Five years later: V for...

Ceramics class started tonight, and the instructor had an exercise for us. Fifteen minutes. September 11. Make something. Go.

Five years, what's changed? Fifteen minutes isn't long; I ran with my first impulse, and time was up too soon. We took turns discussing what we'd created, what we were thinking about or expressing.

The fragility of life. Memories of a mother wanting to fill up all the cars that day. A sense of removal, sitting in a restaurant in California, eating sushi. Remembering images of people falling, and wishing to give them wings. Watching the collapse, at once with horror and amazement at the beauty of it. Deep sadness at the events, and at the dismissed opportunity to wonder, why did this happen? How even now, all one artist still has are questions, questions.

I talked about Paradise Now and the perspective it gave me; V for Vendetta, wondering if the war's nothing more than repayment, anymore; V for victory, from WWII, at this point, hollow at best; V for versus, us against them, no communication, no understanding, no empathy... this isn't going to change anything. And forgot to mention where it started: V for five.

It's weird to find myself thinking such things, much less speaking them to a group of strangers in class. Even with the best of intentions, any action undertaken without full understanding... without dialog, without the willingness to enter into somebody else's world, somebody else's experience, to consider that there might be another perspective outside our own, and to see from there...