Skid Row Campus

More pictures from a different perspective of the area

Awful Grace of God

It is past mid night. A candle is burning and a flicker of light dances along the wall. It is quiet. It is a time to hear my heartbeat. It is a time to feel what is inside of me.

Memorial Day compelled me to revisit the past. I was home on Sunday. I am getting used to having my mom ask me questions like "Am I older than you".
This is my mother asking me that. It is a stark reminder what the disease of dimentia/Alzheimer's does to a person. She asked me about my wife but I do not have one. I wonder if I should correct her or let it go. To correct her would make her feel self conscious. It is a balancing act to figure out what is the right thing to say. Or should I say nothing. I find that I just enjoy the being around my mother.

I helped my sister do some work but at the end I did something that drew criticism.
I was upset at her comments for a good while until I let it go. That is the one thing you learn while building a new, healthy life. It is important to let things go.

Last year I was in a guard shack and sleeping in a dormitory of 100 men. At least I thought I was sleeping. I did not realize I was not sleeping until I came here.
I was scared to leave the place where I lived as I told you. I thought the world was so cruel.

I wanted a chance to study and learn to fulfill an insatiable need for intellectual stimulation and nourishment. It was not something I was fortunate enough to receive where I lived last year. However, I must admit. I was challenged intellectually to understand what people were telling me about being patient, about believing in a higher power, about the future getting better.

Recently, I was given a tool by some people to help me learn, to help me develop myself. Each morning I wake up and marvel at the fact that I have this machine and I wasted no time in researching things. Anything. I just wanted to grow.

Two days ago I met someone, on the net, in a recovery room. She mentioned that she blogged and a conversation began. As it turned out, she teaches literature and english and was so gracious as to begin to mentor me on the art of writing.

All of a sudden, I am receiving direction on a discipline of which I have had an interest for some time. After writing for some years on paper, I began this blog. The blog has led to the desire to grow more in the art of expression and I have invested money in books that will help me learn and hopefully improve my craft.

My new mentor asked me to write a essay, using imagery, to describe the beauty of Skid Row. I thought about it for quite some time. Sure there is beauty in Skid Row. I have mentioned that. However, when one must paint a picture then it becomes more challenging. It is like writing a business plan versus telling someone about your plans for a business. Suddenly, trying to put something on paper is not as clear as you thought it was.

Does she want to hear about people, places, experiences? She said take my pick.
I still do not know where to start and I will not endeavor to do it now.
But it has me thinking about and remembering the past and envisioning the future.

Skid Row is a funny place. It builds character. Perhaps that is the beauty of it.
I know it is creating something in me. It is teaching me how to let go. It is purging sickness out of me and every day more leaves me. I surround myself with things that induce me to think about the future instead of dwelling or obsessing on the past.

I have been given a chance by people to develop. When they gave me this machine they gave me access to knowledge and along with everyone else I have met someone who can assist me in the pursuit of knowledge.

It is not unsual to receive help in Skid Row. It is unsual to be in an environment where you can contrast so vividly the different qualities of life. That is the beauty in many ways of this environment. It presents to you a glaring contasts in quality of life, direction of life, and choices we make.

It may not be beautiful in the traditonal sense of the word but it is reality. Stark reality and in that sense, reality is beautiful because it is honest. Honesty is what you see against the backdrop of the invisible lies that hover around the community. Don't ask me what they are, the examples of dishonesty. Just know that they are there. I do not know but I feel it like I feel the wind blow against my face or the heat of the sun on a hot day.

I see people like Connie grow and become healthy while I see Sue destroy herself.
Connie did not know if she would ever learn how to work with the computer and she left creating masterful presentations on Powerpoint. That kind of accomplishment provides me with the strength to endure and grow in this writing craft. Yet, she calls me the roll model.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is an experience. It is a very personal thing. I came here a man who was filled with anger and fear. Sometimes it scared me. I wrote about fear. I wrote abou anger. I wrote about despair. That is all I could see. It was all I could feel. That is how I felt about my station in life and my future. When I walked around the area, it did not help to see people lying in the street, defecating in the street, and urinating in the street. I cried myself to sleep at night.

Today I saw someone. If you did not know it you would think that this man has been on the streets for years. He had no shoes on. He was filthy. He was dazed. he had cuts and bruises. He smelled of urine when you walked past him.

Last week that man was in a computer lab on Main St. He looked at me with confession in his eyes. "YES, I made the wrong decision". That was printed all over him.

Robert Kennedy once said that he learned alot from his brother John's death. He said it was the awful grace of God. He got that quote from a quote from Camus.

"the awful grace of God." Profound.

Seeing that man, barefoot and a skeleton of what he was just one week ago, was an honest depiction of the frailty of life. In all of its ugliness, the truth had a certain amount of beauty to it.

At this point in my tenure here on Skid Row I marvel at these types of revelations. I marvel at the fact that I rose from the ashes and am recreating myself.

I am astounded that people take an interest in me.

Everyday I let go some more. Many times I wonder if that real estate license was a security blanket that would hold me back from diving head long into the world of creative expression, whatever the form.

I am building and I am learning and I strive to be more honest with myself and I think that is what growth is about.

People say that I will not be around here long. They never used to say that. Maybe they see something in me that is happening that they have seen before in others. I just know that I am breathing new air. It is a beautiful thing.

Skid Row teaches you to focus. It teaches you that you have to move forward even if others fall. Understand why they fall but keep going.

There is beauty in these lessons and anyone here will recite the same lessons learned. It is inescapable.

I know I am going someplace. Skid Row has prepared me in the cruelest of ways to be ready. It is teaching me to be focused. It is teaching me to pay attention. It taught me this through the endurance of pain. To overcome the feeling of despair to live to see the light of the present as well as the future.

There is beauty in that. And yes I am talking about the beauty of the experience in the cruel way it comes to you, but there is beauty in that.

I have not explained the beauty of Skid Row in the imagery that she wants. I am preparing to do that.

To create such imagery demands honesty. Honesty that I may not be read to accept in many ways. To accept something is to understand the dynamics of the phenomenon and there is so much phenomenon in Skid Row.

I am in my study lab. Where I go I do not know. But I am here as Robert Kennedy said " by the awful grace of God"

Memorial DAy. and yes it is a memory

Waht you see is my very first desk and my first and only chester draws. Both of those items have been with me all of my life.

My sister and I moved the chester drawers into my mother's bedroom and I saw the burn marks. Those drawers have decals on them. On one side, you can see two of them. They are a kick boxing decals when I earned my Silver gloves for Savate which is french kick boxing. The other is a K Swiss decal that was sent to me when I received clothing from them as I was a ranked player and a well known tennis intructor and coach. The other side has a Warehouse sticker. Yes the warehouse record store. How many people remember when they first opened up and had their records piled up on the floor on La Cienega Ave. IT was during the late sixties and early 70's. My decal has a saying on it "Ecology or else".

When I got that decal I had just started smoking grass. The Vietnam War was at its peak. IT was 1970 and in that year more US Serviceman and women were killed than all of the other years combined. An horrendous amount of body bags.

Decades later and I started leaving burned pipes on the furniture. I will get the furniture redone. However when I saw it, I just looked at it, remembering the insanity of my life. I moved away further from all of that, letting go of things.
I gave some more stuff away and through things out. No need to hold on to them. No need of keeping the confused negative energy that they contained around me and burdening me, invisibly, but burdening me none the less.
As someone told me today, I am a work in progress. It is funny because it is so true. Every little thing makes a difference. Today I washed my clothes and folded them immediately. Sounds basic. IT is basic. However, I used to wash them, dry them and throw them on the bed because I had to get to a library to blog. Or I had to get to a computer to see about a job.

Perhaps I could have stayed in the room and organized things first. But I was not ready. I was not ready to start and complete something. It does not matter if you start and complete things that you enjoy. IT matters when you complete thoroughly the process that you do not enjoy. And yes, I say that because I could have been using the "need " to get to a computer as an excuse to stay stuck in the past. Staying stuck in a prison of behavior I do not know or postpone movement forward because I do not know what it is and I do not have to stretch for "peace" because I do not know where it is and do not want to search for it. That is when one is not ready. You are not remembering the past and learning from it. The past remains as your present and hinders ones progress toward the future.

So yes, I let go a little bit more. STep by step. And now I must get to work on time. ON time is the operable phrase. IT will be the thorough completion of a mornings work and it will get me further away from the past and closer towards where I am going.

Happy Memorial Day.

Tenacity

This morning, I see my mother again. I saw her on mother's day.

A great deal has happened since then. Pushing forward. Moving forward. Seeing her, feeling her provided me with the nourishment to push an endure. I


Tenacity is what it is called. It necessary to conquer so many things. It is necessary to move obstacles out of the way outside of oneself. It is necessary to move obstacles out of the way inside of oneself. Sometimes it is necessary to exercise the discipline of tenacity when patience is needed.

So much has happened since I last saw my mother. I continued to push forward, like Rocky Delgadillo told me to do when I first met him. I was overwhelmed with the changes but now I am managing the changes in my life better in order to move forward.

It is interesting that I saw my mother on mother's day. I have noticed that I have been surrounded by mothers and other women as of late. They have been there for me. They were tenacious in their support and patience. They have been and are tenacious in their belief in me.

I am lucky to have them in my life. Their friendships have shown me what true loyalty is. So I go to see my mother and I once again get a chance to get that feeling of belonging that is so important and that I missed for so long.

Everything is pointing to an end of this episode in my life. It has been horrendous, grueling, and challenging in every thing I have ever known. but as a woman who has known me for a long time told me, everything that I have gone through is relected in tremendous growth. I hope that is the case.

I feel it. I am in the process of harnessing this feeling, along with the energy that I receive so unselfishly from my friends, and manage the navigation out of this storm of an episode in my life. The more I receive the support, the more I marvel at the amazing strength and power that women possess. The have a tenacity that is so direct and efficient and I am learning from them every day. I always knew how smart they were but now I understand how amazing they are. They have been navigating me out of this and towards something during this whole time.

I see the calm waters in the distance. I know they are there now.
I will continue with unwavering tenacity to reach them.

It is time to go see my mother. She needs me and I need her.

Anger

It is about 8:30 in the morning on Friday, May 23.

It is quiet as I sit in the room and begin this post to you. It has been a long time since I blogged in the morning. When I first started blogging, I was relentless in getting to Chrysalis each morning at 8am. I wanted to make sure I was able to secure a computer. There was one on the second floor where I live but it was erratic and would cut off unexpectedly. I mentioned many times how I had to repeat a posting several times. I was determined that nothing was going to stop me.

At Chrysalis, in the morning, coffee is made available for the clients and people who are in the office. Many of the people are homeless and drink the coffee to keep warm and seek a respite from the streets. Everyone stands in a line to sign their name to avail themselves of the services. Invariably someone does not want to follow the rules and when is called back to stand in the line instead of letting him proceed to the coffee, he starts yelling and cursing the staff.

I experienced a lot of anger as a woman was so frustrated that something happened to her possessions where I work. People in this neighborhood are extremely frustrated and angry. They strike out at anything or anybody. Anger fills the air.

Last night two men walked into the place where I work with ugly black eyes. One of them had his arm in a sling. I saw two or three other men with new casts on their arms, a trophy from fighting. Casts on arms are common as men brake their hands all of the time from fighting or just hitting walls out of frustration.

I enjoy sitting here and blogging because it lets me get away from the anger. I am learning how being around this much anger is stressful.

Two nights ago, a man tells a seven month pregnant woman that he will slit her throat if she does not follow his orders. Five minutes later he speaks to her softly, asking her if she wants something to eat. I look at it in total bewilderment.

My new computer affords me the opportunity to stay away from all of that as much as possible and go inward to hear my heartbeat. It fascinates to hear what it is telling me.

Many times I have said how much Skid Row is a mirror of our society. People here want to feel a part of something. People here have health issues. Our nation has health issues. People in Skid Row are angry. People in the country are angry.
The sources of the anger may differ but it is burried within us and more is piled on every day.

Even Walter Moseley, an accomplished novelist, discussed his anger in his instruction book about writing a novel. He said that each day he becomes angry and if rules where not in place, he would express his anger or act upon it. Fortunately, he said, the laws are a deterrent because he does not want his anger to cost him his freedom.

I worry about our anger. Anger is another description for frustration or fear.
It gets stored up inside of us and many times is not released in a healthy way or it is triggered by something that would not seem to be associated with it or have the power to ignite behavior to express it.

Every day I see it and wonder about it and its crippling effects on us. I believe it has the power to destroy us, like nuclear bomb or terrorist attack.

It is not only dangerous in Skid Row, it is dangerous in otherwise peaceful environments where it springs up unexpectedly--places like Columbine where our teenagers are acting out to being bullied or from other societal malady or Virginia Tech where a person has even more "freedom" to express his anger destructively because he has more latitude, including lenient gun control laws.

It frightens me that there is so much hidden anger amongst us. The visible anger is bad enough. It is ugly. Very ugly. However the more someone yells and screams, I surmise that the person is less likely to pull a trigger or stab someone with a knife.

I talked about Sammny yesterday. He is on one path. Not too long ago, I mentioned how Connie, a student at the STRIVE program overcame so much and has learned how to master some of the applications on the computer. She is very calm. She has found a a great deal of peace. She used to live in the streets, homeless for many years while in her crack addiction. She said she saw so much anger every day and that she swore she would get away from it. She found a way to insulate herself from it physically, and when she could not do that, she discovered how to not let it effect her new happy spirit.

Connie is graduating from the University of Skid Row today. She finished the STRIVE program yesterday and she is leaving and going to another state to live. I am happy for her. For a brief moment I felt she was leaving me behing in this anger but she has taught me not to look at it that way. Also I have had a great deal of experience with people moving on.

But this is different. Connie symbolizes a period in my life on Skid Row. I met her when she started her computer class and she was wondering if she would ever be able to learn any of it. I saw her burning desire to learn. I encouraged her to stay with it.

Connie told me I was a role model for people in the program and those words gave me the strength to keep searching for a job, to keep doing what I had to do to get through the court system. She told me to not be angry about things, just learn from them.

I believe I am. So I am happy for her. I am spending time in my room away from the anger. I am learning how to be gentle with myself as I dig deeper into myself and focusing on the requirements of self development.

It is funny that now I have a pen pal and my pen pal is a respite from this anger. Every morning I used to go to Chrsysalis and the public library to blog. Everyday for 9 months. Every day, my pen pal from Kazahkstan near mongolia, goes to a train station where she can use the old, slow computer so she can write me. She is so open and not scarred by the frustration and anger of people who have little to look forward to in the small towns in her region.

She has this pure, soft gentle spirit that wants to discover the world. I worry about her because she is exploring the world through the internet and in that part of the world there is so much anger and cruelty and the slave trade is a big industry. I do not want her to get tricked by someone on the internet.

But every morning I wake up and see her email to me. it is the first thing I see when I wake up. It is my respite from the anger that I hear outside on the streets of Skid Row. I picture her rushing to get on the computer with fierce determination. She explained her procedures but she did not need to because I am intimately familiar with it. I admire her determination to accomplish her goals.

Listening to her and her gentleness contrasts so much with the anger that I witness every day. I see it on the streets of Skid Row. I see it on the television news.
I see it in our elections. A good percentage of the time we are angry and elect people out of office more than we love the person that is going in to office.

We must find a way to conquer the anger. It is inside all of us. If we do not come up with answers, there will be more shootings and stabbings on the street, more drive by shootings is neighborhoods, more domestic violence, more wars, more Columbines and Virgina Techs.

So, at this time, I am enjoying my time away from all of the chaos that I see and I am able to study these questions on the internet. Anger, what is it?
What is associated with it? Where is it going to lead us as a society? How do we get rid of it?

Anger is a big ingredient in Skid Row. It needs to be illiminated. If the problem can be illiminated here and can be eradicated in our society.

Sammy

For days, I have been thinking about different people and what I have learned from and experienced with them while I have lived on Skid Row.

I walked out of the building after taking notes from my conversation with Aaron. Aaron is my boss and he said I could share his story. I walked across the street to get some coffee in the mom and pop community story when I saw Sammy. I really did not want to talk to him but he spotted me from the distance.

"Maybe I could get a favor returned to me now" was his opening gambit, a Skid Row sales strategy that has been in practice forever. You present an image to the person that what you did was incredibly valuable to extract a favor from the person. Invariably that strategy is used when the person is up to no good-when the person is on a mission- when the person is on a search and consume mission--for drugs.

I met Sammy at the Transition House. He moved in there a couple of months after I did. He worked in the kitchen and he had a job at Farmer Johns. He would stop by the Guard Shack every day on his way home. I was in there every day when he came by, writing on long hand my observations on Skid Row.

Sammy was a man on a mission. He was saving money and was going into the music business. He started out at the Union Rescue Mission and for some reason tranferred to the Transition House. He wore jeans and a T shirt that appeared to be bursting at the seams as Sammy was a body builder. Whenever you talked to Sammy, no matter where you were in the Transition House complex, he would suddenly drop to the floor and do twenty pushups. All day long, you would see him going up and down, up and down.

He was in great shape and he had the skin tone and bone structure of a man who was from East Africa--perhaps Kenya, Ethiopia or Somalia. He spoke about health and always carried with him a large plastic bag of fruit.

A few weeks ago I saw him and he looked like a ghost. He was walking up and down 5th street looking for somebody. Anybody who has seen that behavior knows what it means. It is not that he was looking for somebody. It is not that he was looking for drugs that made him stand out. It was that he had to see someone that owed him some drugs, a fellow user, or someone that pledged to advance him something that was disconcerting. It was clear that he slid down the hill of life quickly.

Today, his face was gaunt. His hands were black, fifty shades darker than his carmel complexion and he is a shell of his former body building self. He no longer carries large bags of fruit. He hand grip tightly the little plastic bags of crack, holding the bags so tight that it seems like his life depended on what was in his hands because he was not going to let go of it for anything in the world.

"When are you going to stop doing this Sammy? Aren't you tired of this?" were the first two sentences out of my mouth.

"Next week. On Monday."

"That is what you told me last time".

"But this time I have no choice. If I do not go to a program I will go to prison."
" Sammy, a program does not mean you will stop. You know that. A program can not make you stop doing drugs. You have to want to stop. "

" I know. I know. You are right. "

He was taking a folding chair out of its case, one of those that you purchase at a sporting goods store and take to the park or tailgating parties at football games.
He automatically assumed that I knew what was going on. I did not even notice what
he was doing until he told me I was right.

"What is the favor that you need? You want me to buy this thing?", I inquired, knowing the answer before he asked, but I asked anyway saving him the embarrassment of having to start his "cold call". His could not look at me in the eye and he kept polishing the metal leg stands so he could avoid looking me in the eyes.
I wondered If I should buy the chair. It was the exact replica of one I purchased before I came to Skid Row. I remember my mother sitting in it watching television with me in my bedroom one night.

It was new. It was five dollars and I had only five dollars in my wallet. I did not want to give the money to him as I knew he was going to purchase some drugs with it.

On the other hand, I am guilty of making that assumption. I am guilty of drawing that conclusion before I communicate and receive that information. I am wrong for doing that. What a dilemna. No matter how I look at it, I know I am enabling him to purchase the drugs.

Someone walked up to us on the sidewalk while I was deciding what to do.

Sammy was talking to him. He was sincere in what he was saying. " I am so proud of this guy. I am not a hater. When he and I were in the shelter together, I was in the position he is in now. I was in the position to help him and now he is in the postion to help me. I am glad for him. I do not hate him for it."

"Hating" and "hater" are terms created in the inner city that describes people who are jealous of others that are making progress in their lives and who appear to be doing more or having more than the person who is doing the hating. The person doing the "hating" usually makes negative comments about the person who is progressing.
The "hater" will backstab the "progressor".

It could be construed that he was trying to butter me up but I know he was not.
In the end, I went inside the store and took out the five one dollar bills that I had in my wallet and handed them to him.

I remembered the man who brought fruit to me while I sat in that guard shack every day. It was this time last year when I was struggling with being alone and detached from my family and everything that I knew. His daily gifts to me, along with his conversation kept me going.

He was one of the many men whom I met that took the time and extended to me the generosity of their hearts. They gave me the will to continue to fight my loneliness and broken heart for another day. One day at a time. One minute at a time. One second at a time.

I remember when Sammy moved out of the Transition House. I felt another person was leaving and moving onward in the world and that I was being left behind. I experienced that sickening, lonely feeling each time someone left. Yes, how can I forget those feelings. How could I deny Sammy? I could not. I would not. He knew it when he saw me.

His opening sales approach, " maybe I can get a favor returned", was forgotten.
Sammy did do something that was invaluable and even vital for me. You know, as I sit here, in the room, in the dark, at 4 in the morning, I remember a war movie where a man kept an orange wrapped up for two weeks. He was in a prisoner of war camp. Nobody had any fruit. Other POWs offered him cigarettes.
The key cigarette trader offered him a blank check of cigarettes so he could have the orange. However, the soldier would not yield. He kept the orange and, finally, one day, he set the orange on a table and everyone circled around him. They watched wided eyed as he unwrapped the priceless piece of fruit from the newspaper that encased it and removed the paper from the table. He pealed it slowly and divided the orange into sections. Everyone's mouth was drooling, and they all believed that that was the closest they would get to that fruit.


The soldier picked up the first slice and handed it to the closest man next to him. He continued that process until each man had a slice. A couple of the men assumed the soldier was going to eat the orange by himself. It was his to do what he wanted.

What the soldier did was an act from the heart. He gave from his heart. He did not have much but he gave each man more than a slice of an orange. He gave them the gift of hope.

Sammy, like many others, gave me that gift of hope, the first time he gave me that orange on a hot day in May of last year. The Transition House was MY version of a POW camp. Sammy was just like that soldier in the movie. He gave me the orange and something a great deal more. He gave me hope. He gave me the will to search inside of myself and understand the beauty of what was taking place.

Sammy walked in the store and as I stood in line to get my coffee, Sammy went to an aisle and grabbed a couple of items to eat. He pulled out 2 dollars and paid for them. Most people on a search and consume mission would not spend two dollars to buy food if they were selling goods. The five extra dollars that they would receive would go towards what was needed to get the drugs.

I had no right to draw conclusions without asking. I remember posting a blog about that very same concept. A friend of mine assumed that what he heard was true regarding certain things without talking to me at all. I have not spoken to him since I came down here and most likely never will.


I will debate later if I enabled Sammy to use drugs. I just know that he needed me. That is what I KNOW. I know I could not deny him. He played a part in my being here right now. Please be careful out there Sammy. Please go to that program. Please complete it so you do not have to go to prison. Please stop using cocaine.

Good night Sammy. I love you.

Shedding and DEVELOPING

I can not go to sleep. I have not slept in going on 36 hours. I dont know why. I just can not seem to close my eyes. I believe the excitement of being able to be so much more productive has gotten me so wound up.

I find that I am planning and learning ways to become more efficient and organized so that I can spend time not only searching for opportunities but studying the many things to learn out there.

Last night I read quite a lot about the International Space Station project and watched real live footage of the D Day landing. there is so much good information about things.

I guess it really comes down to devlopment. And slowly, I am letting go of the worry that something is going to happen to me to lose my job. There is a person who gives everyone a hard way to go with whom I work. He does not work for the company but he calls himself being the eyes and ears for the boss. He is actually causing a lot of problems. Every day we walk in and this guy makes up more and more stories about what is going on at work. It got so ludicrous that now we do not have to worry about our boss believing him. If he has not already, he will lose his credibility shortly.

Do you remember how I talked about abormalities. Well, it was abnormal for me to work at a job without worries, though I strived for it in the past. I am conditioned to worry. I am shedding that behavior pattern. One of the main reasons is that I am not doing any cocaine. Doing something like that tends to leave something on someone's mind. It is like always looking over one's shoulder.
You become used to it. It is a terrible feeling but you think it is normal. The more you get away from it, the more something else comes along that allows you to continue the behavior. Usually it is a compound behavior.

For instance. A man has promised to help me with the taxes. I took his direction immediately and filed for my taxes. At that time, a cluster of breakthroughs were occuring for me. I did as I was directed and put something behind me. Created a new behavior, filing taxes on time.

However, I still had years of back taxes to worry about. he told me to sign some papers. I saw all of the acronyms on the sheet and procrastinated. More things were piled on my plate and I kept shoving this little task aside. THAT, in and of itself, has always been an old habit. THAT creates the second habit, to worry about what has not been done.

EVen though it was halfway done, I did not complete it. I was not ready to give up the prison that I already knew to the new freedom that awaited me. I had something to worry about. A subtle illness that I have been battling for years. I was used to it.

However, I have had a primal drive for freedom for years, and the more I experience, the more I want. The freedom of blogging right here in the middle of the night to you is a beautiful feeling.

I actually thought I had mailed the papers in but realized after searching that they remained burried under a pile of other things.

Now, however, the drive for freedom is greater than the lack of will to break out of the prison of the known quantity. So I rush the papers to the gentleman.
I did not fill them in. I noticed that I signed them and that was enough. They could type them in and they would look more professional. that was probably what he wanted anyway. I just could not see it.

that type of scenario occurs every day. only most people do not recognize and change the behavior pattern. AS you progress, the affliction becomes more subtle and one would not recognize how embedded and transferable the behavior is and that it can manifest itself in many forms, like malignant cells.

I am so glad I took the time to monitor myself when I was triathlon training.
That is where I discovered all of this. That is why I was able to make the permanent breakthrough.

I just was not ready, to let go and move on and not worry about something that has been a source of worry for so long. However, I finally did let go.
=============

That is characteristic of this phase. I am dealing with the wreckage of my past and doing what it takes to put it behind me and free me in so many ways. I just realized that doing so frees up that space within so I can put something in there. something can be absorbed. maybe some knowledge. maybe a way of being. Maybe something can pop up that is not blocked that will be an idea or a solution for something.

The more I realize this, the more eager I am to clear the debris. It is interesting how the more that happens, the more I begin to move forward in ways of development.

I called this place the University of Skid Row. At universities, people learn. However, people also develop. It is a subtle but very distinct difference. I am finding that now I am beginning to clear enough debris, to naturally flow through to the development phases.

No matter how hard I tried, when I APPEARED to be normal and healthy, I could never progress. To much was on my mind and weighing me down. I was in invisible handcuffs.

It is clear that this blog is going to evolve from a man talking about what he learns and observes while struggling in Skid Row, but also how he evolves and develops, step by step while here. I said that Skid Row is a mirror of society.

Well I think that what I am experiencing must be the same path that others before me have experienced as they heal themselves from whatever to develop into whatever they want to develop into.


And that is what I find so important. HOw bad do you want it? That means so much. How bad do you really want whatever it is you say you want to not let anything stop you.