Pulling it all together

My wife somewhere in a nursing home in Waterloo, Illinois has put on thirty pounds since she was admitted and has become a regular Florence Nightingale among the elderly residents of the joint! I am relieved, I miss her prescence here but where she is I guese is a whole lot better than I can hope for and in a way I have made the right decission in sending her home to be with her mother. I was informed by a cousin of hers that she is cheerful and well settled in the environment but when carrying a converstaion regarding her past she slips off into her own world. We are far from her memory and drifitng ever further from the sound of it.
My two children here are back from their short school vacation spent on the East coast with their friends there and from the look of things I can say that my mind is less pressured by worries of their well being. My son in the US has sent me some money of which most have gone into framing my works and a friend in San francisco sent me 100 US dollars which helps to keep me financially secured for the next few weeks after I that I will be getting my pay check so financially i am doing fine for now. Looks like the show will happen with alot of help from friends and family, both here and abroad. A friend in Japan too has sent me 100 US dollars when she found out that I needed some assistance so all in all I am fortunate and blessed to have those people who more than care about my well being and that of my family. The success of my show is dedicated to them.
My show is dedicated to my one time friends Josh and Shrsten who at one time used to live on Haight and Ashbury in a tiny basement apartment. Sometime in 1985-6 I was allowed to sleep on their even tinier kitchen floor helf stuck under their kitchen tablre brcause I was homeless. The show is for Will Harris who allowed me to work at H&H Shipservices as a sweeper and later Tank Cutter and Yard Suprintendant out of trust and understanding. They changed my life, they gave me the breaks I needed and the rest I made things happen. I am thankful for my friends at the green Gulch farm and Zen Center where I spent two years of my life recoveinrg from an illness and later becoming a avert Zen student. I am thankful for the friendship and kind understanding afforded me by all the ladies in my relationships before i married for the second time in my life for they were my great teachers in life, love and what it takes to be need and be needed. What it is that makes a man a man, loved and hated by those shared their lives with me. I raise my hands in a humble Gasho! to them all and for better of worse I was their student as they were mine. The short times we shared albeit in happiness or in bitterness were part and parcel of our lot this path of our had to offer. I hope that we are all much richer and wiser from what we had experienced and ecclectically have picked out the best that lessons that we had learned and moved on toward greater ahcievements.
We live a borrowed life where nothing is permanent and everything save our souls is transcient for when our time is up we are gone and nothing that we do or dont really matters. It is while we are alive that we strive to do our best to be of use to life, the world aroung us and the people whose life we have touched otherwise our lives are as meaningless as occupying space and consuming the air with nothing to justify for it. To be able to give and receive, to ba able to share and care selflessly is something we humans has almost forgotten in this material life of ours. The Buddha said that giving and receiving are of great virtues expecially when there is no giver or receiver to be acknowledged of. i have asked around for my friends help against all my principles and especially my pride and for this reason in itself i have asked that I may forget my pride and accept the help that others can offer me. I am very happy and fortunate that there those in my life who are willing to come forward and give me their help and support most graciuosly as there are thoise who would judge me for my weaknesses most unforgivingly. This is life, this is what the human factor in life is all about in order for us to overcome our age old sicknesses of Greed, Hate and Dellusions.