I didn’t have a father. No one told me how to treat women. I saw my mother choosing men, who were tall, good-looking, seemingly model men, often drunks, all broken and damaged in some way. But, she was an artist. She didn’t work. She simply said that she would not be alone from her children, since her mother put her in a foster home because she had to raise three children. My mother’s father died when she was two. Her mother died when she was 19 and my mother wasn’t but two hours away and her mother died alone. My mother vowed never to be far from her children. I watched her take her last breath, my sister came ten minutes later although she was there before I got there in the morning. I took my time. I knew something was going down. My mother waited for me. That raspy voice, the liquid in her throat from drowning in her own pneumonia. She had been starving herself to death. She never wanted to be in a nursing home and she saw how much we were able to help her. I knew she wanted to be home with me. I lived as she did in quiet contemplation. But, with her Alzheimer’s she would leave pots on the burner, the bathtub running. She would walk away and not find her way back. She fell in the tub because she would pass out. She never drank water. There were a number of hospital visits, where they would have to fill her with water via IV. I understand the sacrifice my mother made. She has all of my heart.

This financial aspect is deeply ingrained in me. As an artist too, I feel grossly incompetent. This is why I have problems with women. I choose those who are needy and financially strapped, but who are also beautiful and elegant. My mother was a runway and television model. My relationships are short. I believe men should never harm a woman and that is why I fear having children with one. I have worked for the prosecutors office, where the office was the first in the country to dismiss the female partner’s often protection of her abuser. When abuse was discovered and the culprit was determined, the men were arrested and charged. Wives and partners could not protect them. The office knew that abuse would simply continue. I helped women with TROs. And I knew of men, who thought they owned women and there were women who were killed by them. Yes, we need to fix this. But, I think the economic pressures are telling. I think first we must create an economy that assures that people are finding their purpose in life that reflects who they are and not how they might fit in with someone’s menial or ill-suited plans. Then those purposes must be supported financially until the person becomes secure and yet always allow them to fulfill other purposes they may discover. In other words, we must find out what people are doing in their spare time and develop that. I say that because if I am left alone, I simply read, thus the validity of the literary industry. I make art and am currently remodeling my house and thus that industry. I consume food, and thus that industry. I believe that Marie Kondo is on to something revolutionary. We need to assess what we love and discard everything else. I wear the same pair of jeans day-after-day. I change them for another exact type when it’s time. I visit cafes. I write, I read. I will go back to photography once I have finished with the place. To writing books. To painting. To designing housing. To running. The women I have loved and want to love are distant satisfications. I made mistakes not choosing the good ones. But, I am fireworks based.