THE ACCIDENTAL FISH

The Accidental Fish. This was one of those happy little accidents that occurred when I used a torn piece of paper toweling to clean my brushes as I painted. As it is when you look at clouds and faces or animals come to life, so it was with this painting. Right before my eyes appeared an aquarium full of fish! So I enhanced it just enough for others to see what I saw an, voila, a picture! I'm putting it into a handmade journal for my daughter. The texture is a good match for the handmade paper of the journal.

This is Memorial Day. I've thought a a lot about those who have died for us. I would never have asked all those young men to die in battle for me, but they did it without asking them to...in wars and skirmishes and "police actions". I can only say a silent prayer for them and utter a silent "thank you". And I thank all those mothers who lost their sons in wars. I don't know how they bore the loss. I'm not that strong.

I just talked to my daughter. She and her fiance are leaving for Peru tomorrow for a vacation in the Macchu Picchu area. They'll be back June 16th. I know it's nonsensical, but I worry and miss her more when she's out of the country. Something about a mother hen wanting her little chicklets at home, I imagine.

I saw a wonderful movie this weekend..."Crash". It is about racial prejudice among a mixed bag of strangers, how various lives are interwoven, and their reactions to each other, for both good and bad. It's a good slice-of-life movie...a food-for-thought movie that has lessons in it for all of us. I enjoy most a movie that provokes thought about my life and how I want to live it.

I heard the other day that those who make movies like Star Wars are presenting us with the future so that we can ready ourselves for what we are about to face. I've always thought that, like Moses, some people are given information not available to most of us. Perhaps they're psychic. Perhaps they are part of the "in the know" crowd. Or maybe they are modern day prophets who see things most of us don't see. We've always been able to see society by the way it is depicted through art, architecture, and poetry or prose. I think it may be true in this techno age that our moviemakers are some of our modern day artists who are able to portray on the big screen the direction our world is headed.

I am awaiting the arrival of a book of excerpts from the journals of Dan Eldon. I am fascinated with the life of this young man and am eager to see some of his journaling up close. Dan was only 23 years old, and a photo journalist with Reuters, when he was killed in Somalia by hostiles. He was a young man who saw things...knew things...and was taken to all corners of the world at such an early age because he was driven by a need to know the world and make it better. He kept visual journals from the time he was 8 or 10 years old and at his death they found 17 completed journals, some of which are shared with us in this book I've ordered. A friend thinks he was probably a bodhisattva.