Art is All Around Us!

On this anniversary of that sad, horrific, day in September seven years ago; I always remind myself that as trite as it sounds life is a big, fat, GIFT. What always gets me is the utter ordinariness of those folks on that day. The waiters,chefs, brokers, secretaries, assistants, police & fire persons, just doing their jobs, going to work or flying to another city to do a job. And a few hellish minutes later their lives & our lives & the life of the country changed forever.

Though I loathed it, & clearly saw it for the passive/aggressive threat that it was meant to be; whenever I said; "Good Night,Mom! See you in the morning!" before going to bed; her response was always: "God Willing!" I used to think: "Jesus! WOMAN! "YOU CAN'T EVEN COMMIT TO HANGING AROUND FOR THE NEXT 8 HOURS!!!" "No wonder I have separation anxiety & trust issues" (though I would not learn those handy terms until decades later with that very expensive therapist!) But now I think she really meant "You never know" (her other favorite hostile phrase!)

And you know what? You NEVER do know! You can leave for work in the morning & not return in the evening. You can say good night to your family & "shuffle off this mortal coil" while dreaming. So all we can do is GRAB as much as we can. Not STUFF... but grab the minutes & the moments, grab each other...& just squeeze as much as we can out of every single day we have! Yike! I'm not even drunk yet!

I was thinking of all this today when i was riding my bike around town on yet another gorgeous, sunny, September morning!
I took these photos in just a three block span of Fairfax Avenue in L.A.

Art! Beauty! Love! Life! Everywhere we look!
Damn! We're lucky!