Sunset — Image by kenne
— Walt Whitman
Easter Is Gone, But Not The Bunny — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— kenne
‘Blackout’ — Image by kenne
On an early November Saturday morning
I got up to go to the bathroom.
Closing the door and turning on the light
Instead of light, everything went black —
No warning, it was a blackout.
I remember hearing the noise from
My body hitting the linen closet door.
I can’t tell you how long I laid
On the floor before awakening —
It didn’t seem very long.
Never having experienced a blackout,
I set up, not sure of what had happened.
My upper body was in a lot of pain.
Everything seemed clear, sitting for a moment.
Experiencing no dizziness, I stood up,
Shook my thing, wash my hands
And calmly went back to bed
Not disturbing Joy, still sound asleep.
By daylight, I was experiencing in a lot of pain
In my left side ribs and right shoulder.
I got up carefully, putting on my watch
Before going to the kitchen to make coffee.
Even with all the pain, I was in denial.
Trying to act as if nothing had happened
I poured a mug of coffee before going
To my computer in our study.
It wasn’t long before Joy came in.
She sensed something was wrong,
Bombarding me with a lot of questions.
Maybe she had heard the nose, but
Wrote it off as part of a bad dream.
We discussed going to the ER,
Deciding to take a wait and see.
The following Tuesday, I saw
My primary care doctor who
Ask why I didn’t go to the ER?
After examining me, he
Prescribed physical therapy,
Which began the following week.
He also prescribed my seeing
A cardiologist, which took weeks.
After wearing a heart monitor for a month
And several other tests, the diagnosis;
My heart had a conductivity problem.
The heart monitor showed that on occasion
My heart rate would be in the 20s and 30s.
The cardiologist prescribed a pacemaker
And as of ten days ago, I now have a
Boston Scientific pacemaker in my chest.
I now know more about heart conductivity
Than I ever wanted to know, having been
Given a lot of does and don’t
For the next several weeks.
The pacemaker will keep my heart rate
At a more normal rate creating a less
Likelihood of experiencing another
flatline moment in the future.
The pacemaker should last ten years,
Which is the approximate life of the battery.
My heart doesn’t have a mechanical problem,
However, it has an electrical problem.
If an knife is an extension of my hand
A pacemaker is an extension of my heart.
It is not meant to enhance but to help the
Heart function correctly in the usual sense.
Blurring the lines between the heart
And an implanted device in my chest
Allowing a sense of wholeness despite
Physical changes over time —
We see our existence is as a whole
However, we are collections of parts that,
In truth, are not always working together.
— kenne
This is my pacemaker.
Kemah Boardwalk At Night (March 14, 2003) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Everything comes back,
in the end,
having meaning and value
only if I give it meaning and value.
Great art exist
only because I bring it to life,
actualized according to my purpose.
— kenne
Photo-Artistry by kenne
Flatspine Stickseed — Image by kenne
― from Song of a Nature Lover by
Oleander Blossoms — Tiled Gallery by kenne
— Leontyne Price
View from the Top, Near Barnum Rock On Mt. Lemmon (10/05/12) — Image by kenne
View Above Hutch’s Pool In the Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
— John P. Milton
Sunset Over The Tucson Mountains — Image by kenne
— Ganga White
Tourist In Other People’s Reality (1974) — a caricature of kenne
In 1974 an artist friend I worked with at a publishing company drew this caricature of me trying to include all the things he felt identified with me. For a long time, it hung on the wall in my office(s). One day I used a sharpy and wrote on the glass of the framed poster, “I’m a tourist in other people’s reality,” which sums up my life. I borrowed the line from Susan Sontag’s book (On Photography), “The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.”
— kenne
Pinned on the wall in the drawing is the Edmund Burke quote:
“No men can act with effect who do not act in concert;
no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence;
no men can act with confidence who are not bound together
with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.”
Catalina Foothills Sunset — Image by kenne
I went to the [desert] because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
— Henry David Thoreau
nearlywildcamping.org
— kenne
Rose Canyon Lake On Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize.
If you go off into a far, far forest
and get very quiet,
you’ll come to understand that
you’re connected with everything.”
– Alan Watts
Sunset After the Rains — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Desert Globemallow — Images by kenne
— kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 