26 Jan Northampton
“In Northampton some one went around lighting houses on fire while people slept around Christmas time, one right after the other. People died, and some lost their houses. Everyone was so nervous to sleep at night, but the arsonist was caught and confessed. The community came together to help the homeless, such as us artists turning artwork into money at auction to raise funds.
Within days the earthquake tore Haiti apart. My friends, a painter and a poet, lost their child there. Close to them, coupled with watching the destruction and death on the news, was terrible, terrible. A husband stood vigil over the rubble under which his wife lay. Eventually he heard tapping. He ran for rescuers, who began to remove some of the concrete, and then the man heard his wife’s voice. Very carefully more rubble was lifted, until she was pulled up into the daylight; even w/broken bones and dust in her eyes, she was singing the national anthem of Haiti.
Being proactive helps a little, so that there is at least some vestige of control by doing something positive, (re: sending money I don’t even have, but sending it anyhow: such a small drop in the bucket). In this tragedy, the outpouring of compassion and actual aide and money and medical care reinforces my faith in the goodness of people: but, why does it take a tragedy like this to make it be so? We are partially responsible for keeping Haiti poor, and now we show up and can’t get food to the people because the infrastructure that was minimal anyhow is demolished. Big boats with supplies can’t get close to shore and there is only one runway at the airport. Maybe I still can’t sleep straight through the night, maybe my painting has shifted from the direction in which it was going, (I stopped painting and eating for four days), but spirit survives: if that woman could sing, I can paint.”