"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

At the exhibition, I read the images, the tones and hues; I read the title, the medium, the date and dimensions; I examine the frame, its finish, the placement on the viewing wall, and the lighting as well. (I am not, as admonished, sufficiently "mindful of the stripe" on the floor; my toe creeps too near, my eyes stare too penetratingly - I am suspect.) 

Later, leaving the concert, funneled through a narrow passage, with the clotted crowd pressing past a closed door to reach the open one, I ask aloud,"Why aren't we using that door?" and the one next to me replies, "An alarm might sound, you have to be brave." So I weave through the crowd and push the door open, and as I walk out, a stream flows out behind me. No alarm went off, but even if it had, I was out and on my way.

I ask questions but I don't always ask them out loud. Today: laryngitis, literally and figuratively. I regret I won't be able to perform Messiah Sunday; I bear wordless grief that our culture's violent profiteering will bury innocence, and bury again, and again, and again.

Dedicated to the families of Newtown, Connecticut