Taking a Time-out for Self-Care #amwriting

Like most people, the shootings over the past few days have stunned me. I didn’t watch the videos because I’m not interested in adding real violence to all the fake violence in my head. But I can imagine the scenes based upon the descriptions and still photos I’ve encountered. And I have no doubt that these events will wriggle through my subconscious and be expressed in my work over the coming year or so.

So much unrelenting horror leaves a mark, on our collective culture and on our individual psyches. Whatever your personal beliefs, no one can take in this kind of thing day after day and be unchanged by it. Fear has been a hallmark of our society for over a decade now, and it looks increasingly like we haven’t hit rock bottom yet. Fear Muslims. Fear the police. Fear black people. Fear the different, the Other. Fear Them.

I don’t particularly have a use for living in that kind of fear. (I do have social anxieties, but that’s not relevant to this.) Carpe the heck outta the diem. Because, as has been made all to clear over the past few days, the past month, the past year, the past decade, life is fleeting and can end in an eyeblink of someone else’s psychotic rage.

Having said that, I present a selection of the newer additions to my garden. Because I like lilies and flowers are a simple reminder of the beauty in the world.