Memoir Monday, March 21, 1962

 I decided to stick with the 58-62 block thru the end of May. After that I will jump ahead into  the 1962-66 period. That was the real cowboy girl time or as I name it in my semi formal memoir book effort, My Four Year Sentence. I kind of sold myself into indentured servitude and much of that time was not pretty. I learned a lot and basically the person I still am was fired and fixed by the effects of those days. During the teens I think few of us are 'finished'; it takes moving into the adult world in one way or another to learn who we are meant to be.

March 21, 1962

Another day--they go on and on one after another, one like another. I got up and went to school. I spent my study hall reading about Shelley, Keats and Byron. They were a weird bunch of characters. The other classes were ok. I didn’t do very well with my oils today. Oh well, no me importa. No mail for me. Still no letter from Jose. No me importa. I can say it but do I mean it? Will someone someday publish my poems and letters and write papers about me? An odd thought that. But no, I don’t think so. But then who can say. Yo no se. There is much that I don’t know. I am lonely tonight and sad for some reason. Maybe I am just tired. I know I am tired of school, and all the silly people. 

The dim light at the end of the long, often dark tunnel of school was becoming visible. It still seemed a distant dream  and perhaps unattainable but day by day, like identical beads on a long cord, I went through it.

For my first senior term paper in English, I chose to write about three poets that rather caught my fancy. I found it energizing to do comparisons and contrasts and used that ploy often in essays and other academic writing. LOL, 'weird' was almost too mild for those three guys! They were definitely 'bohemian' in their life styles, politics and personas. Byron perhaps the most flamboyant but all three way out of step with their peers. That aspect appealed to me also.

Jose was at that time my favorite pen pal and he seemed to go on many trips and disappear for several weeks. I'd get perturbed not hearing from him and sometimes peeved but would always forgive him when another of his very long, incense scented and multi-colored letters showed up. I still wonder if the persona that appeared in those letters was real or a total fiction. One never knows, even as the profiles and messages from today's on-line dating sites may or may not be true. That being said, one can 'know' a person for  a long time only to suddenly see them in a different way and learn things that are very disturbing. Any relationship is a risk.

When I was nineteen and still a student I did have dreams or maybe delusions of becoming 'famous' and even perhaps rich. Like many dreams those faded with time and the reality of life. Today I am marginally infamous perhaps and maybe a few hundred people have read my poetry, fiction and or blog posts  but I never even got close to the 'rich'. Truthfully I have lived on the edge of poverty all my days and at times well into that state. 

For some reason I said nothing about the weather that day nor about my ubiquitous 'chores' and the animals. Mostly both were such a big part of my day to day life. And other than Jose I did not mention any 'handsome heroes' or even 'former fancies'. Still, my 'romance addiction' was a constant part of my thoughts and inspiration for many wishes and dreams.  It took many decades to finally "get clean" and let that all go. My current addiction may be nostalgia to some degree and a few fairly passionate interests that have followed me for most of the days and years between then and now with a few added..

Just a couple of random photos from about that time so the bare words are not too dull. The first was that winter and one of several taken at the same time. Next I am with my friend Evelyn  Morales (then Graves) and we were shortly going to go riding. She had borrowed a pair of my levis (we called all blue jeans levis in that era) since she did not wear them. This was probably a year or two earlier. We were sitting on the saw horse which saw a lot of use making long wood into stove length to heat the house. And last, working down at the land we had acquired below Bridgeport on the west bank of the Verde. We had surveyed it and laid out the corners and were starting to mark the boundaries with posts, preparatory to fencing--which was never actually finished. (Don't ask, long sad tale)