your thoughts mirror my own as I have never surrendered my gaze nor dropped a single word or line from our cast missives (and to give measure to this statement, I have deleted every other comment or conversation because it had little life and less cause for contemplation- where as the exchanges you shared with me have gifted me with the occasional pause and left me with the hope that you are well and voraciously creating). I have been a rather absent creator of images. No painting, drawing, or photos have been born of me, consider it a long, hungering look paused heavily within, scratching for truth and understanding and ultimately the creative passion to speak and thus to create. Much of my life was altered on 9.14.06, when my mother, a day before her birthday, succumbed to the clutches of ALS (also known as Lou Gerhigs disease), a nerve destroying illness that took her life. Since then much of my time has been spent digesting the 2 years that I witness this illness ravage its effect on my mother's body and its liberation of her strength of spirit and of compassion. I have spent much of my time attempting to create hope by venturing out on long journeys on the back of a bike on behalf of charities and when I'm not working or pursuing such ends, I devote my time to continuing to develop my martial art skills (noteably escrima, kali, tomiki aikido, muay thai, and Iki) to potentially use these arts to further empower and protect those who can't defend themselves. If you are interested, just a few days ago I launched a small skiff on the puddle of the web in the form of a weblog pledged to an attempt to unify my community in the fight against ALS. The site is called alswarriorohio@wordpress.com
With this I must retire and promise more words later, as I have had little food or sleep and too much work and even more work ahead. Know that you are fondly thought of and I wish you the best in your creative and heartfelt endeavors. Sweet cascading dreams, S.