casted all over the yard..... it was much nicer than the pond
thing was i still hated fishing i only liked casting
what i really hated was seeing those fish with hooks in their mouths and their big eyes looking at you as they died or flopped about in the pale... only to end up under my roses as fertilizer....
my cousins ever the macho men would step on them and pull the hooks right out of there mouths.. i was grossed out
but my father did have night crawlers
even though night crawler seem like some horrible thing they werent
they were large worms
my father would go out at in the evening or after it rained and collect the night crawlers and
put them in a box with leaves in the garage
for some reason my sister loved them and would name them as pets
her pets kept disappearing as my dad fished ..but he would replace them and convince her they were the
same old worms
i thought she was bonkers but it turns out we all were a bit
and thats ok..... paul
he still goes fishing on the ocean every week,,,,, I used to go fishing with him for pumpkin seeds... i think thats what we called them...but i ended up catching cat fish..... who could enjoy catching something identified with cats....???????????????? i did enjoy fishing until i got caught with a hook... which was really painful ......
my father didnt give up ... he bought me a lot of poles and strung red striped bobbins i think that what they are called...they are little white balls with red stripes and you attach them on the fishing line....
my dad attached them with out hooks so i could practice my casting.....
i loved it
i casted all over the yard..... it was much nicer than the pond
thing was i still hated fishing i only liked casting
what i really hated was seeing those fish with hooks in their mouths and their big eyes looking at you as they died or flopped about in the pale... only to end up under my roses as fertilizer....
my cousins ever the macho men would step on them and pull the hooks right out of there mouths.. i was grossed out
but my father did have night crawlers
even though night crawler seem like some horrible thing they werent
they were large worms
my father would go out at in the evening or after it rained and collect the night crawlers and
put them in a box with leaves in the garage
for some reason my sister loved them and would name them as pets
her pets kept disappearing as my dad fished ..but he would replace them and convince her they were the
same old worms
i thought she was bonkers but it turns out we all were a bit
and thats ok..... paul
Bugs
Today I have been wondering if our basic beliefs of things change ..... I had a vendetta against japanese beetles.... there was a small plaque of them when i was a teenager and they ate up everything in site...... my crazy father bought me a spray pump and poison to shoot at the apple and cherry trees... i was completely on a mission to kill the beetles...... but they kept coming and eating all the leaves off of the trees... and i kept up the crazy battle against them.... as i sprayed the beetles they fell like rain off those trees and the next day they would be back..... i would cough and gag as i tried my best to save my grand purple trunk cherry tree.....in the end the tree did survive ...the beetles left for the most part on there own... and a new pest came the gypsy moth.............. today i am fighting ants in the summer that come into the house............ however i now draw the bugs and incorporate them into the art...... i still have a vendetta against ants but its nowhere near my fight with japanese beetles .... still has the belief that they are bad and me good changed in any significant way????? maybe........ they seem to hold there own in my art....... my aunts and cousins were terrified of bugs and would scream over bees, moths and black crickets that would hide in the laundry... when i heard their scream i felt a little superior.. i still do.... cause i had my spray pump full of insect poison........the strange things our minds make up to feel better about oneself...... paul
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
mokeys and cherries
Monkeys why are monkeys appearing in my art? maybe because i just recently got in touch with a kid i went to school with
he now has a twenty -two year old with his own son.... his name is Wady Vado, I visited him in Costa Rica in Jan of 1980
we went on lots of adventures there ...we stayed at his cousin's house .... a house in the jungle
with. huge trees that had quite a few mean monkeys. in them...
the monkey threw coconuts at us if we came near.... so ever since monkeys have not had a good reputation with me...
then again
the monkey might have something to do with Michael Jackson and his zoo / amusement park ... I have been listening to him and sent songs from his disco days out to friends.... I find myself having compassion for him and also viewing him as evil.. the monkey is part of his Neverland estate..isnt that what he called the park???? Neverland or is that a fruedian thing?? never go to MIchael Jackson"s home it is a fairy tale with a vicious ending.....
On the other hand cherries are a good sign... I had a very large cherry tree in my yard as a kid in Feeding Hills, Ma and I spent most of the summer in it.. not when it flowered.. too many bees.... but when the cherries came out i sat in that tree and ate every cherry i could reach................... When i was a teenager the girls in my art class would ask me to say cherries
which at the time came out like Chaireeeeeeess .... and they woud just laugh and laugh... my eastern accent and nasal voice amused them terribly,,,,,
What I do know about is flowers... I have always had an affinity for growing flowers and gardening in general... when picked on which was often i would escape to my garden and virtually live in it for the summer... when i was around sixteen, my dad walked away for a year and at that time i was persistent in asking my mother if we could move to Hawaii....and even bought her several surfing magazines to show her how fun it would be... i was an odd kid... who thinks of their mother on a surfboard????
I was given several chances to visit a few years ago and just decided not to....I cant explain why.......
My friend Madison appears as the blue, yellow and sometimes purple guys, usually in threes , looking down on the happenings in the picture... I have a feeling Madison does sort of view me as some sort of strange man.... and so his watching is appropriate.........
the chairs are chairs i ve had in the past ...they stand in for me.... they are me..... sort of just an object.... who looks out....
All of the bodybuilders are from the 70s and 80s photos
when they were iconic.. and unapproachable ..well for me anyway........
The designers fill in for probably my mother ,,, he is the one in the boots.... he is there for protection and has a sort of look on him that says .....What now Paul????????
Athough my mother did identify with butterflies and had them taped on her dresser mirror..... they are not her...and do not represent her.... when i drew the peices and saw the butterflies appear i strongly identified them as my mother"s.
...what are they there for????? ........because they are her's ...a sort of gift in the picture for her.. which is pretty strange in itself ..but they are a gift..... i suppose since my mother died years ago its the only way which I can give her something.....
I have been feeling rather invisible lately and so i have taken pictures of myself as reflections in the glass covering some of my framed drawings... maybe I will post a few..... its the perfect way to say I am invisible without words and show the I that doesnt exist..... Paul
he now has a twenty -two year old with his own son.... his name is Wady Vado, I visited him in Costa Rica in Jan of 1980
we went on lots of adventures there ...we stayed at his cousin's house .... a house in the jungle
with. huge trees that had quite a few mean monkeys. in them...
the monkey threw coconuts at us if we came near.... so ever since monkeys have not had a good reputation with me...
then again
the monkey might have something to do with Michael Jackson and his zoo / amusement park ... I have been listening to him and sent songs from his disco days out to friends.... I find myself having compassion for him and also viewing him as evil.. the monkey is part of his Neverland estate..isnt that what he called the park???? Neverland or is that a fruedian thing?? never go to MIchael Jackson"s home it is a fairy tale with a vicious ending.....
On the other hand cherries are a good sign... I had a very large cherry tree in my yard as a kid in Feeding Hills, Ma and I spent most of the summer in it.. not when it flowered.. too many bees.... but when the cherries came out i sat in that tree and ate every cherry i could reach................... When i was a teenager the girls in my art class would ask me to say cherries
which at the time came out like Chaireeeeeeess .... and they woud just laugh and laugh... my eastern accent and nasal voice amused them terribly,,,,,
What I do know about is flowers... I have always had an affinity for growing flowers and gardening in general... when picked on which was often i would escape to my garden and virtually live in it for the summer... when i was around sixteen, my dad walked away for a year and at that time i was persistent in asking my mother if we could move to Hawaii....and even bought her several surfing magazines to show her how fun it would be... i was an odd kid... who thinks of their mother on a surfboard????
I was given several chances to visit a few years ago and just decided not to....I cant explain why.......
My friend Madison appears as the blue, yellow and sometimes purple guys, usually in threes , looking down on the happenings in the picture... I have a feeling Madison does sort of view me as some sort of strange man.... and so his watching is appropriate.........
the chairs are chairs i ve had in the past ...they stand in for me.... they are me..... sort of just an object.... who looks out....
All of the bodybuilders are from the 70s and 80s photos
when they were iconic.. and unapproachable ..well for me anyway........
The designers fill in for probably my mother ,,, he is the one in the boots.... he is there for protection and has a sort of look on him that says .....What now Paul????????
Athough my mother did identify with butterflies and had them taped on her dresser mirror..... they are not her...and do not represent her.... when i drew the peices and saw the butterflies appear i strongly identified them as my mother"s.
...what are they there for????? ........because they are her's ...a sort of gift in the picture for her.. which is pretty strange in itself ..but they are a gift..... i suppose since my mother died years ago its the only way which I can give her something.....
I have been feeling rather invisible lately and so i have taken pictures of myself as reflections in the glass covering some of my framed drawings... maybe I will post a few..... its the perfect way to say I am invisible without words and show the I that doesnt exist..... Paul
zen awareness continued
more photos of my space....
odd the more aware I am becoming of my little dream world the more I hold onto my little space in the world and make it more like my paintings.... paul
odd the more aware I am becoming of my little dream world the more I hold onto my little space in the world and make it more like my paintings.... paul
zen awareness
I started an awareness practice ... i called in to a web broadcast on Cafe Dharma ,,, Adyshanti;s site and I spoke to Loch kelly a zen spiritual advisor
I spoke mostly about the sharp ,,,heightened emotions i am experiencing and its effect of me limiting people in my life and changing my environment.... what does that mean??? why am i changing most of the colors on the walls of my home???? changing my rooms is not new but painting them in the colors of my art is something weird ...... what"s going on???????
he said when i become more aware its going right into my heart ... and to get space behind the heart..... i did not understand so he guided me through awareness of the body starting with my left hand and ending with my toe on my left foot.. it was very beautiful and the clear soundless non thinking me came out and finally there was a way to understand what he was saying.. the experience was as if time stopped and i was in eternity.. i was enternity itself... and it was joyous.... paul
These are my rooms since starting the awareness practice
I spoke mostly about the sharp ,,,heightened emotions i am experiencing and its effect of me limiting people in my life and changing my environment.... what does that mean??? why am i changing most of the colors on the walls of my home???? changing my rooms is not new but painting them in the colors of my art is something weird ...... what"s going on???????
he said when i become more aware its going right into my heart ... and to get space behind the heart..... i did not understand so he guided me through awareness of the body starting with my left hand and ending with my toe on my left foot.. it was very beautiful and the clear soundless non thinking me came out and finally there was a way to understand what he was saying.. the experience was as if time stopped and i was in eternity.. i was enternity itself... and it was joyous.... paul
These are my rooms since starting the awareness practice
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