#SOL16: Tell Them We Ate Love

from my art journal 6.14.16 We Ate Love (gesso, acrylic, collage papers, archival ink, pan pastel)

This morning I had to turn off the radio.  I had to.  I also skipped the Facebook posts that focused on the dead in Orlando--that identified those beautiful dead boys and girls, men and women.  Some just 19 years old.  Some just 20 years old.  Just a few years older than my own son.  Having lost Rob recently, my ears are tuned to hear and record the shocked-voice of the family members who were interviewed on NPR.  Months from now someone will tell them what they said for they will have no memory of it.

None.

Shock insulates and that is perhaps a small mercy.

Instead, this afternoon I painted in my art journal. I thought about those who survived--about their luck, their courage, their will.  I wanted to celebrate those who live.  I kept thinking about a few lines from a poem by Shokry Eldaly, "A History That Has Not Yet Come to Pass."  The opening lines resonated and allowed me to make a small tribute to the survivors.