June 30,2025

Waiting to know IT when we see it,
and trusting ourselves to know what to do about it when we do
--and in the meantime what do we do while we wait?

Waiting is IT for me,
and watching,
seeing, hearing, knowing, doing, being.
That has been IT,
and I have had a good time doing IT.

Making this photograph,
these photographs, was a total joy.
Nobody was making me do it.
I thought it up all on my own,
and put myself in the way of a photo
and clicked the shutter
a number of times.
Because it was a total joy.

I have spent my time in ways I took to be worthy.
And didn't spend much of it in ways I took to be unworthy.
I have written books I wanted to write
and didn't care if I sold any.
I haven't yet been cuffed and thrown in jail.
Or ridden a bull, or chased by one.
And I am at peace with all of it.

I let the day take the lead
and say yes when I think yes will do,
and no when I think no will do better.
And haven't found a way to beat that,
or a reason to look for one.

When I leave this place, it will be regretting
all that needs to be regretted about how it works
to the detriment of more people than it works 
for the betterment of. Why isn't this place geared
to being good for people? Committed to the welfare 
of people? Interested more in profit than in being 
helpful? Congress is going to take Medicaid, Medicare,
and social security away from people who need the help 
for the first two, and worked all their lives putting money
into social security for the third one. To benefit people
who have more money than they need already.

I'm disgusted with the way the country works. And with us and our way of putting up with the way it works. Because we didn't opt for justice and fairness from the start, and now we are at
the point of thinking that justice is not fair, because it isn't fair if we don't get what we want when the poor and disenfranchised are given what they need. And we call help to them "entitlement programs" as though farm subsidies aren't entitlement programs and food stamps are, with both programs capable of being interpreted as paying their recipients for not working.

The disgust, resentment and hatred wealthy (and they all are wealthy compared to the people who clean their houses and bring food to their table in restaurants) white people have for poor people and people of color (and old people and people with infirmities and handicaps) is beyond all reason. And we have produced a culture where money matters more than people, and if a profit can be made a profit will be made, so what about the environment?

So there is an aspect of me that can't wait to get out of here, away from here because here is not what it professes to be ("Liberty and Justice for all!" and "No one is above the law!" and "the Majority Rules" with Gerrymandering tilting the table to make sure the majority does not ever rule, particularly in things that matter). 

The truth is it is all a lie, with white people pretending they care about people of color, with disadvantages and personal needs that are beyond anything wealthy white people have ever experienced or ever will. And I've had enough of it, and won't miss any of it, and withdraw from all of it with my photography and my books (those I write and those I read).