October 25, 2023

My storage unit was completely wiped out clean. For those with storage units, beware.

This theft is certainly of a grand larceny category and these incidents across the nation are on the rise.
I have just been ill since the storage manager called me 3 weeks ago; I had to make 3 trips cross-country to assess, try to get help, and then finally close my empty unit. My BP has been sky high and I just can't relax. I can't sleep thinking about the photos I will never see again. It was everything I was saving for retirement. Photos, art books, paintings, deep winter clothing, family heirlooms. Especially heartbreaking was the photographic collection from the early 1900s by my grandfather who studied and photographed throughout South America. My collection from the 70s; and 80s all in 35 mm had not been transferred yet to digital. All gone.
The thieves had no idea about this stuff; only useful to me. I am sure they just wanted to rip out the boxes, luggage, and some farm equipment to find what they could scrap.
On my first trip out to the storage, the manager told me 3 more units were vandalized overnight. The second time I went the count was up to 9 in a matter of a day or 2.
The police report could only be done online. I tried to go to 3 stations but this type of crime had no assistance other than an online report. I thought of getting a private investigator but gave up due to the logistics and follow-up.
I know from this life we take nothing; a friend of mine passed away just a few days ago and I realize that it is just tracks and few memories we leave behind. But it sure gave me a curve-ball.
And many sleepless nights. And high blood pressure readings mixed in with exasperation. There went my vacation.

March 24, 2021

Notes from a level four country

I just got back from an alarming solo trip to a country on lockdown. I went as a privileged vaccinated person, this country (Brazil) has few vaccines, no plans, and is currently the epicenter of the covid. It was a short, urgent trip. This is really a poem.


There are days when the trees don’t even sway because of the sinister cast to the day. You can’t even call it calm, or peaceful, this state of not even moving.

During the birds’ activities, it must really be daunting, that tree that doesn’t move; so much so that they don’t even perch there, or maybe they know that the silence is necessary over there, so they go sing in another location.
But what was strange, fearful, and made no sense, ends up being revealing, because it’s one of those silences that we need. The truth is, nothing was daunting or sad, everything was really on purpose, a bunch of facts conspiring in your favor.
In the normal state of the birds singing away, of the breeze that wraps around people, this mad dash of people breathing and surviving goes on, and the tragedies of a bunch of people leaving to never come back remains unnoticeable.

For a moment we even forget how long will this thing last, and until when will this martyrdom of a bunch of people losing their breath and disappearing off the map continue. And we even forget how many people we will never see again, because when you’re tired, it messes up your memory. The tiredness of missing that one, that one who was so close to us. It wears you out, it demands energy to keep on rolling the tape backwards, and seeing that special one ever so distant who still continues to be a reference and inspiration.
Now there is only room in your mind to keep on going, there is only space to fight and insist, and there is a very small corner way in the back of the hypothalamus, to give thanks for all of this. Because you can’t wipe out the courage you have gained, and how much you became stronger, even though you have repeatedly suffered through every second.

The guy who loses a mother, a father, that favorite embrace, goes storming away, and even scores; that guy is us, and we have been escalated to tell stories. That guy is us, who will be offering what we have best. There is a purpose in that guy who is us; we will see those that have inspired us, and those places that enchanted us, it won’t be long.
From now on, everything that surrounds those guys that are us, has some gratitude, from the great conquest to continue our path; to walking on with the privilege to resist the losses and to anticipate a new horizon.
Gratitude always.

March 12, 2017

I did exactly that after the Iraq offensive and the Bush/Gore tragedy

I repeated the trip last month after the womens march. Present day social issues in Brazil are starkly difficult and it amazes me how the general mindset of the lower rung workers (if they even have a job) is a shrug, and an acceptance of the inability to respond to the onslaught of government corruption. Maybe because of the tropical climate and resorting to turn everything over to the higher spiritual Powers saves individual energies for their daily grind. State governments have delayed wages to workers as was broadcast at the Rio de Janeiro airport during the Olympics with unpaid first responders handheld signs declaring "welcome to hell". They have since been paid some, although still due for back payments. The military coup in the 60s ravaged the left wing movement and beat down or exiled the leftists and censorship was enforced. All this was quite dramatic. I still go there often though, and I know of better places than the favelas of São Paulo I can recommend. In this US insane asylum government deterioration we are going through, it does help to have a paradigm shift and join the masses of sweaty gyrating bodies in rhythm with the drum beats of a street carnival. It gives me a rest to reflect and resolve and help with the resistance.