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Philadelphia Row is a term used, not only in Philadelphia neighborhoods, but elsewhere to refer to orderly rows of regularized housing.  
But there is nothing orderly or regular about any of the goings on in a Philadelphia Row.


READ SOME FICTION

Scattered Thoughts on Perception

1/16/2019

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Yesterday I had quite an adventure and am uncertain if it was a setback or a push forward.  I drove an hour and a half to ask for the transcripts from the witch trial on which i write.  The story is almost finished and I really just wanted my peepers on the pages.  I wanted to see what actually happened as opposed to the fantasy that has piqued my curiosity for years now. 

Reality versus fantasy seems to be a theme of my life recently and I need to get a handle on the importance of both of these things.  In the past, I used to brush away any discord on the matter with the words, "three sides:  mine, their's and the truth."  But, is there something more? 

So, my book is told from a neighbor's perspective.  I want to get the details around the story just right, to give validity to the events I have determined happened, not to tell the actual tale, but to prick thought into motion warranting discussion.  And i'm going to say the word - important.  Important discussion.  

I have chosen support as my word for this year.  I want to support my writing.  And i want my writing to support me.  I have vowed to participate in a book sale and have thought about some ancillary materials to have available at my table.  I decided pins/buttons, partly because i like them and partly because it's easy.   And then I found an article about lovers in the something-before-now-century would make jewelry with images of their eyes.  I like the idea of an eye pin.  I like an idea of something emphasizing importance of perception.  I like the idea of remembering that everyone has their own eyes and sees things in their own way.   I'm making eye pins.  

So, yesterday I drove out to get my eyes on the words that were laid out before William Penn  over three hundred years ago.  I wanted to know the truth.  I spoke with three people in the museum and library and discovered the transcripts were not in the building.  They are in the University of Virginia.  Ugh.. or Yay! I haven't concluded if it's a step forward or behind. 

But I did have a wonderful discussion that furthered my thoughts on perception.  It was heavy on perception and this person with whom i spoke said  I need to know the reality, if I chose -  but more importantly it is the perception that should be owned.  And that's been my stance in the past few months.  If someone perceived it is truth, then it happened. 

There is a curiosity why one remembers in one way, and another remembers in another.  There is curiosity where reason comes into play.  If i can reason what another remembers or saw, then could I perhaps change my perception?  Of course I can.  

So, why is there so much of a disconnect between what actually happened and what one thinks happened?  

I don't have the answers to these questions.  

I keep saying I want to write something important.  I want to write something of importance.  I think it's important that those perceived to be abnormal are only viewed that way because there is a lack of truth presented to those being judged.  Maybe it's not for me to write about something important, but to write something that provokes an importance?  
 
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Words… It’s all we have.

1/2/2019

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Quite a few years ago, a friend turned me on to a word of the year.  It’s a word to focus upon with mindfulness while walking through three hundred sixty five days.  A self-help technique?  Sure.  A change of habit?  Absolutely.  Sometimes, after reflecting on words, the significance of one over the other is quiet and internal.  Sometimes the words are necessitated to counter balance the garbage in my head from previous days.  This year, I had to look for the word. 

The words we use are important.  The words we tell ourselves and others have meaning.  It unnerves me when people say they didn’t mean the words that dove off their tongues into pools of auricular paths.  Words matter.  

Matter - substance inconvertible with energy.

December was a very difficult month for me.  It was full of words and actions that had me retreating to dark rooms of personal silence.  I was suffocated in an abysmal entanglement of bafflegag.  However, during this month, I was mindful of moving forward with writing.  There is an anomalous thing that occurs in my brain when I am feeling hopeless.  My brain counter-balances to equipoise with this idea of legacy.  I get this overwhelming internal push that all that I’ve done cannot be all that I do.  It could be a survival skill that is filed away in the trenches of my mind, and until I rip all the other useful pages of my thoughts to shreds, I forget that I need to leave behind something more than I have provided.  It also could be introspective personal browbeating.  Regardless, it kicks in when I’m lowest.  And frequently in these lowest times, the need to write becomes this unstoppable force.  I don’t always honor that need, but this past month, I did.  

I wrote quite a bit and read quite a bit and sought information to fill more pages of the files in my brain.  

And then I started hearing words relating to foundation.  In positive and negative tones, I heard people asking me for more or expressing gratitude for that which I had the strength to provide them.  I reflected on the word foundation for a few days.  I thought I need to start building this foundation in order to advance my writing to the point I can flip my days from numbers to words, which is my intention.  But that has been the intention for years.  And I realized while I was working through how to properly convey the image of laboring on this foundation, it occurred to me that the foundation is done.  I’ve been throwing words out around me long enough.  I’ve been stinging them together with coherent mortar and punctuation.  I have words I cannot recall writing, but in [re]reading, I can see that I have been tamping down a foundation.  It is time to make moves that will encourage a burgeoning of proliferation in story and thought.  I am ready. 

So the word support presented itself to me.  I feel I am not enough support for those who need me.  I have been told I had not provided support to others and have been called selfish.  I have felt unsupported by myself and even beat the parts of me missed by others.  Support is more than an unwavering base.  

I went to those crazy cats, merriam and webster to get their opinion on the word support.  They gave me the following: 

*transitive verb 
-to endure bravely or quietly; bear
-to promote the interests or cause of
-to uphold or defend as valid or right: advocate
-to argue for
-to assist
-to act with
-to bridge
-to provide substantiation
-to pay cost of  
-to provide basis of existence
-to hold up 
-to maintain at desired level
-to keep from fainting, yielding, or losing courage; comfort
-to keep something going 
*noun
-the act of supporting
-assistance 
-one that supports
-sufficient strength

After reflecting on this comprehensive list of words in its description, I understand that support is not just tamping the heavy stuff down to climb upon.  It’s not the foundation, but a breath as flexible as a rope bridge allowing sway as we cross the cavernous gorge of experience.  It’s the buttress providing protection from external elements so that security can be maintained within.  It’s a reception to carrying weight while those in need are fatigued.  

I have neither given nor received these things. 

In choosing these words, I always reflect on my first.  Vouchsafe.  I’m so in love with the reciprocity of the idea of vouchsafing.  To vouchsafe is to give freely and take gladly.  Many times those who give have difficulty taking.  Likewise, those who take have difficulty giving.  To vouchsafe is to give AND receive.  

This year’s word for me is going to be another reciprocal idea I need to nourish.
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    When Sevy realizes the pharmaceuticals keeping their bodies young are weened from those deemed to have exhausted their usefulness, he believes he must delve into the purpose of this synthesized society believing it is not much different than the life he lived on earth. 

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    Esther Elizabeth Buck 

    i'm halfway through my life with the stifled stories stirring.  i should have done it earlier, but i am on the
     write path finally.

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