city

soundtracks racing by as we watch lives,
the door always open but never going in
out in the dark the light from the door may as well be another poison
we are just a daughter of a father
there are no qualifications to be one you know.
neither one

a stale and moldy mass of limbs, call it humanity
and you misspoke,
we are not your equal

soggy with tears in the muddy moldy city on the river
swollen slowly, stench rising like a mirage in the desert, wavy
waiting for another heartache
we let our heart get tired of it all and went looking for Ra

does anyone want to tell us where we're going?

if the city lost its people and the people lost their souls
then what will happen to the muddy brown bayous?
out from the club sings the sax, people draw near
drowning out the birds now they want to hold it in

it can't all happen and be at the same time in the same place all the time

for now it's another late day downpour
leaving the church so we can follow Jesus
twirling once a lacy white umbrella in the second line
keeping step next to the little red wagon and its urn

here we are again back in the streets but not homeless
but we can't find a priest anywhere
I waited too long for asking -- you're already gone.

song

i called, yes i did and then i hung up,
no i didn't want to talk but only for you to tell me what i
thought i wanted, needed to hear
nothing to do with you
the road to closure is over there
but we have no idea what we're trying to give up
since we were never there
it was the other one
that's all

and then i was a drummer
depressed for a month dents in the flesh
hammered and ironed, sunken scars
anchoring thoughts on the bottoms
where the muck keeps visibility none
and then i hit some more

we just grew up different
all of me and us and you and them
we don't even know who all they are who talk in the stillness of alone
still more chaos than you'd think

it was another concert in another town
driving all day with various activities along the way
of the concert i recall nothing
only sleeping on the side of the road
entombed in safety there alone
so far away
but i don't know where

i told them not to come
but they did anyways.

Did you know it was me?
Would you have talked to me if you knew?
What would you say after all this time, these many past years?
All I want is everything there is left I need to know
that's all.

lost cat

what a lousy blogger -- not that there's a following, but it does sometimes for me something and knowing that it yet remains a low priority or so it seems. Ambivalence in practice, though often my mind composes and if I've a slop of paper I'll make note of same, thinking it will be a good start later if nothing else, yet this generally ends as nothing else. Whatever it is, sometimes I think I might like to be that person. Whoever that is.
Lately I've been puzzling that the less I have to do -- compulsory, mandatory, money-making, productive stuff -- the more I find myself doing, most of it fairly unproductive.
Unemployed -- apparently unemployable -- busyness
I am lazy? Yet I have so much running around ... I thought I'd have at least something to do, even if made up stuff, like art, writing, photos. I do little or none of these, at least not with any effect. Haven't touched a photo since christmas, have to figure out what program to use to work them. Work with my ladies doing jewelry as they prepare for a show at St Ambrose and have bought some stones with every real intent of making something, but there's a bag here, a bag there, another bag over there ...
I don't have a coherent writing schedule - actually there's not much coherent about me at all in terms of writing or any other form of self expression much less the more important or at least time-sensitive things like gardening, laundry, etc.
More than writing I long for communication though I fear most everything I have to say is shallow, superficial, irrelevant, childish and asinine. To go from being around adults all the time all over the place and hard pressed to find a quiet moment to unemployed talking to cats and dogs and little old ladies every once in a while, and this month there are all the drunks at the rodeo. One guy short some teeth sat there yapping and actually had a stream of drool go down his chin; just wiped it, yapped some more, drooled some more. In any event, not a lot of connectedness or communication.
I don't want any more plants to die. Mango, avocados, kaffir lime, grapefruit, peach, assorted oranges all dead. A few are green on the trunk but brown everywhere else, I guess they'll be dead in a few weeks but I hate to take them out when they're still alive.
I need a new kaffir lime tree, and lemon grass.
I need to do something but I'm afraid --- afraid I don't know what to do, how or why. I want so to get right with god, which I guess requires too I get right with me (is that self-centered or what?) and truly can't get a hold on what I need to do. There's nothing I really need to do that I can pinpoint but at the same time, I know there's tons of stuff needs doing. As in cleaning the house, top to bottom, every corner, which hasn't been done since Ike -- some here and some there, but not a specific top to bottom methodical cleaning. And paint -- I have an idea of some colors I'd like but it's gotten no furher than that. One would think that a person my age without a job could make a plan and execute it, to at least have a totally clean house. I get stuck though on the floors, several of which still have tar on them from the floor replacement after Ike, the only way to clean it is on hands and knees with mineral spirits and everytime I do it the skin comes off my knee and that's not a lot of fun. Still I oughta just do it.
In my head I know things chosen for me by others are not my responsibility ... huh?
Sometimes things get jumbled.
It's easier to migrate elsewhere.
The first option to do nothing and remain whre we are but that's not working so well right now.
Floundering, I guess that's what this is but why?
Aimlessly discomfiting.
Roses, hollyhocks, a handful of potatoes, beans, tomatoes, squash, cukes ready to go in the ground, once I get the grass and weeds cleaned out and the holes dug. Herbs placed but not in the ground. Sweet william. All kinds of seeds of flowers I love, probably they'd bloom this year if I can get them planted soon. Today is rodeo, and Wednesday, and maybe then I can pass over this plane of ambivalence and make a schedule, make myself follow it and just knock this stuff out. I need to and soon --not as badly as I need to find a job but still -- if ever I get another job I won't have all this time to not do stuff so perhaps I oughta kick into gear and just get it done. After all the flowers won't seed themselves.
And coneflowers - I think they all died.

The Pope's Call to the Net

“Thanks to the new communications media, the Lord can walk the streets of our cities and, stopping before the threshold of our homes and our hearts, say once more:"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me" (Rev 3:20).”

I can think of all sorts of reasons to reject the proposal as phrased by the Pope, though I agree there may be room and reason to use the technology to supplement to other forms of communication. Again the quote: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me." (Rev 3:20). This is a call and a response, a question with an answer. The failure of electronic media as a major avenue of communication is precisely the loss of our breaking bread together - the tendency of so many to rely on this impersonal media without really engaging in communication. It is not a problem inherent with the media itself so much as it is the power of the media to lure us to laziness, to talk but never listen, to preach but allow for no questions.

“The problem with communication...is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” George Bernard Shaw.
If you post the most enlightening thing, what does that do? You have only said what you wanted to say but if no one reads, what does it matter? Do you talk to hear yourself talk? Some do, and it seems increasingly that the electronic media encourages this sort of "talking." But really do I or you or anyone else really need to know anything that can be tweeted in 140 characters or less? a message whose information can only be relayed by replacing syllables with numbers? Ok, so we're increasingly spread out and we're not going to visit over a beer or lunch, at a museum or poetry reading, or even at a movie. But perhaps you go and hear the poet and post about that experience. Why did you post? Was it to share your experience? Why would you want to share, to take the time to collect your thoughts, impressions, feelings and find the words to write even a sentence? Maybe you even found a link and included that in your post. What's the motivation? Did you share anything if no one read any of it? How about you post about different events, curiosities, revelations (real or imagined), books, movies, music and whatever else strikes you as worthy -- posting stuff and no one ever reads it, or if they do they never say a thing, and therefore you don't know if anyone read a thing you said. Lots of people I think are fine with this; there is an option on facebook where you can post what you want and preclude any comments or even "likes."

But what of communication?
“We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full.” Marcel Proust. We all of us have suffering in need of healing, some viewed as relatively minor and other that is deeply rooted, recalcitrant, slower to heal perhaps in part to the discomforts (ours and theirs) of such expression.

“Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.” Pearl S. Buck. Perhaps (it seems to me) fulfillment of self-expression of the suffering necessary to heal is in fact the healing; the acknowledgment that we are not the only ones but are part of a community accepting us regardless of the wounds we hold and hide as we work our way toward expression and healing.

Communication to me has always signified some sort of back and forth, an exchange, a talking and a listening. I do get frustrated at the increasingly impersonal use of information exchange in lieu of communication. I want to be heard (read) as much as (or maybe more than) anyone (though I believe everyone has need to be heard and to listen). Communication is how we build community, how we know that we belong to a community. The danger of the "new" (or any) media is that it be employed in lieu of actual communication (or dialogue).

“Generally speaking, the first nonviolent act is not fasting, but dialogue. The other side, the adversary, is recognized as a person, he is taken out of his anonymity and exists in his own right, for what he really is, a person. To engage someone in dialogue is to recognize him, have faith in him." Hildegard Goos-Mayr.

I guess it all depends on the use made of a media, whether it is unilateral or actually a means, an invitation, to a dialogue. If the first, then it is a dangerous and flimsy substitute for anything meaningful or real and we are in fact alone -- without community. "The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.” Rachel Naomi Remen.

How does one know that he is heard if no one makes any reply? Can we live beyond and apart from all community? When the Pope speaks of Jesus coming to my door and we sit and share a meal, is that not a vision of community? “God's loving care for all people in Christ must be expressed in the digital world not simply as an artifact from the past, or a learned theory, but as something concrete, present and engaging. Our pastoral presence in that world must thus serve to show our contemporaries, especially the many people in our day who experience uncertainty and confusion, "that God is near; that in Christ we all belong to one another" (Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia, 21 December 2009). I read this as an acknowledgement that the purpose, the reason, for communication is the building, growing and strengthening of community. Yet in his address Pope Benedict speaks only of the talking, not of the listening that talking presumes nor how the building of community will be accomplished through use of social media like facebook and twitter.
“If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.” Mitsugi Saotome.

Other than the sharing of certain important information necessary for survival why do we communicate? Why so many means of communication if its sole purpose is to ensure physical survival? Once you have a piece of bread and cup of water you would have no need for any other human interaction, save perhaps for a mate but even that can be accomplished without community and without much in the way of communication. In fact there are still many societies where the mating is arranged and done with little or no dialogue as the girls are distributed to those males with the necessary qualifications -- namely a house, a goat or some other payment, referred to as a "dowry" in more "genteel" circles. In truth we do the same thing here in this civilized, advanced democracy we call America -- sometimes the men give the girls and sometimes the girls just trade themselves. So even this aspect of survival needs no real communication. Actually, I'd think the more communication, i.e., talking and being heard, acknowledging and recognizing the other, the less likely this way of pairing or being paired.

No, I think there must be something else underlying the human need to not only talk but to also be heard, acknowledged, recognized, touched and seen. This is not my idea -- I am not so smart. But I think Cicero had it when he said “We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.” Nor is it just an old idea, it persists through time. “I am a part of all that I have met.” Alfred Tennyson.

Is not there a major part of all religious / spiritual life that stems from the yearning to be a part of, not apart from? Corny I know, and perhaps unattainable. Yet there is something in this expression that, were a poll taken, I'd guess a majority would identify with: “We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.” Starhawk.

Who doesn't want free? Even God recognized the need of men for free when free will was given so we could make a mess of things and then try to better the world and ourselves. There is no divorcing communication and community -- not linguistically or otherwise.

“We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other's arms
And the larger circle of lovers,
Whose hands are joined in a dance,
And the larger circle of all creatures,
Passing in and out of life,
Who move also in a dance,
To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments.”
Wendell Berry

No, I’m not much of a thinker. I’m poor with words, not too articulate over here. I write and yes I want read, I want dialogue, I want acknowledged and recognized as an I who is, who is being, who is here. But more, I want to know the answers to questions that have no answers other than as can perhaps be found a fragment at a time sifting through the back and forth of countless dialogues. I think each of us has a religious life, a spiritual being, and that this being, this life seeks just such a community where we are read, heard, talked to, answered, challenged and allowed to be even by those who know we know nothing of significance.

As Pope Benedict says, the media can bring us into contact with a great many people--believers and non-believers alike. But there are countless other means and ways of contact -- a slap across the face, a blow to the head, a rape, all can communicate anger. All these contacts send a message albeit without words, without any
"communication" as the word is commonly understood. The monk walking with his bowl one early hazy, humid morning in Bangkok, whose presence I feel, who averts his gaze - we had contact too though I was so afraid of being wrong that I made no offering -- we had contact and even communication, though briefly, through the eyes. The goal, the end, can't be mere "contact.” I realize this is somewhat hyperbolic but a narrow statement suggesting mere contact, any more than only talking (posting) is good for anything strikes me as similarly simple.
So go Pope go, and use that media, but don't forget to listen every once in a while or else no one will know that any one else is.

small

bracelets and bangles
unnaturally colored hair poking
tufts this way, that
lip slashes crown
pursed above
splotchy wattles of age
falling to the abyss

black
leather chaps open
pale creamy buttocks
imagined
only but youth
unfazed as above
articulate and manicured
not from here
after all

mullet brained strong
as an ox brooding
wondering
this lot
what place never
enough rain too much sun
powerless unaware
unsettled
without knowing

neither
never saw such
no clue
still
scared
quiet
watching
wanting the same for different
reasons
to reclaim to run to own to save

pushed up
bosoms, low rise
baring jeans
tattoo grey twining
cross low
back
dimples
eyeing all around,
twirling
hapless

its the walk
the little ways
a hunch
they saw
they know
they want
and can't

stranger unknown

life
a small town
chairs lean back
the warped wooden planks
of the diner in the morning
all that holds together
here
the passing of time.

what is a conservative, and why does it matter?

Politics -- always there's another who knows more, who knows best, who is right. Really? The Republicans now have a platform you have to adopt if you want any support from them. Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for governor of Texas and refuses to say she'd support overruling Roe v Wade. She tries to justify this by saying that there is 40 years of law already limiting the right to abortion and therefore there are already good things happening and so it is unnecessary for her to state her professed, or implied support, for limiting the Roe v Wade decision. So what? Is she a democrat in disguise because she will not toe the line marked out by the Republicans in an effort to define who is a Republican? I don't think anyone could seriously make that argument. Now this is not about abortion at all. It is about the need we all have, apparently, to label and tag and categorize people, put them in boxes and then base important decisions on otherwise meaningless words like Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, independent, tea party. The tea party folks around here are largely thought of as Republicans yet many of then disavow the party. Many proclaim that they are independents, apparently enamored of the word and its connotations while refusing to consider anything that is not put out by the Republican party.

I do not support abortion and I believe the act of abortion is the taking of a human life. This would qualify among most circles as a conservative position.

I support the right of all people to enter into sacred, committed relationships with dignity, grace and respect. This would qualify among many circles as a liberal position, and wholly antithetical to the first stated position but only it seems (in my small world) among those whose positions against abortion and against equal rights for all relationships are based on some perceived moral high ground (in my humble opinion). Colin Powell, a high-ranking member of George W's team (i.e., a Republican in "name") was I thought well-spoken and highly respected. When he was with Bush he supported the military's don't ask, don't tell policy. He strongly supported the policy and now, today, he supports Obama's plan to do away with don't ask, don't tell. Powell's explanation is that "times have changed" and that today's military can deal with open disclosure of sexual orientation. Really? In such short time the entire military, still largely run by the same historically white, judeo-Christian male hierarchy has just done a bout face and so now it's okay in their little world to be open about who you are? Really? Forgive the cynicism but I think not. No, I don't think that's it. I think that Colin Powell has perhaps examined the policy and its implications in a more honest, aware and open way than he'd done previously and now, no longer tied to the tether labelled "Republican," has come to see things as he would rather than as another branded with that "R" might see them.

So what is Colin Powell -- is he a Republican or a Democrat? conservative or liberal? or is he, like so many others, just a guy trying to make sense and make his way through the world as it exists around and despite him, willing to consider, try on and accept different views and beliefs, to espouse other values gained with experience and maturity?

I know few people who want to be called "Republican" or "Democrat" for the very demagoguery these labels invite. Even if forced to run as a Democrat or as a Republican, as one must do to become a judge in Texas -- which in fact has no separate law for the parties "D" and "R", and where one cannot even inquire about party affiliation or votes cast in any manner related to judicial proceedings -- the strict adherence to party labels leads only to cynicism as those who want to win generally run under the label of the party they think will have the biggest turnout in the general election. One critical remark as to what was conservative or liberal -- was it sarcasm? cavalier? merely short-sighted? -- suggested that the label "conservative" refers to one whose attitude might be described as "I got mine; you go take care of your own self" (to paraphrase). I have never had such thoughts -- are there things that I have wanted? Sure, and some things I have been given, some befell me, and some I had the opportunity to work for and earn. But that does not and never did preclude me from offering what I could to another who wants or needs.

What about the folks hanging out along the riverwalk or by the Alamo in San Antonio or sitting outside the courthouses or in the street here? When last I was in San Antonio a few months ago there happened to be a tea party rally right there at Alamo Plaza. And I was staying in a hotel locking right out over the Plaza. Oh, yeah, and there was a full moon rising over the far right (as I looked at it) side of the Alamo. So I took the camera and walked over to try to take some pictures and there's these guys (gender neutral) both on the riverwalk and even more up by the Alamo who are "begging" if that is an acceptable term. Yes, I ignored them, or at least I gave them nothing they wanted unless a smile, nod, hello is what any of them were looking for. But those things don;t usually set well in hands outreached. Back to the point, the tea party around here seems more conservative than liberal yet I saw quite a few give change and some bills to those whose hands were waiting. This sort of charity -- if that's what it were -- seems more aligned with what I'd consider a liberal view of things.

Do I feel badly when I pass by these folks? I do, and I wish I had something so all of everyone could have all that they need. Sure there are times I get cynical and just know that the disheveled person in the wheelchair sitting out in traffic is a fake and yes, I have seen some who have rolled over to the side, lifted themselves from their chairs and folded them up before putting them in the trunk of a car and driving off. And I guess it is not nice of me to make any judgment about anyone, but I'm human. The guys who hang out by the courthouse, who I see all the time, for them I take the time and give what I can. It is or somehow seems different somehow. You know what it is? It's like down there at the courthouse we all see each other all the time and even if we don;t know every one's names we are a sort of group. Those guys will jump up and help someone who's having trouble getting their dolly full of boxes up the sidewalk; they say hi; they smile whether you give or not. They're comfortable. they're one of "us" in a sense.

What does any of this mean? I have no clue. I think the labels we apply are more a way to exclude than to learn or to be inclusive. If you can label me a conservative then you can make generalizations which, once shared, I am quite inclined to find offensive and unfair, as such generalizations tend to paint one unfavorably -- selfish, self-centered, disinterested, aloof, rich, narrow minded. Yet I really have not a clue as to what generalizations might be made about "liberals" other than "not conservative." I suppose it is a failure of my ability to use language in a meaningful way to say anything you would understand but perhaps too it is our collective failure to use language, to think and express anything close or meaningful about who we are and where we stand, relying instead on the labels and the judgments that almost inevitably follow.

Why the insistence of being in a herd, our acquiescence to being herded, the need to differentiate on every possible basis we think makes this one better than that and us better than the other?
How the heck would I know?
And who even cares?
Why?

i did want an answer, a conversation

i want to write, i need (whatever that means) to write, and the questions are not rhetorical. No. Perhaps they are unanswerable but they are real questions. I have no friends near with blogs, no one near who i know writes, and no one near who has any interest in any of these matters. Expression -- through words, art, whatever - is important for me to process, to place myself. How others place themselves in the world, in relationship to self and others, how they know or define what and why -- these are ideas not discussed.

why do we think we have anything to say anyway?

Some fancy themselves essayists, poets or other writers with something to say - and some seem to write for themselves. Some write and have a following, they're read, elicit comments, maybe set spark to others' thoughts/writing, etc.
But the we in this question are mine. As I sat through the last 6 days of work, reviewing literally thousands of documents a day, listening to my ipod and talking to myself (i suppose daydreaming is the more comfortable term) i wrote ... first in my head a snatch here and there, yet it lacked something and so out comes paper, pen and words. Had I been online perhaps the words would land here. Yet once i write the writing is done, for what it's worth, and there's nothing left. I have at times thought perhaps I would take those paper scraps and transfer here those words but then i think it would be pretentious. It would assume I have something to say and that anyone might want to read it. I decide it is better left on the scraps, buried in a notepad, eventually to make its way to the garbage.
I think I should protest, say that I don't think I have anything to say, but that would be disingenuous as even now I sit here writing ... perhaps saying nothing but writing nonetheless. Perhaps it is only that I wish I could write.

Do I want read? To be honest, yes. I'd like to think I have something to say that someone thinks is worth having been written, though I think the truth is more otherwise than not. I want to be read, I like comments, constructive preferably, but even just an acknowledgement is nice. Doesn't everyone wish for, dream of having, the talent to write at a level, about something, that others want to read? Maybe it's just me.

And what makes me think I have anything to say? Everyone has something to say - right? I guess the better question is why write unless someone reads it, be it me or you, and what so i have to write that wants to be read? Words are only that and have no meaning other than we assign, but if tomorrow i read something written earlier chances are as good as not that the meaning then assigned will escape me - whatever the reason i wrote yesterday is not the reason to read today. Yet at times the words written for some reason i do want to come back to later, but once written if they are not here they are in so many places, whatever piece of paper i had or even at times the phone, i cannot gather them again. So why not take those papers and sheets and repeat here what was writ there? Because when I have done that it feels false - that's the most I can explain. Perhaps I could be very honest about why I write but this is not dishonest either.

How other people write I don't know; me, it's like i close my eyes and do it, so to speak. I don't think or plan or organize, which is probably self evident in many cases. It is more an intuition than a purposeful act in terms of the source of writing, though of course there is the getting of paper and pen or figuring out how to log on here when i've accessed it via the wrong email account. While not a rock or tree or bird i do not often consider my expression before it disgorges on the page as the page may be). Were I to consider and especially to consider some more chances are there would be nothing committed to writing, yet i feel it important for me to commit to writing, which begs the question ... what makes me -- why do i -- think i have anything to say?

does it matter who we are in relation to others?

this question follows from the first - i want to be read, i look forward to comments and however rare, however terse or cryptic, i value comments as an acknowledgement that i am here, that i wrote something and that someone read it and no matter the merits or lack thereof, for even just a second and even if but a short electronic spit through the airs it is some sort of connection, however brief.

But who reads? I know only by comments who reads, and i value those comments not only for the acknowledgement but perhaps more for the connections they represent, real or imagined, and certainly more important to me than to others.

I would say I write from an honest secret space, accessible not so much at will as by disclosure, and a handful people of people know the identity of the writer, few of whom comment, this making it safe,comfortable, to write? What is the relationship that the writer -- any writer -- has with others that enables the writer to commit expressions to a medium that others can access? In this format I can write all I want, as poorly as I do, and never know the reader's true response. Yet i believe a comment left is a true response based on...what? Based on the relationship between me and the few people who know about this place. So what are theses relationships? I know many more people than I would ever tell about this place, and while strangers are welcome there are far fewer who know me than will know this. The absence of relationship with strangers makes it ok for them to come here though, so far as I know, none do. On the other hand it is exactly the fact that with others there is (or was?) relationship and it is the nature of the relationship that allows me to have told them of this place. I think I'm doing a really poor job of explaining ... but still there is the question.

Who are we in relation to others - I'm struggling with the concept but I know that here i can express things, such as trying poems, that are not safe to express elsewhere. Here there is room to be seen or heard in ways that i will not be seen or heard elsewhere, in part by choice but also because my relationship with most people is such that the one who comes here is not audible or visible to them, even though some i would characterize as good friends.

And are we anything other than what we are in relation to others? Usually we define ourselves, and others define us, in relation to jobs, roles and people. I am a wife, a mother, a lawyer. I am a past friend, a good friend, an acquaintance, a colleague. I am a facebook friend, which seems to be an entirely different and more shallow category than even acquaintance. I am unemployed, I volunteer, I mentor, I teach a bead class. I take pictures but I would not call myself a photographer. I make jewelry but would not call myself an artist. I write other than for work, for personal reasons, but would not call myself a poet or writer of any sort.

I just am but saying so is not something we do - we always add the adjectives and often adverbs as well.

If I don't know Jack in Syracuse I am no one to him. Nor he to me. But that doesn't make him less Jack doing whatever Jack does with whoever shares his life. Jack is, but he is no one in relation to me, is he? Were Jack to read this he would know nothing of or about me. He might have some opinions based on what he reads but that would be about Jack, not me.
I can die tomorrow and unless it is in some unusual or tragic event, Jack would never know. Were I to die by my own hand following some crazy rampage Jack might see or read a story and think what a nut, yet he would know nothing. Ditto for Jack. This is why obits, when published, are published only in the locale where the dead lived.

Then too there are some who know me now or have in the past known me and who help form the sense of who or what I am, what I'm about. Many were negative and some positive, but without all those experiences -- the relationship I had for better or worse with these people -- would I be today the same person?

Do I want an answer?
Doesn't everyone?
Do I think there is an answer?
No.
But what fell silent has once more come to, and the noise is rising.