“Comforter“- At the Principle Gallery
There are so many bad things taking place in this world where you see people fleeing for their lives with sometimes minutes to decide what things they can grab and take with them. You see it with the Afghan refugees who are most likely forever leaving their homeland to the folks now evacuating before the incoming hurricane down in Louisiana and Mississippi or those who flee the wildfires out in the west. They run fearing the worst but still having hope that they might soon return to find little or no damage. My nephew and his family recently experienced such a thing with the wildfires out in California. They were spared by winds that were favorable to their location but their neighbors in the opposite direction were not so fortunate.
These scenes make me wonder what I would grab if I only had moments to choose what mattered to me. Paperwork, I guess. You know, stuff I might need to prove who I am or what I possessed before whatever I am fleeing came to bear. Perhaps some photos. A change of clothes. Our pets, of course.
But beyond that, I don’t know. I look around here in the studio and there is a wide variety of paintings, artwork, books and other things that mean a lot to me.
But would losing them or losing my home destroy me?
I doubt it. I want to say no but until something like that happens to you you can’t be absolutely sure of your reaction in the moment.
But I have been at the end of my rope before and know how quickly one can adapt to the circumstances at hand. You learn to savor simpler things and experiences that are often overlooked when things are going well. There’s even a sense of freedom that comes in such moments because you don’t feel encumbered by your responsibility to those things that you watched over and maintained before.
I’m not saying it would be a good situation. It would be awful to have to go through something like that, to be forced out of your home and your way of living by events that out of your control. No, I am saying that if it were to happen, that while it would no doubt be a struggle to move on, the fact that I knew I could persevere as I am would be enough to sustain the effort.
Like the song from Hair says: I got life.
And that, in itself, is reassuring.
So, with all hope for and best wishes going out to those before the storms or fires or to those who flee the violence and death of their homeland, here’s this week’s Sunday morning music. It’s Nina Simone‘s performance of her memorable mashup of two songs from Hair— Ain’t Got No and I Got Life.
Powerful stuff and something to bear in mind if ever you have to run from oncoming disaster. Let’s hope that we don’t ever have to do such a thing.
Redtree Times 