Posts by Sparkplug

67

Accepting ME

by Sparkplug in

jw
friends

ok, i willl start by writing that this is where i lived growing up.

i cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and i realize it.

this public housing is going to be torn down.

Sparkplug

You know Decki, I have felt a connection to you as long as I've posted here. You and I are kindred spirits.

I have long thought that of your post also. Down to the stripes on your fairy tights. lol Truly though, I love what you have to say. Sometimes we just see someone we think we might just get/understand.

I have long recognized that you are an incredibly strong woman. You have the ability to strip away the ugliness surrounding you and find what beauty is left. No matter how ugly our childhoods or how ugly the people in our lives have been there is always a speck here and there that we can cling to.
And then that is what we build on. What we end up with depends on us. You know that and I admire you for it.

I like that you clarified it with what we end up with depends on us. I have become so tired of clinging and surviving. I am willing and ready to leap from that cliff of faith in myself. I often have convinced myself that I have done it before, but tuly I see now that I have not done it to the extent I needed to. Or nearly to the extent I thought I had. (self examination, self reliance, etc.)

The pics of you are simply gorgeous. You are on my list of top 10 posters I have to meet.

I thank you for that compliment. It is funny because I think I look about as hell as I can look in those photos. And that is part of accepting who I am and where I am at. It will go up from here. A reminder to not get to here again...lol

67

Accepting ME

by Sparkplug in

jw
friends

ok, i willl start by writing that this is where i lived growing up.

i cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and i realize it.

this public housing is going to be torn down.

Sparkplug

A bad place can create great beauty.

Warlock. I thank you. Have you notice how muchrooms come from Sh*t? and from shrooms come great things? lol

67

Accepting ME

by Sparkplug in

jw
friends

ok, i willl start by writing that this is where i lived growing up.

i cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and i realize it.

this public housing is going to be torn down.

Sparkplug

David! As was mentioned. Gotta remember, but not revel and be open to what comes our way. don't close people off because they have had it better or had more...because they can teach you and help you and you in turn can help them in ways they may not even understand.

Dex.

67

Accepting ME

by Sparkplug in

jw
friends

ok, i willl start by writing that this is where i lived growing up.

i cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and i realize it.

this public housing is going to be torn down.

Sparkplug

Just remember that our origins do not define us.

That is for damn sure!! Good advise. I f I thought that way I would still be a dropout from high school, JW with a husband that beats me probably living in BFE and really truly dead. (by my own hand)

We have to break that chain. Break that cycle. Make our own path,,,but always remember what it WAS so that we do not get a big head, NOR return from whence we came.

Dex

67

Accepting ME

by Sparkplug in

jw
friends

ok, i willl start by writing that this is where i lived growing up.

i cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and i realize it.

this public housing is going to be torn down.

Sparkplug

Ok, I willl start by writing that this is where I lived growing up. I cannot possibly capture the ugliness of it all and I realize it. This public housing is going to be torn down. It has needed it since the day it was built. I went back and grabbed a few shots and really thought about who I am and what I come from.

It is not good. It is not pretentious nor is it anything special. BUT it is what has made me. It is who I am and I can live with that and grow from that and not try to run from it. I spent many a year trying to escape the stigma of having lived in places such as these, and now, I see that there is no point. Anyone worth knowing will see what I lived through and help as I keep going.

Then the other day I watched this show (possibly a CSI) of course it is dramatized, but it showed how sometimes people can hate people who love them because it reminds them of where they come from. Or they think themselves better than the rest. Perhaps have a overglorified opinion of themselves. Well most assuredly in this show that was the case. At any rate, I saw that in this hugely overexagerated tale there was a point to be made, it just had to made quite loudly for the general public to get it.

So as I tried to capture the ugliness of this place I could not, for to me it was beautiful. In fact the ugliness and barrenness of it was beautiful. There was an honesty in it that changed the way I could shoot it. So I tried to get a stark and lonely shoot, and instead it all came out so...I don't know the word for it. It came out just real. Authentic.

I decided it is not so horrible to have come out of a bad place. I think of course it would have been better to have come from something better, but since that is not the case...I might as well accept it. In fact I realized I accepted it years ago and that has made all the difference. In sitting and visiting with this 80 year old woman who was around, she asked me where I lived before and when I told her, she got this knowing look in her eyes. She spoke more softly and said that I was old school. She remembered my family and for parts of it she said it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. But for other things she said to me it was really good that I remember where I came from. That it makes all ahead brighter.

She was a really neat lady and I will visit with her more. So here is what I shot in the first round of photos. Then some from around town. Then some of me...Accepting ME.

(give or take a makeup smudge)

16

six degrees of dredlock seperation

by coolhandluke in

so apparently i am highly recognizable.

large dredlocked black man living in colorado with odd sense of humor posts on discussion board is a t-shirt that i didn't know i was wearing.

:) i went to a local eatery where they call out your name when your sandwich is prepared.

Sparkplug

Way cool dom!

13

Are there any of Jerry's kids here?

by Rapunzel in

jw
friends

does anyone have a song that they especially like?

as everyone knows, the dead were not a studio band, so i am particularly interested in people's favorite concert renditions of a particular song either in their memories or on bootleg tapes [for example, "ripple" or "st.steven" or "dark star" or "sugar magnolia", recorded in head trip colluseum, san francisco in '74] .

i'm also interested in people's concert experiences.

Sparkplug

22

Pink Floyd - Your Favorite Songs by the group?

by Rapunzel in

jw
friends

any takers?

Sparkplug

"How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

25

In my computer room

by wings in

i have a nice window looking out on a tree lined street.

i have an old table cloth nailed in the window that i pull back with a hair clip during the day.

all day i watch families on bike rides, dog walkers, and i have my own personal road runner searching for lizards.

Sparkplug

Miss Wings, I am going to NM. I should be right near you!! I have held off for quite a bit but I think it is time to go home now.

25

In my computer room

by wings in

i have a nice window looking out on a tree lined street.

i have an old table cloth nailed in the window that i pull back with a hair clip during the day.

all day i watch families on bike rides, dog walkers, and i have my own personal road runner searching for lizards.

Sparkplug

In this room I have felt pain, grief, remorse, and an occasional fleeting hope...I'm still trying to catch it. I have felt dumb, (just a post JW thing) and sometimes I remember that I am really fairly smart. I have to keep remembering that, keep remembering that. Someday I will be me again.

I think this is what struck me and sent me on a roll. Wings, this is some powerful writing. And I just had to correct one part of your sentence. "I remember that I am really smart."

Having sat recently through 2 months of intensive inpatient therapy, all day everyday, and then followed up by one and twice a week therapy at a private therapist that deals with people of post cult and PTSD mind thinking as her specialty, I have this urge to jump in and tell you how very smart you are. Don't be passive with yourself. People who have been in a cult or have been lead to believe they are the one messed up due to other peoples wacked thinking tend to be so much more robust with being able to tell other people about themselves and their strong points than they are about telling themselves their own.

I am saying this as I do the same for you as I still struggle to do this for myself....BUT, if you had the strength to leave the JW's, you are VERY smart and all you are feeling is normal. It is hard and your repeating positive things to yourself is absolutely perfect. You need to keep doing that. For as many times as we have been brainwashed into doubting our own reliance on our own opinions....we need to unbrainwash ourselves just as much!!

Decki