will you forget?

every year it has been a tradition of ours to go to the local healing field. they have them all over the country--if you haven't been to one, go. it is an incredible experience.

i was glad to see (and overhear) that there were other families there teaching their kids about 9/11 and the thousands who died. it is important to us that our children know, and that we as a family never forget that day.

we live in a suburb of one of the largest cities in our state. it is only about a half hour drive or so to get downtown. yesterday morning i headed downtown to attend a baby shower for a friend. between our apartment and their house i passed at least twenty american flags. take a guess at how many were half-mast. TWO. in the largest city in our state, there were two flags half-mast. i was appalled--disgusted, even. it has been a short nine years since 9/11/01 and already people are forgetting. the two flags that were half-mast? the local national guard office and a grocery store. on the way home i took the long way to our apartment and drove past the office. our complex is pretty big. no surprise that the flag was all the way up. i called the front office and told them i was a resident and noticed the flag was not half-mast. the girl goes, "oh yeah, i guess today is september 11th. i'll call maintenance and have them put it down." really? i couldn't believe that. this attitude of complacency is what makes me so unhappy. what a sad way to honor all those people who lost their lives, the soldiers who have been killed since, and even america as a whole.

i can guarantee that i will never forget. fifty years from now i will still get tears in my eyes, put my own flag at half mast, and honor the men and women who died for our country. i will still remember that september morning, watching planes fly into buildings, towers collapsing, people running--and feeling afraid and helpless. i will never forget where i was, what i was doing, how i felt.

will you forget?

i will never forget

yesterday hubby and i were talking about how we couldn't believe it is the eighth anniversary of september 11. it does not seem like it's been that long, and yet i think about how my life has changed in the past eight years and it seems forever ago.

i was fifteen years old in september of 2001. for some reason, school had a late start that day. i was in my bedroom listening to a cd and getting ready to leave when my dad came downstairs. he told me that i needed to go upstairs right away, there was something i needed to see. at first i thought i was in trouble. until i walked upstairs and watched the news in my parents' bedroom.

i was shocked, and didn't really know how to react. as i watched the news the second tower was hit. a few minutes later i was walking out my front door on my way to school.

the whole day was spent watching the news. every class i went to the tv was on, we all sat watching the footage being played over and over again. i learned of the attack on the pentagon and also of flight 93. i was horrified. i was appalled. i was scared and unsure of what the future held for our country, for me, for my family. but i did not cry that day.

looking back it is blantantly obvious to me that i did not fully understand the implications of that day. as an adult i am much more affected by it. i've probably teared up at least five or six times already today.

i will never forget the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives that day. i will never forget the courage of the first responders, who were running in to the towers as everyone else was running out. i will never forget the way our nation was united in the days following. i will never forget the sacrifices made. this picture was taken last year at a local healing field. (there are many across the country. look here to see where....if there is one near you i would definitely recommend going.) hubby and i go every year. along with the flags for every life lost on september 11 are flags for every soldier from our state who has lost their life since in the war on terror. every year i cry, i pray, and i thank god for my country and the opportunity i have to live here with my family.

last year i witnessed one of the most beautiful things i have seen in my life. there was a woman with a bouquet of flowers, kneeling at the base of a flag....crying and praying for her soldier. attached to the flag was a yellow ribbon and a card with the soldier's name, rank, area of service, and the date he died. i cannot even imagine what she must have been thinking and feeling. it is an image that will never leave my mind. her soldier gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, for our way of life, for our safety and freedom.

from the national september 11 monument at ground zero:

"May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance."

and may we all remember to be grateful for our lives, our families, our country, and all of the freedoms which we take for granted every day.

god bless america, and god bless our american heroes.

color as an emotion

i like to consider myself a creative person. unfortunately that creativity comes in spurts. some days i have a hundred ideas floating around in my head, so many that i couldn't possibly write them all down. let alone fulfill them. the next day i have absolutely nothing--and i've forgotten those hundred ideas from the day before.

my creative blocks gave me a lot of trouble in high school. i had some teachers that were none-too-happy by the fact that half of the time i either doodled, wrote notes, did other homework, or slept in class. with the exception of my ap art teacher. he was totally cool with it, because he knew the next week i'd think up, create, and finish 12 new pieces. more than the rest of the class combined.

this teacher was one of my favorites. he was a little odd, as most art teachers (ahem, artists...just look at me) are. his art was odd, too. very interesting--but odd. with a lot of his work, after he would finish, he'd take it out to the desert and shoot at it. therefore most of his large canvas paintings were full of bullet holes. aesthetically interesting, for sure--i always wondered if he tried to put the bullet in a certain place or if it was all random. i probably should have asked, but never did.

mr. w. was also convinced i could see auras. as in a colored cloud surrounding a person. i can't. i tell you, i can't. i fully believe that people have auras, and that it is possible (but very rare) to see them. i do not see them. no matter how much i denied it, he didn't believe me. i used auras a lot in my artwork. he thought i denied it because i was embarrassed or didn't want people to think i was weird or make fun of me. so the entire year, he talked about how i could see auras. (i can't!)

it is an interesting concept, though. that was really the first time i had experimented with auras in my artwork. the reason is this: color is emotion. emotion is color. in my head, they are the same thing. i see the color blue and it means one thing, a slightly darker shade, a totally different thing. i can see why he would think that i saw auras. i used color surrounding a figure in my art as a means of conveying emotion.

this is part of the reason why art speaks to my soul. i am visual. i express myself better visually than i do verbally. i learn better visually. i "hear" things better visually. if someone were to make me a card, write me a letter, draw me a picture, even get me flowers--all physical objects--that i can see visually, it conveys something stronger to me than just telling me something. that doesn't mean that words mean nothing, not at all. i need the words, too. it's just that the meaning is stronger to me, somehow.

color surrounds us. in everything we see. and every color, every combination of colors, is symbolic. much of the time it is not meant to be. and to a lot of people, it is what it is--a color. to me, every combination of colors, the amount of a single color, the way they are arranged and displayed, all speaks of a different emotion. this is a lot of the reason why i love mark rothko. his art is simple, often with only two or three colors, but it speaks VOLUMES to me. each painting of his is an experience. each painting is an emotion, a series of emotions. i love that.

i wish everyone could see color, see art, the ultimate representation of color, the way i do. it fills me up to the brim. i stand and look at a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, and my entire soul is filled with emotion. and i can't verbalize it very well. i had the opportunity to see an actual van gogh, an actual picasso, a few months ago. and i cried. (that occurs frequently in art museums. well, frequently outside of them, but who's keeping track?) i was so overcome with emotion i could not contain it. the colors were so vivid, the brushstrokes so defined, so perfect, the painting as a whole amazing.

one of the things that bothers me the most is when someone buys a painting to match their couch. or their carpet. or that color of paint on the wall. we should NEVER buy a painting just to fill wall space. just to match the house decor. we should start with the painting. we should go looking for something that will speak to us. that makes us feel something. that contains a piece of our souls. so every time we look at it, we are reminded of the way we were immersed in the painting, the way we became a part of it, the first time we saw it. then buy your couch. then pick out your carpet. then paint your wall. everything else should center around that piece of art. that is my opinion. and if i had the financial means of doing so, you better believe i would.

as it is, my living room is centered around a piece of art that does that. that fills me with emotion. that makes me cry tears of joy, of pride, of humility. we picked our paint to match it. it is a piece of art that has been used for good and evil, that has a history, that will for many years continue to inspire and incite emotion in millions. that piece of art? a representation of the american flag. we actually have a few of them.

color is an amazing thing. it is a beautiful thing. sometimes an ugly thing. but it is always inspiring. and it is always emotional.