The Coffee Project: November 30 - December 2

Told him to open his eyes, and this is what he did.

A good day.

Story of a marriage: Mom with her cronies. Dad at his own table.

Mugging for the camera, trying to appear like a sad sack.

One Sentence: December 9, 2011

I am wakened by the dogs and the light of the full moon from dreams that exist only in darkness.

One Sentence: December 7, 2011

Confusion, then clarity: The end of anything and everything, the alpha and omega of this human life, is embedded in the beginning.

The Day That Will Live In Infamy

USS Arizona

This past July I went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial with my mother and sister. I took my father who was home on his comfort zone in Utah, in spirit. We took the ferry out to the USS Arizona. The oil was still seeping from the sunken ship to the surface and created a prism on the water. Being at the memorial, especially being on the USS Arizona was a moving experience. I had to blink back tears reading the hundreds of names of those lost in the attack, and also knowing the reality that the ship below us served as a tomb. I was standing at the rail when a woman and her son gave me a small bunch of flowers to throw on the water. I thanked them and threw the flowers onto the water.

The enormity of the attack, loss of life, and its lasting effect on the country is still overwhelming. I was also moved to tears by another, more personal reason. My father spent a year of his youth stationed there. The other day at coffee he mentioned how he went over the ruins of the Arizona almost every day on his way to and from Ford Island.

Although there are plenty who remember Pearl Harbor that are still alive today, World War II is something the majority of us have only experienced through film or history class.

I'd like to say war is behind us, that war is over forever, but as Shakespeare said, The past is prologue. War is here to stay. As for Iraq and Afghanistan, we'll have to leave it to the historians and film makers to create the narrative of our current wars.

I've included a couple photos I took at Pearl Harbor, and a few articles from world news to commemorate the day.

Pearl Harbor Day 2011: three enduring mysteries

Pearl Harbor Day 2011: Remembering FDR's Address On 70th Anniversary (VIDEO

Pearl Harbor from above, 1941-2011

Finally laid to rest with his comrades: Ashes of Pearl Harbor survivor interred on 70th anniversary of 'day of infamy'

Presidential Proclamation -- National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 2011

Artist of the Day: Walk Out to Winter - Lupen

Walk Out to Winter Lupen GrainnePhotography.etsy.com

This photograph expresses my mood, exactly.

Artist Bio:
I am a self taught photographer exploring the magic and story telling of photography . The diversity of nature and beauty in everyday things are my endless inspiration .I live in lovely Sonoma County California amongst the Oak trees and sunny skies . The photographs in my shop are all original photographs taken by me from travels around the world , and right here at home in my flower and vegetable garden.

Poem Therapy December 7, 2011: My, My, My - Charles Bernstein

My/My/My
Charles Bernstein

Count these number of things you call mine. This is the distance between you and enlightenment.
—Swami Satchidananda.

(for Jenny)

my pillow
my shirt
my house
my supper
my tooth
my money
my kite
my job
my bagel
my spatula
my blanket
my arm
my painting
my fountain pen
my desk
my room
my turn
my book
my hopelessness
my wallet
my print
my sock
my toe
my stamp
my introduction
my luggage
my plan
my mistake
my monkey
my friend
my penis
my anger
my expectation
my pencil
my pain
my poster
my fear
my luggage tag
my eyes
my rainment
my wash
my opinion
my fat
my sleeplessness
my love
my basket
my lunch
my game
my box
my drawer
my cup
my longing
my blotter
my distraction
my underpants
my papers
my wish
my despair
my erasure
my plantation
my candy
my thoughtfulness
my forbearance
my gracelessness
my courage
my crying
my hat
my pocket
my dirt
my body
my sex
my scarf
my solidarity
my hope
my spelling
my smile
my gaze
my helplessness
my quilt
my reply
my enemy
my records
my letter
my gait
my struggle
my spirit
my cut
my thorn
my demise
my dream
my plate
my pit
my hollow
my blindness
my clinging
my projection
my teacher
my homework
my housework
my responsibility
my guilt
my relaxation
my boat
my crew
my peanut butter
my mill
my man
my hopelessness
my fooling
my sweet
my terror
my programme
my judgement
my disguise
my distress
my ladle
my soup
my mother
my basin
my pleat
my cheddar
my ownership
my enmity
my thought
my encyclopedia
my property
my formula
my infidelity
my discretion
my decision
my delusion
my deduction
my derision
my destitution
my delinquincy
my belt
my eroica
my junk
my jealousy
my remorse
my strength
my vision
my world
my fantasy
my anger
my determination
my refusal
my commitment
my insanity
my verbosity
my austerity
my androgeny
my defiance
my insistence
my emastication
my arousal
my mystification
my obscuraration
my ejaculation
my prostration
my wontonness
my cigarette
my belief
my uncertainty
my cat
my penetration
my insight
my obsolescence
my sleeping bag
my temptation
my dedication
my ball
my court
my kidney
my razor
my way
my tissue
my inadequacy
my own
my recorder
my song
my knack
my perception
my will
my canoe
my billiard ball
my content
my cassette
my voice
my sight
my knowledge
my bowels
my beard
my child
my lethargy
my nerve
my incredulity
my banana
my ink
my refrigerator
my car
my change
my pupil
my hair
my tongue
my tenderness
my star
my skill
my persona
my popularity
my pickle
my pinto
my window
my remembrance
my munificance
my country
my fragility
my visit
my longevity
my curtness
my incomparability
my sarcasm
my sincerity
my bed
my bed table
my table top
my bar mitzvah
my laughter
my scorn
my heartache
my sandwich
my call
my loss
my wit
my charm
my jest
my undoing
my practice
my piano lesson
my rage
my toe
my tattoo
my turtledove
my fly swatter
my vest
my notebook
my pocketbook
my sketchbook
my repulsion
my tea cup
my taste
my bag
my handbag
my bike
my jay
my roll
my dear
my milk
my closet
my slacks
my hoist
my ennui
my analysis
my language
my fortune
my vagueness
my mint
my limit
my import
my inference
my affectation
my affection
my insolence
my solitude
my memory
my bottle
my history
my ability
my adobe
my mission
my likeness
my misery
my solipsism
my omission
my regression
my opera
my penicillin
my resentment
my future
my understanding
my apricots
my holiday
my umbrella
my favorite
my mood
my side
my seat
my figment
my contour
my sky
my rainbow
my god
my mask
my reflection
my blessing
my light
my time
my epoxy
my drum
my hammer
my grease
my sand
my story
my top
my past
my mark
my depth
my garden
my silence
my speech
my selfishness
my hunger
my allowance
my letter
my massage
my derision
my epoch
my space
my land
my plentitude
my perversity
my poverty
my transgression
my exultation
my lack
my lustre
my beatude
my remission
my encantation
my white
my pulse
my creation
my grace
my object
my sum
my contumely
my gloom
my idea
my chart
my circumference
my gravity
my polarity
my distance
my eyelid
my planting
my separation
my id
my art
my death
my stand
my preparation
my heart
my life
my impression
my grave
my graciousness
my marrow
my heaven
my appearance
my olive oil
my flake
my self
my porridge
my mind
my function
my nakedness
my illumination
my freedom
my charity
my rose
my pallour
my pomp
my pajamas
my pity
my posing
my prayer
my dawn
my ocean
my tide
my underarm
my spectacle
my drifting
my ground
my body
my angels
my worship
my dew
my hobbey horse
my customer
my bread
my faith
my lies
my care
my restlessness
my sunflower
my weariness
my age
my existence
my sense
my backache
my pie
my thanks
my numbness
my sweeping
my inspiration
my token
my pond
my brillo
my squint
my pound
my rock
my critique
my aplomb
my portrait
my view
my rocking chair
my sisters
my demands
my gumdrops
my word

When I came across this poem, it hit my one, last nerve. Did you notice that selfishness is missing? If it were possible to revise and add one more line, I'd insert my selfishness between my graciousness/my marrow, to read as:

my graciousness
my selfishness
my marrow

We humans are a difficult lot. We are cabaple of thoughtfulness, gracelessness, courage, sincerity, insincerity, all at once. I like the position of selfishness above marrow, so the proximity of the two connect figuratively, alluding that the essence of who we are, who we really are, is metaphorically housed in our bones.

Here's the thing, everybody needs to be a little selfish, put themselves first, worry about their own needs before they attend to other's. You know, put on your own oxygen mask before you worry about the person in the seat next to you. Generally, when someone calls you selfish, it means you're not doing what they want you to do.If more than one person tells you you're selfish, well, you may want to consider you just may be. You may berate yourself for being selfish, and you may be correct, but is it situational, or systemic? Honestly, when you are in pain, your pain is the only pain there is, which reminds me of a slam poet from HBO's Def' Poetry series, who recited, my pain, my pain, my pain, is worse than your pain.

Sometimes, being selfish is liberating and absolutely healthy.

Putting yourself first, while prioritizing and considering other's needs and wants, is not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is selfishness. The I've got mine, you get yours. The mymymymemememineminemine.

Selfishness. The word is an eleven letter abstract noun. You can't experience it with your senses, but you know without any doubt what it is, and what it feels like to be on the receiving end of its ugly embrace. This abstract idea, this state of being, is the death knell in relationship. The proverbial last nail in the coffin.

If selfishness has taken up residence in your bones, get ready, because one is the loneliest number. Think not? Consider: no one wants to work on your team, that this is the second time you and your boss have had the talk,or if you're the boss, employees greet you with fixed smiles and little eye contact, transfer to other departments in alarming numbers, that it seems like hardly anyone is returning your calls, emails, texts, following your tweets, or is liking you on Facebook, that your spouse has inexplicably turned to stone, that only your dog is happy to see you.

No, the world isn't against you. The world no longer is inclined to indulge you.

All is not lost. Perhaps you should write a poem. Begin it with your.
It could read like this:

Your, Your, Your
your pillow
your shirt
your house
your supper
your tooth
your money
your kite
your job
your bagel
your spatula
your blanket
your arm
your painting
your fountain pen
your desk
your room
your turn

One Sentence: December 6, 2011

I am surprised the last straw came this evening, disguised as an abstraction.