Rambling again

Feeling very oily, just had my back worked on, feels ever-so-slightly better.  (Should've gone ages ago, but was waiting for a doctor appointment so I could get a prescription for massage, though in retrospect, I could have called and asked for it.  I suspect I need more than massage for this, but it's a start.)

Went on an art tour as part of "Mad Campus" at the UW.  Along with the tours today, many of the artists were also there.  (And I won tickets to an upcoming show as part of ArtsUW, which was a partner in this event.)  The show itself is up until October 23, and I'd seen most of it, but I wanted to hear what other people had to say, and any input the artists had as to why this work, why this space?  And it was enlightening.  I always enjoy hearing about concept, or what influenced it, or how you got from A to B or Q or something.  Had a good conversation about finding balance, as well as the intersection of where art, artist, and audience meet, and how you bring the audience into an interaction with the work, and still leave space for them to discover and stay interested.  Always like to talk about that.  More info on Mad Art here:  http://madartseattle.com/.

On Friday I took the day off to get some volunteer hours at the P-Patch office.  Usually that would involve stuffing envelopes, but ended up doing some mapping work, looking up the nearest intersections to every garden.  Really enjoyed it, made me want to go out and physically check all of them, since some of them didn't show up on the aerial views.  This is the kind of stuff I like doing, the person I did it for, does not, so it was a good fit.  I wandered around the rest of the afternoon taking pictures (cats that can fly, I guess):

Jet-packed, Sept 26/L Herlevi 2014

Flying Lion, Sept 26/L Herlevi 2014

I also went to go see eSe Teatro's "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza: Homeless in Seattle," by Rose Cano, directed by David Quicksall, at ACT.  She wrote this adaptation after working as a medical interpreter at Harborview Medical Center, as well as having had many conversations at shelters and other service centers that work with: homeless, addicted, immigrant, uneducated, mentally ill, etc., populations.  It follows Cervantes' story arc for the most part, just changes the location to Seattle, and the characters to people living here.  It closes tonight.

I haven't written because I haven't figured out how to say what I want to say.  I think fear keeps us from seeing one another as equal.  (As someone on Sunday said, we puff up celebrities and politicians with hot air and self-importance, and then do everything we can to knock them back down.)  We could trade places, and we hope and work so that we don't with those we view as below us.  Does having money, or "beauty", or youth, or sanity, or health, or an education, or a stable government make anyone more worthy than those who lack those things?  So much of that was luck of the draw, genetics, fate.  In our fears, we create a "them" to demonize, to fight against, to dehumanize, so that we can separate ourselves from them, and say "that will never be me."  War, or natural disaster, or illness, or loss can change our lives in an instant...if that were to happen, who are you?  When the outer trappings are gone, who are you?  And how is that worth more or less than anyone else at their core?  Did we all have dreams of what we wanted to be?  How many of us got there?  What got in the way if we didn't?  How much resilience do you have?  Some people have a lot, some very little.  (I know there are people who "cheat" the system, but they exist up and down the income spectrum, not just among the poor; I'm not talking about them.  I'm talking about everyone else.)  What's the story behind the face we wish we didn't see?  There must be something.  We are more alike than we aren't.