Guard your spirit. To dwell on the unfairness of life is to be devoured by it. - E. Brown
The
Poets and Storytellers United prompt "what makes you scream" had me thinking we were born to scream ... that first primal gasping cry of a baby when it enters the world and sometimes gets slapped. We instinctively scream, or more likely screech, excitedly over good news and when in pain or in fear.
Letting out a loud sound can relieve stress but we're tested to stay calm, especially in the thick of traffic. It wasn't rush hour but plenty of vehicles sped along the freeway to Vancouver. On the radio, the news was all about a young
hockey player and his brother killed while bicycling by an apparently drunk driver. To add to the suffering, it was the eve of their sister's wedding. If this doesn't make you want to scream, what would?
An eye appointment for my husband brought us into the city which is surrounded by mountains, ocean and many trees planted along sidewalks and by tall buildings.
Artists left their impressions on the waiting room walls at the clinic and it felt a bit like a visit to an art gallery.
Above is a 1982 painting called
Tidal Reach #3 by Gordon Smith who was still painting at the age of 99, according to the internet.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the name of the artist who painted the intriguing work above. Below is a 1984 boldly blue painting called
Brash Sky by
Leslie Poole.
Maria Sammarco painted the delightful field of flowers you see below.
The 2008 work below named
Praga by Laszio George was mesmerizing in a good way.
These works of art, the prompt and news of the day infused my prose with a slightly skewed version of
Edvard Munch's multi-million dollar paintings. Aptly named
Scream, his most famous work is said to represent the 19th Century artist's existential crisis or, simply put, melt-down over life's uncertainties, triggered by the cities of his era and industry seeming to swallow up the natural world. Some things never change.
There are four Scream paintings. The familiar image, found on everything from handbags to coffee cups, never gets old. It expresses the angst many feel about all the injustices in this world. But as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's mom once said: "Guard your spirit. To dwell on the unfairness of life is to be devoured by it."
Explore more at
Poets and Storytellers United and
SKYWATCH.
