Lifestyles
water works: Apo Helios — Part 1
It is at precisely 1:14 a.m.1 that I’m suddenly awake, staring at the ceiling. I know every crevice in the spackle like every nerve in my leg; scars painting the accident that took me down as a child. Not sure how long these severed and sewn limbs will serve me. Sleep ebbs and floods with the spasms. By 5 a.m., I’m done. I don’t care what day it is . . . tired of feeling so bad. I take another look at the hydrocodone bottle in the medicine cabinet.1a I slam it shut, grab my towel, sling goggles around my neck and drive to the beach to find relief in the cold winter water. As I drive east, the moon races to the horizon behind me.
read moreWho Will Cry for Angela?
“Soft-hearted people can’t work with kids like that.” She’s right. A dear friend of mine said that to me today when I told her this story.
On the first day of summer camp Angie was having problems.
water works part five – the ART of water*
waterworks TTS3 FlipHCrop_VIBRANT fI’m sitting in a gazebo, having a chat with my friend Dr. Marie Bailey. Marie is a yoga therapist, former clinical psychologist and my meditation coach. We’re talking about healing and we’re located precisely where we need to be. This gazebo sits on the St. Johns River between the water and St. Vincent’s Hospital. The tide is ebbing, the water taking the shape of the river bed, making its way to the ocean . . . the constant sculptor, slightly changing the shoreline at every moment. As a healer, she nourishes all along her way. I observe that water takes the shape and changes the shape of its container: Two of the most powerful elements of healing – empathy and change.
read moreDeep Breaths
When you have a writer/performer/artist born into your family, or you get married to, or you’re the child of, you don’t sign up for being fodder for their writing: it not something you think about . . . you just want that relationship with them, or in some cases you’re stuck with that relationship. You don’t ask for the world to hear about your ups and downs, your most private and painful moments; but as an artist, that’s what we do.
read morePart four – Water Lines
Earth is a system like any other. Birth, peak and decline. There isn’t a system in the universe that doesn’t perform the cycle: Real estate, dot com booms and crashes, populations, cultures and super novas. On a physics level it’s a property of the forward motion of time. It’s pretty much in our face.
read moreWhat Does It Mean?
When my children were younger, I co-owned an art gallery called Spiller Vincenty on King Street in San Marco. I won’t deny my kids had an avant-garde upbringing, with artists coming and going, performance pieces being enacted on makeshift stages (and once in a blow-up baby pool), and the aspect of our home ever-changing as paintings were recycled and works of art were sold off of the living room walls like gewgaws at a church bazaar. There were times when one of my children’s friends would titter at a Laurie Hitzig nude, or...
read moreWrap Rage
I’m unpacking from a recent trip when a call comes from my host: “You left your toiletries bag,” she says. Those five words strike dread in the heart of any woman of a certain age. What about my regenerating cream? My warm glow blush? My super blendable liquid foundation, my tweezers nestled in their box with the built-in magnifying mirror!!! Suffice to say I am in the drugstore early the next morning to replace what has been temporarily lost. When one purchases a dozen toiletry items, it is glaringly apparent that they’re...
read moreBack to the Future
Long before I started working on ‟State of the Re:Union‟ (SOTRU), poet Sekou Sundiata told me, “One of the biggest issues in America is the country’s collective amnesia.” Our ability to forget whatever didn’t work in the narrative of these United States.
read morepart three — River Lightning
I’m walking the river by Memorial Park with a friend. The river is ebbing back to the ocean, the wind is moving gently, and opposite of the current, and the sun is creating millions of glistening stars on the surface. Walking under a tree close to the bulkhead, we see the caustic reflection of this meeting of light and water beaming off the leaves. They move in the light breeze, further randomizing this beautiful show. We name it river lightning.
read moreJim Alabiso
Host of “Tonight with Jim Alabiso” at MeeMeeTVJax.com, 18.1 WVVQ ~ Writer ~ Swimmer ~ Meditator I’m your host, like the person that greets you at the restaurant, but the show is really inside. A viewer tells the station, “I saw this music segment on your channel then started playing my keyboard for the first time in three years.” That’s why we are here. Inspiration, where arts and culture start. Photo by Laura Evans lauraevansphotography.com Set Design by Michael...
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