I am an artist. In real life I am an artist. I create stuff that people look at. I usually work in a medium that is other than what you are looking at right now. But I have created a few websites. This is one of them. The others are commercial or for a nonprofit or for fun.

If you visit Estrangements.com, you are visiting something that is created for you, the visitor, to look at, read, gather information, interpret, compare with your own experience, and do whatever you personally need to do with it. You came here for a reason. When you leave, you remember your experience and it registers with you in your own unique way.

When you come here, you bring to the table your own background,
history, experience, stage in life, pain, opinions, education,
memories. You see these pages filtered through all of that. How you
feel will be unique to you. What judgments you form will not be in
agreement with everyone who visits. It is as if you are looking at a
painting. You may like it, dislike it, be apathetic, be furious, be
sympathetic. Everyone’s reaction is their own. Chances are that you
will feel something.

When you come to Estrangements.com, you do not have full
information. For all you know, the entire story told here could be a
fiction. You have an incomplete picture. You come here and your mind
fills in the blanks. You form judgments. You make conclusions. When you
have a question, you sometimes provide answers by yourself.

Whomever you are, your reaction is affected by whomever you are. You
fill in the blanks in your own way. You become an interpreter.

When you look at art, your reaction is influenced by whether you
understand certain things or not. One year you might see a work of art
one way. Another year you might see it a different way. This is one of
the interesting things about art. You look at it and then you try to
understand it and your understanding is affected by what is inside
yourself.

As an artist, when I create a work of art, I want to have an impact
on the viewer, This is the same whether I am using words or pictures or
another medium. I want you to leave with something. I can’t control
what it is that you leave with. Everyone will leave with what is
uniquely their own reaction.

There are those who think that if I take estrangements.com down,
that I would have a chance of reconciliation with my daughter. They
came here and that is the thought that they left with as well as
judgments of this website. That is okay. That is their opinion. I am
glad that they visited. They may remember this website in years to
come. Their opinion may remain the same. It may change. They took
something with them. I am happy that they did, no matter what it is.

I would not take this website down on the chance that my daughter
would reconcile with me if I did. I can think of a number of reasons
why that would not work for me. It isn’t important to me to list them
or to argue with anyone who thinks I should take it down or to worry
about their opinion of me.

This is my artistic expression. It is important to me. I know that a
lot of people have visited this website over four years. I am sure each
had their own reaction to it. This is my online creation. Negative
reactions are as good as positive ones for an artist.

One thing I have never liked is unsolicited advice whether it came
from relatives, friends or strangers. I don’t know about you but
unsolicited advice is irritating to me. So many people feel free to
give it. They don’t see it as a boundary violation. They think that
they are being wise and probably thoughtful. I think that they can mind
their own business.

On the other hand I understand the temptation to give unsolicited
advice as there have been times that I thought that I was wiser than
someone else and I have made judgments and given advice which was not
welcome. Restraining myself got easier as I got older.

This website will continue.

Snicks