September 11 2012

A good friend once described trauma as "the gift that keeps on giving." She has had a long and traumatic history and still finds time to write poetry, make art, and keep her friends inspired. Sometimes, it is nearly impossible to see the gift for the sorrows. Sometimes, the gifts are not until the next generation. Sometimes, no one looks for the gifts, leaving the incomprehensible...just that, or perhaps immortalizing the loss in verse, song, art, or story telling. 

When 9/11 happens every year, I sometimes think of my father who died just before he could witness the miracle of his life - aeronautics and aerospace - create such tragedy at the hands of mankind. I am grateful for his death before 9/11, a gift of spared sorrow.  I also sometimes think of the living. The innocent ones who lost somebody or some part of their lives that had been special up until that day. This year, I am thinking of all the ones who lost freedom in the pursuit of freedom because of the Patriot Act. They flee from genocide and warfare to seek asylum in the United States, and learn that their quest often begins in detention unless they have a sponsor. Jailed on the path to freedom, they frequently speak of the irony. Some speak in hushed tones, others in laughter, and still others in disbelief or tears. Barbed Freedom is a collage I made to reflect the consequences to those who took flight from atrocities in their country with hopes of gaining safety and freedom. The bird is trapped on an illusion of rolled wire, sensing the freedom just beyond the ticket to fly. What If speaks to the possibility of freedom for all if we just start within...