The Wall That Heals
I took off for the weekend last month
just to try & recall the whole year
all of the faces & all of the places
just wonderin where it all disappeared
I took off this am to see THE TRAVELING VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL.
A half scale replica of the wall in Wash DC engraved with 58, 202 names of men and women all casualties of Viet Nam. Something was calling to me yesterday to go observe and photograph the catharsis of painful emotions of all those directly affected by the loss of loved ones. The wall is on a journey across America with the stated purpose of their brochure.
" Speaking, of the loss of men and women, --- our parents, children, neighbors, and friends. The VVM has helped veterans from WWI to Desert Storm find healing and a powerful connection with the common military experience. Non veterans, from school children to parents and grandparents, find in the Wall a deeper appreciation for their sacrifice, service, and courage, and draw from the experience lessons for today's life and life in the future."
The Wall That Heals offers another powerful gift to the nation: and opportunity for the souls enshrined on the Memorial to journey back to the places they called home, to exist among friends and family once more not in the monumental city, but in the comfort and place of familiar surroundings."
As I loaded my Minolta with film and mounted the 600mm mirror lens I caught through my peripheral vision a couple that was sitting in a park bench somber and introspective. I positioned myself and started shooting, first was an older Mexican couple accompanied by a vet that was assisting them find a name, probably their son. Next I saw an old man that was all alone crying as he ran his fingers over a name, I suspect his son. Then came a long haired vet dressed in his soldier greens, I zoomed in to catch his facial expression and I saw was a stoic nonemotional expression, I thought to myself he was probably a sarge or a captain. If only I could hear what these people are thinking or feeling, what stories they would tell.
It's these changes in latitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
with all of my running & all of my cunning
If I wasn't crazy I would go insane
As I continued to observe now through my wide angle lens, I saw all the diversity of people that was now becoming a larger crowd. My mosaic mind now took off into a different latitude, I wondered of all the casualties of the Watchtower. First I saw my lovely wife she is a prisoner of the Watchtower (POW) by her own choosing. I wish I could make a WALL THAT HEALS to take to every town and village around the world for former JWs to be instantly healed from the pain and suffering from all the atrocities they experienced as casualties of the Watchtower.
If it suddenly ended tomorrow
I could somehow adjust to the fall
Good times & riches and son of a bitches
I've seen more than I can recall
I now went up close to the wall, there were flowers, a full bottle of vodka, pictures, and letters all lying at the foot of the wall. One little old lady asked me if I could help her find a name, I asked her if it was her son, she responded that it was a friend of hers. Hmmmmm I wondered ..... if only these engraved names could speak the stories they would tell.
Many I'm sure would say that God damned McNamara and Johnson sent us to our death. I wonder what casualties of the Watchtower would say?
Oh but yesterdays are over my shoulder
So I can't look back for too long
There's just too much to see waiting in front of me
And I don't think that I can go wrong
How true, for many of these people this is the last sentence to finish a chapter in their lives. As I look back at this year it also represents a closed chapter in my life. Back in January I would have never expected to be here physically and metaphorically. This is the second most painful year of my life, but yesterdays are over my shoulder. I can look back at the painful experiences as falls I took learning to ride the bicycle of life. I know it happened but there is no pain in the memory. God if feels so good to be a freeman from the slavery of an ideal gone bad!!! ......... I think about all the others that have not progressed beyond the storyline of being Watchtower victims.
About this time the lady that I saw when I got here approaches me and asks me if I am a freelance photographer. I respond in the affirmative. She tells me her husband is a vet that is still suffering from the aftermath of his experience. I can see his physiology saying " I am deeply hurt but I just want to be left alone,............... no one can understand". I wish I could just reach out to him and tell him that there is hope for him and that he can reconstruct his life so he can have a higher quality of life.
With these changes in latitudes
Changes in attitudes nothing remains quite the same
with all of our running & all of our cunning
If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane
If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane
How true, life is crazy if you try to make rational sense out of it. I think back to how simple life used to be for me being a JW, I had all these rapid fire answers to any question. I loved to flex my spiritual muscle with people at the doors, what an idiot I must have appeared to the householders. If my friends could see me now what would they say. I think they would say I had lost my mind. Thank God I did lose my mind that was a POW and now I can think freely and speak freely without fear of being reprimanded by the spiritual MP.
Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms
Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brother in arms
I start to put away my cameras and lenses. I take one final look at all these people that came together one Sunday morning to remember their loved ones, and to experience the Wall that Heals.
Victor Escalante
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
William James
May 26, 2001
Letter from the Victor of 2001 to the Victor of 1985
Victor I have traveled into the year 2001 and I have returned to tell you what awaits you. You are about to journey on a path that will test all your beliefs, many will be destroyed and this will cause great turmoil and pain but you will survive and be a stronger and better person for it. You will learn many things firsthand, there is no better preparation and your experience will help you in helping many others in your future.
Right now just leaving the Watchtower you feel confident and optimistic, this is the calm before the storm. You will have to sell off all your material possessions due to economic hardship inflicted by JWs, these you will be able to repurchase in time. This is actually good for you because all JW associations you have to these will be gone. You will come so close to losing your house that on the day prior to it being auctioned on the courthouse steps you will raise the money to avoid it. Your former elder brother in law will offer to give you one thousand dollars for equity of twenty thousand dollars. He even believes that he is doing you a great favor by helping you to retain a good credit rating.
You will have to put one of your dogs to sleep because you cannot afford his medical treatment and you will have to give the other one away when you move to another city.
They both feel your pain and feelings of impotence but they are your teachers of how not to dwell too much on the past. One goes to dog heaven the other is cared by people who appreciate him; they are both in a better place.
Your former wife will have many regrets for how she betrayed you with the elders. This is her karmic path she has chosen and her trials and tribulations are also part of the divine plan. Your prayers to be happy are being answered at this time just not in the way you expected them to. You will follow your bliss and inspire others to do the same. The elders you despise now are Gods helpers in sending you on your path, bless them and thank them. One will drop of a heart attack in about a year; he pays with his life for his decisions he makes. The other two don’t fare too well either, and one of the 3 cos who df you in your judicial meeting himself will be dfed for adultery.
Things are not what they appear to you, this is all an illusion you constructed. Losing this illusion will lead to great disillusioning accept it as a lesson.
You will lose your integrity and do things that you regret; this is part of you redefining who you are and who you are not. In time you will be able to use this experience to also help others who struggle with holes in their integrity.
All the necessary teachers and guides await you, all you have to do is seek them. In some of your darkest nights of despair and despondency they will seek you. God has not forsaken you and he has not dfed you.
You cannot do anything to change your destiny; this is set in place by the decisions you made in years past. Go forward.
"All men must die, few men really live" ............Brave heart