Hear me cry.
My days are consumed with painful thoughts of comparison between the life I lead now, and the life I gave up to be here. I have fallen into a dull, restless depression and I either suffer from overwhelm or complete lack of stimulation, sometimes both at the same time. It makes sense in my mind.
All the problems of the world are carved into the streets of Baltimore city. As the days go by.. I become acustome to the helicopter searchlight in my eyes and the sound of the sirens, near and far. Those sounds are chaotic; they sound like war. Everytime I hear those sirens, I see the sad image in my mind of an Iraqi family screaming in pain and terror. Sometimes the helicopters sound like machine guns. The wind through the streets sounds like a whimpering dog
Currently, our school's pride and joy is the Gateway building. A big, beutiful, shiny glass apartment complex near the intersection of Mt. Royal and McMechen. Right in front of the Gateway, yesterday at 6:00pm, is where an angry driver chased down a couple in another car and shot them to death. The car proceeded to wreck other cars in its path. Five bullets killed them, no one knows how long it took them to die. The murdered drove off.
Does anyone understand the grief that strikes me with? People are DEAD because of someone's anger. God knows how many people have lost their lives on the streets I walk on every single day. People are dead because of someone's roadrage. Pain fills me when I see in my mind the image of a car veered off the side of the road, pourous with bullet holes, a man and a woman mutilated with bloody wounds... and in the background, our big, lovely, future housing complex of glass.
Don't worry, our glass buildings do pretty well. The three bullet holes in the graphic design building have been fixed. Only three bullet holes since I've been here.
As Ben and I pulled into a parking spot on a cold night last week.. a poor woman came to Ben's door. She was hungry. "I slept out here in the cold last night. I need some food... please.... please." Here Ben and I were - parked in front of our big, warm apartment building; windows glowing with flourescent light, doors locked to people like her. You don't know how ashamed I felt when Ben opened the trunk of the car with $116 of groceries as her sad voice repeated "please... please." I filled her small bag with what I could. I filled my fridge with the rest, shamefully.
The days where self-pity consumed my mind and dragged me into darkness are nearing an end. Sicne I've been here... my mind is reluctantly devouted to all the problems in the world. In this school, EVERYTHING has to be controversial. Your artwork has to make some kind of statement for something to be "worthy". If not, they tell you, "All I can do is look at it." You'd be amazed at how quickly you become aware of the problems in the world. The problems that go unseen. The incredible number of people who don't care. The incredible amount of people absorbed in politics and the economy who deny the carnage of the war, who refuse to watch an animal cruelty slaughterhouse video, who refuse to read an article about global warming and deaths in California from lung disease. What's even more unbelievable is the amount of people who attack the groups of people who follow those beliefs... the people who go through the trouble of proving you wrong; even when your beliefs hurt no one, not even yourself.
It's amazing how many people don't really seem to care that people die because of anger. All they do is hope that their lives will be safer... but who can blame them... I wish mine was safer, too.
Where are you right now? In you're in New Hope Pennsylvania... cherish it. I envy you. That's the place where I grew up thinking every school in the world had memorials, scholarships, moments of silence, and events dedicated in the name of a community member who passed away. When the old stone house bew up because of a gas leak.... the neighbors came to the aid of the family inside. The entire community donated. All the people affected by flood waters were give shelter. In my small, far away home... open winding roads on a sunny day were what my idea of freedom had been. I would get to the farm and let my best friend, my dog, out fur a run while I grabbed a handful of carrots to feed the sheep and llamas who followed me around the pasture. When I was picking apples at the end of the summer, the horses would steal them from me before I even managed to climb out of the tree. Sometimes when I walked along the canal path in town and passed a couple mules pulling a barge, I'd glance up the stone stairway to see a performer on the street with a guitar. On a hot day, it was great to walk out on the wingdam into the middle of the river where the breeze was strong, and where the river disappeared into the green hills, a stone watchtower stood at the highest point. On Christmas day, people prayed at the memorial graves of the soldiers in Washington's Crossing, where my dog ran free and I followed the river for miles. Celebrations, parades, horses and buggies, bridges. The river breeze was much more gentle and sweet than that of the ocean. All of this comes to me in a single image when I think of that place.
I brought it with me in a couple pictures and postcards. Sadly.. it's the most I can do. But whenever I go back home, it's easy to bring Baltimore with me. The stench is in my clothes, the hunger is still in my stomach, and if I blow my nose, most of the time, black stuff comes out - but worst of all, I'll never be able erase the anger, pain, starvation, and sadness of the city streets from my mind... for the rest of my life.
I once seeked a meaningful life, where I would take my thoughts to deeper levels, find a calling in life, help fight a world problem..... but I no longer desire that. Any desire there was has been destroyed by the hopelessness of these streets. I long for a simple life now.. one I might never actually have.
I wish anger would stop. In my perfect world, no one would ever kill anyone, ever again.
All the problems of the world are carved into the streets of Baltimore city. As the days go by.. I become acustome to the helicopter searchlight in my eyes and the sound of the sirens, near and far. Those sounds are chaotic; they sound like war. Everytime I hear those sirens, I see the sad image in my mind of an Iraqi family screaming in pain and terror. Sometimes the helicopters sound like machine guns. The wind through the streets sounds like a whimpering dog
Currently, our school's pride and joy is the Gateway building. A big, beutiful, shiny glass apartment complex near the intersection of Mt. Royal and McMechen. Right in front of the Gateway, yesterday at 6:00pm, is where an angry driver chased down a couple in another car and shot them to death. The car proceeded to wreck other cars in its path. Five bullets killed them, no one knows how long it took them to die. The murdered drove off.
Does anyone understand the grief that strikes me with? People are DEAD because of someone's anger. God knows how many people have lost their lives on the streets I walk on every single day. People are dead because of someone's roadrage. Pain fills me when I see in my mind the image of a car veered off the side of the road, pourous with bullet holes, a man and a woman mutilated with bloody wounds... and in the background, our big, lovely, future housing complex of glass.
Don't worry, our glass buildings do pretty well. The three bullet holes in the graphic design building have been fixed. Only three bullet holes since I've been here.
As Ben and I pulled into a parking spot on a cold night last week.. a poor woman came to Ben's door. She was hungry. "I slept out here in the cold last night. I need some food... please.... please." Here Ben and I were - parked in front of our big, warm apartment building; windows glowing with flourescent light, doors locked to people like her. You don't know how ashamed I felt when Ben opened the trunk of the car with $116 of groceries as her sad voice repeated "please... please." I filled her small bag with what I could. I filled my fridge with the rest, shamefully.
The days where self-pity consumed my mind and dragged me into darkness are nearing an end. Sicne I've been here... my mind is reluctantly devouted to all the problems in the world. In this school, EVERYTHING has to be controversial. Your artwork has to make some kind of statement for something to be "worthy". If not, they tell you, "All I can do is look at it." You'd be amazed at how quickly you become aware of the problems in the world. The problems that go unseen. The incredible number of people who don't care. The incredible amount of people absorbed in politics and the economy who deny the carnage of the war, who refuse to watch an animal cruelty slaughterhouse video, who refuse to read an article about global warming and deaths in California from lung disease. What's even more unbelievable is the amount of people who attack the groups of people who follow those beliefs... the people who go through the trouble of proving you wrong; even when your beliefs hurt no one, not even yourself.
It's amazing how many people don't really seem to care that people die because of anger. All they do is hope that their lives will be safer... but who can blame them... I wish mine was safer, too.
Where are you right now? In you're in New Hope Pennsylvania... cherish it. I envy you. That's the place where I grew up thinking every school in the world had memorials, scholarships, moments of silence, and events dedicated in the name of a community member who passed away. When the old stone house bew up because of a gas leak.... the neighbors came to the aid of the family inside. The entire community donated. All the people affected by flood waters were give shelter. In my small, far away home... open winding roads on a sunny day were what my idea of freedom had been. I would get to the farm and let my best friend, my dog, out fur a run while I grabbed a handful of carrots to feed the sheep and llamas who followed me around the pasture. When I was picking apples at the end of the summer, the horses would steal them from me before I even managed to climb out of the tree. Sometimes when I walked along the canal path in town and passed a couple mules pulling a barge, I'd glance up the stone stairway to see a performer on the street with a guitar. On a hot day, it was great to walk out on the wingdam into the middle of the river where the breeze was strong, and where the river disappeared into the green hills, a stone watchtower stood at the highest point. On Christmas day, people prayed at the memorial graves of the soldiers in Washington's Crossing, where my dog ran free and I followed the river for miles. Celebrations, parades, horses and buggies, bridges. The river breeze was much more gentle and sweet than that of the ocean. All of this comes to me in a single image when I think of that place.
I brought it with me in a couple pictures and postcards. Sadly.. it's the most I can do. But whenever I go back home, it's easy to bring Baltimore with me. The stench is in my clothes, the hunger is still in my stomach, and if I blow my nose, most of the time, black stuff comes out - but worst of all, I'll never be able erase the anger, pain, starvation, and sadness of the city streets from my mind... for the rest of my life.
I once seeked a meaningful life, where I would take my thoughts to deeper levels, find a calling in life, help fight a world problem..... but I no longer desire that. Any desire there was has been destroyed by the hopelessness of these streets. I long for a simple life now.. one I might never actually have.
I wish anger would stop. In my perfect world, no one would ever kill anyone, ever again.