Aaah, Spring -- Dark Times Journal

Have a Seat

A Facebook friend of long standing asked me today where was my outrage for the people of St. Petersburg on Monday. Monday? This week?

 Yes. I was running to Raton, racing the approaching spring storm in an effort to reclaim some of the normalcy of my life as an artist. I had four photographs to enter in an annual show. I wanted to support a non-profit gallery in a country which wants to unfund all art programs. I also desperately needed some windshield time (i.e. down time). 

 I am suffering from compassion fatigue: indifference to charitable appeals on behalf of those who are suffering, experienced as a result of the frequency or number of such appeals. Also called vicarious traumatization by the American Institute of Stress. 

 Yes, I am not in the counseling field but I am living in the dark days of the USA, and maybe the world at large. I confess to pulling in my empathy antenna just so I can continue to cope. Cope with my business, my resistance to what is happening in Washington, D.C., my victimization by a local official And spring in the Sangre de Cristos. 

 Remember the approaching storm I was racing on that Monday road trip to Raton? I almost didn't go. I have been caught on the high plains in a blizzard before. I kept asking myself how important was it to take four photographs to a gallery two hours away.

 Very important. For me to focus on something normal in my previous life. And there was the snow coming. And it came. A total of 12 inches. The good news is I did not lose power. 

Lawn Chairs

But I did not get around to looking up the suicide bombing in St. Petersburg until today. Fourteen dead. But now it has been eclipsed by the Syrian gas attack and whether it is real or fake.

I just want to escape to my garden. Or tune in to April the Giraffe for extended periods. Denial can be a survival tool. So can avoidance.

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