If you think the shutdown of the government doesn’t affect you, think again. Especially if this shutdown spans for more than a week the ripple effect of it on your life and business will be felt. Whether it is directly through the growth and expansion of your company’s business practices, through the lack regulatory actions many corporations must hew to or through the purchasers of your products or services, you will feel it. Funding for your ventures and those of your consumers will be severely hampered by a governmental engine ground to a halt. Though the “Affordable Care Act” has been propped up as the shill, for which, this drama was to unfold, it was nothing more than the cloak the thief wore in the night, to rob you of your security. We all bear responsibility for allowing it to happen by not paying closer attention to the unfolding efforts at a governmental coup d’etat that now undermine our very existence, as we know it. A Pollyanna-ish desire for everything to resolve itself is nothing more than wishful thinking and is like saying Hurricane Sandy was a rainstorm and it would be okay in the morning. The consistent lack of apportionment by the congress has been a consistent effort to leave the country bereft of financial backup when this moment hit. No budget means that very little will be funded because there has been no provisions for it. From the export of products to the import of materials, from the regulatory labyrinth that corporations must navigate to move forward, to the expansion of educational funding, we will find ourselves stymied by shutdown bureaus, furloughed workers and unfunded initiatives. Our only chance of righting the ship (like the Costa Concordia), will take a long and concerted effort to overthrow the many obstacles that have risen up to block true democracy from working. We must break the gerrymandered practice of sustained immunity from electoral defeat for extremist in government and must overturn political funding by special interest that allows anonymous unlimited purchasing of anarchists to rampage the halls of local and federal congresses. If you have been too busy to write your congressman in support of protest, now would be the time to take that step. Don’t continue to sit and wait for someone else to do what only you can do. The next TV show, fashion show, art show, sales show, conference, vacation or theatrical performance can wait. Your congressman needs to hear from you for your help and/or disapproval. http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ NBC News: A government shutdown and what it could look like Please share your thoughts and ideas on what you feel can be done.

Blessings abound

Oftentimes when something as wonderful as the opening night of my annual art show on the Vineyard occurs, I would quickly say, "I am lucky." However, my dear friend, Regina Darby, would correct me and say, "You are blessed." It took me a moment to see the distinction she had been trying to make for me. To be lucky is to fall upon a happenstance whose re-occurrence would be unlikely, at best. To be blessed is to have conferring positive energy pervade your life. The latter was in evidence in the many smiles, hugs, kisses and well wishes and acquisitions, that filled the gallery on Saturday night. Friends can from near and far to be there, whether on vacation or for the night. The admiration for the new work propels me to take up the new direction with gusto, and so I can feel the paint brushes calling me even now. Below is some of the blessings that showed up at the opening.

Clearing the way

A warm breeze of love and well wishes for my birthday, blew my way yesterday, rolling in a feeling of support and appreciation, for a life of efforts that continues to do its best, on the breath of those very voices and more. Friends, family, colleagues, artists and students took time to say they care in many ways, including the unspoken feelings of many more in the process. There, with an air of enthusiasm and celebration, was the ever effervescent Joe Steele, making the day as special as possible, with the consummate assistance of the dear Dr. Ezeze in tow. The celebration was a clearing for the next step, an epochal moment, that set the stage for a future fulfilled on efforts made. The transition to Martha's Vineyard, and the show ahead on August 17th, and the many aspects of things that have consumed my time and attention, over the summer, is the next step into the future. It is funny how much can accumulate to do at the same time when a deadline looms over your consciousness, making the easy seem complicated and the mundane seem unwieldy. However, my normal tendency to carry all the disparate parts in my head has been compiled into a master accomplishment list at the behest on my "Counselor Extraordinaire" Jelani Bandele, who was in attendance last night. Since my consultancy sessions with her began six months ago, new insights in my skills and new methods of creating opportunity have become evident in a way that has always eluded me. Using my natural talent to draw have always been my fall back position when the need to move forward becomes necessary. However, the areas of growth and expansion that could really benefit are oftentimes left unattended by me in hopes that "manna from heaven" would intercede on my behalf and initiate new opportunities. Sometimes these opportunities require a direct involvement from me far beyond the wishing and hoping that oftentimes masquerades as initiative. The master accomplishment list set my birthday, July 29th, as a major completion point on various projects, and things are working out as such, given space for a clearing. In this space, creativity has room to grow, ideas have a place to be shared and opportunity has time to unfold. The annual milestone always marks a time for me to determine if I remain physically on par with my past or how much I have yielded from last year's vigor. Though the energy and stamina has taken a hit new ways of seeing has expanded, and that's a good thing for me now.

 

As if it were real

Sleeping near the water has always had an effect on my dreams, at times leading to vividly unsettling awakenings. In the movies, when the protagonists are suddenly awakened from a disturbing dream, they sit straight up in the bed, with a startled stare in their eyes and sweat on their forehead, as they gasp for breath and gulp at the reality of it only being a dream. Or if it were a younger person, they would be awakened by the gentle pleadings of a vigilant family member in a bathrobe, coddling them in their arms and assuring them of their safety. These dramatic flourishes seem to only exist in movies because, in my experience, I have rarely sat up in the bed with a start or had someone, already awake, tapping my hand or patting my shoulder but rather found myself roused in the physicality of the nightmarish moment as if it were real.

Usually the moment comes upon me without warning or prescience in the dream. And usually, it follows one of the recurring motifs of me struggling to collate documents for something, travel from one place to another - whether around the corner, cross town or to another country - or trying to get to one of the ever mutating multiple residences I seem to have but have misplaced or lost directions for in these dreams. The rig-a-ma-roll in these ventures tend to be benign until it leads to a disagreement, usually with someone emotionally close, and escalates into a yelling or fighting match, which will awaken me hollering or shouting at the person and in an instance, hitting my partner, even if it wasn't about him. Other times the dream is interrupted by an unanticipated turn of events, like a animal suddenly lashing out and chasing and biting at me or walking through a door and abruptly encountering menacing figures lurching at me with claws or weapons or slipping from an unstable surface off into an abyss looming below.

Weaving toward awakening, still in the moment, crying out in the dark, with hands or arms flailing and fear or anger filling my body, I grasp for safety. My accelerated heart beat adding to the throbbing of nerve endings, as my pulse races and my breathing shortens. At times, I would unfortunately awaken my partner with a scream or punch, inadvertently pulling him into my nightmare, from his own restful sleep. Scratching for the reality that it was only a dream, seems to elude me in the ensuing moments because it felt so real. The space between our dreams and real life does not exist in these moments and reveals to me that we essentially tread between two worlds - the conscious and unconscious.

The reason for these turns in dreams is unclear and can be assumed to rest in the unsettled issues of our wakened hours, however, the closeness of them to our reality is not below the surface but actually there as a racing heart and the startled face of an awakened lover might reveal.

The next moment can wait

For the briefest of moments I forget that my life is more than basking in the sunny atmosphere of bright smiles, warm embraces and loving kisses from friends and the locals here in Salvador. The morning walks with buddies, the afternoon passage on the beach and evening dinners in outdoor restaurants are among the swirl of activity that eclipses concerns of cold days back home. As I pretend that my life is in the here and now, I still veer toward the things that must be in place upon my return. The thoughts of supplies and syllabi, students and models, colleagues and confidants, stir in my mind, as breezes flow over my sun baked body. My languid stroll along the promenade, at times, is undercut by the internal scheduling of trains, planes and buses in my head.

This consciousness is hard to maintain in a land where things operate in a fluid motion, attendant to what happens next rather than what is prescribed. This moment is what matters, is a concept I willfully use in my daily life, but for it to truly work it has to be unconscious. Here in Salvador the people seem to know that there is no rush to get to the next moment when the present one is before you. The chance encounter that could lead to a long talk, walk or lunch is a common happenstance. Having a relationship with someone or something, like the sun, surf and sand, is enough to fill one's day. My goal is to carry this way of being into the colder climes of the northeast, and not be rushed by chill or prescription, because the next moment can wait.

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No Pre-Packaged Holiday this year

Pre-tied glossy ribbons, shiny ornaments and gleaming wrapping paper hung above the reams of tinsel and pin lights for mantles and trees, next to adorned plastic wreaths, scented candles and rotating tabletop trees with fiber optic lights that blinked at me, as I searched the shop aisles for something that would trigger the elusive Christmas spirit, I was looking for in the store. Displays of wrapped gifts with pine cones and holly, cooking recipes to stretch a waistline and decorating ideas, jumped from my TV screen, in between commercials for toys, clothes and cars, filling my unfulfilled spirit with longing for a more generous way of sharing the Christmas spirit.

As I leafed through local papers, filled with smiling faces offering me holiday discounts that would disappear if I didn't act quickly, I wondered if anyone of them cared if I had the spirit of giving or just the capacity to spend. The requests for donations to the needy, that fell from my mailboxes, both physically and electronically, trying to reach that left over space in my heart and on my credit card, was met with a cool indifference, knowing my name was one of thousands generated from an unsolicited mailing list. Electronic gadgets that seemed to sprout new generations every holiday, capture my interests in gizmos, for a moment, but do not elicit a spirit of Christmas in me, anymore than a snow shovel would.

As I think back, the things that had triggered the spirit for me were sharing time and good will with family and friends, with little more than happiness and gratitude as a gift. The debt laden guilt that often follows last minute gift giving is different from the freely given love and appreciation that a drop by visit on a snowy day could provide. Breaking bread together or sharing a cup of tea, does more to spread joy to the world than an unappreciated gift, whether it was a good buy or not.

As we pull ourselves out of a long struggle for economic balance, we can look at more ways to give the spirit of Christmas to our families and communities. Items that not only benefit a retailer’s bottom line but employ local manufacturers and those they touch, rather than those a continent away. As I purchase local items, here in Columbia County, like scarves from Jeffrey Aronoff, gloves from DeMarchin and handmade knits from Spruce Ridge Farm, the feeling of impacting not only those I give the items to but who made them, makes it full circle for me. The gift of supporting those around me, seem to provide a spirit of giving that extends beyond myself, touching my friends and and community altogether.

A snowy reprieve

I awoke in my own bed, with a view of crystal clear skies and a wintry white landscape of overnight fallen snow, from my bedroom window. The unpleasant option of spending the night in a freezing car, parked at a closed gas station, with my two house guests for the weekend, by a miracle, didn't materialize after all.

The long slog to this outcome started with heavy rains battering us as we left the Poughkeepsie train station from Manhattan. Piling into my car quickly we braved the buffeting of rain, with the windshield wipers at full speed, for almost an hour, as we made our way north to Columbia County. The rain gave way to sleet and we slowed the speed of the car, as the road surface became slippery, and the windows thickened with a congealing slush. I had heard earlier that snow was on its way but had hoped we would skirt the brunt of it, as we sometimes did.

The heavy sleet turned out to be the more desired climactic condition as it soon turned into flurries and then a full blown snowstorm. We tried to make light of it, commenting on the interesting pattern that the flakes formed as they rushed to block our view of anything else on the road. The desolate roadway had a few tire tracks that we tried to follow in an attempt to remain on the road and avoid skidding on the icy surface. The white-out conditions and the reduced speed left me disoriented and unaware of where I was on the oft traveled road. Suddenly a phone call from Joe, who had landed at the Albany Airport and was making his way home from the north, was met with concern and trepidation as he told of over shooting his exit and being mired on a shoulder embankment, in the pounding snow, twenty miles away in the opposite direction. My first thought was to go get him once I dropped off our guests. With our godson, Ricon Wrenn's cellphone running out of batteries, my own cell lost a week earlier, and Angelique Anderson's phone indicating a loss of power and of signal, intermittently, we vowed to stay in touch with Joe.

The mounting snow on the road had us traveling at 20 mph, with an ever-present undercurrent of subtle and terrifying skids along the way. The mounting fear that we would eventually slide into an embankment and be stuck there all night led me to get off the Taconic Parkway an exit early. Hoping that the roads would have been cleared more was met with disappointment as the thick snow with tire tracks proved harder to negotiate. Steering first in one direction and then another, like a sailboat tacking along a roadway we inched forward, gaining momentum on the downhill, and spinning tires on the slightest incline. We had put off changing to winter tires because of a busy schedule and a deluding warm fall season. The delayed mistake was proving to be very costly emotionally for myself and my intrepid guests.

Joe calls us on the phone, with the ebbing battery, and tells us a truck had arrived to help another person, stuck where he was, and possible he might get the truck to help him. My concern for his driving the twenty miles home on the Parkway was weighing on me, knowing he hadn't changed his tires either. If we were having trouble, surely he was too.

At least now passing darkened houses, which were going to be possible safe havens, we continued on, haltingly, toward a local gas station. Unfortunately, we overshot the entrance, sliding to a stop at the traffic intersection. Forging onward, fearing the effort of turning around, we passed a police car aiding a trapped car on our right. Perhaps it was the sight of someone else getting rescued, we suddenly careened off the road into someone's yard about fifty yards further ahead. Unable to go forward into a hedge or to backup, we knew we had had it. Three hours after starting this one hour journey, we had been forced to end it, on a cold roadway in front of a blackened house. Then suddenly a large white man runs towards us from his car, to ask if we were alright. I thought he had gotten stuck too but he had really just stopped to aid us. Using his formidable strength he proceeded to push our car out of the embankment. With a little maneuvering we were back on the road, tacking from one side to the other, with Gods hands moving us out of the way of the occasional oncoming vehicle. Our saving angel followed us to the gas station nearest our house, which was about five miles away before heading off to save others.

Now parked next to a filling stand, we weighed our options. Do we try to follow a road plow, that may or may not go all the way to our house, and risk getting stuck again on the outskirts of town at one thirty in the morning, or just wait there until the sun rose and the roads cleared for driving. Joe calls and weighs in that we needed to contact local friends, AAA, or a taxi service. Except for our friend Jelanie Bandele, the other calls went unanswered, and she was in Brooklyn. The chill in the car was beginning to wash over us as we gave into bedding down for the night there, when we saw a snow covered car turn the corner that we thought might be a taxi. Beeping my horn frantically, the car turned into the gas station and turned out to be a patrol car with a policeman named Sargent Guy. After explaining we were five miles from home but was afraid to try and get there he offered to drive us there himself. Angel Number Two, Sargent Guy of Livingston, packed us into his patrol car and drove us to our destination. He was patrolling the many communities that night for situations and people in distress like us. He used his spot light to light our path as we made it up the quarter mile long driveway to the house.

The relief of being back home at last allowed me to appreciate the glow of the white snow, emanating light across the grounds, as we trudged the length of the distance to the awaiting warm house. Upon walking in the door, we receive a call from Joe saying he found a motel to weather the rest of the night and we all slept peacefully that night, at last.