Maria and I try to live a creative life, creativity is something of a faith we share. Like most people, we were shaken by the killings in Parkland, Florida and struggling to figure out how to express it, each in our own way.

I’m a writer, and so I usually express myself by writing about something, as openly as I can.

Sometimes, a picture will speak for my feelings. Maria is a visual artist, and while she writes often and well, her feelings and emotions are frequently expressed in images, not just in words.

She wrote about this project this morning, she is planning to print postcards of the Crochet Gun And Baby Blanket.

This is how we process the sometimes mad whirl of our minds.

As I wrote earlier, we found a heavy black pellet gun we found in a kitchen cabinet when we moved in, the family left nothing else behind. Until today we had never touched it or thought of it, it is covered by the cloth napkins we use when company comes to the farmhouse.

In bed this morning, watching a video of the very articulate and impassioned high school students calling for a march, and for change, and for their government to protect them, I said I have to go downstairs and write about this, and I did.

Maria was quiet for a while, and then said she was thinking about the gun. What gun, I asked? And she mentioned the pellet gun, she said she had to go to Bennington and the Thrift Store and pick  up an afghan. I said I wanted to go.

I got it right away, she had a vision for doing something with the gun that related to the shootings in Parkland. I know not to press her, because when she gets an idea like this, she needs some time to sort it out, she’s not certain herself what she’s going to do.

I was coughing and wheezing – still have a cold – but went downstairs to shower and get dressed. This is exciting, this is what we do, what we are about.

We went to Goodwill, and she made a beeline for one rack that had an afghan on it, and I called her over to the other side, where the baby blanket was. She said it fit perfectly with her idea for making something that expressed her feelings about the shootings and the kids planning their March in June. It cost $1.50, on the high end for her when it came to buying clothes.

(I bought two fleece jackets for men at the Mansion, they cost $6.I am a Thrift Shop whiz now)

I took a brief video to show the piece in progress:

We went home, and I wrote about the new movement the high school students were sparking – I plan to march with them – and Maria sat in a living room chair by the window. When I came back, it was finished, and we took it outside to get a photo before it got too dark.

I asked her if the cord was an umbilical cord, because it made perfect sense to me to put an umbilical cord in this work, the cord is all about love and nurture and the birth of life. She said she wasn’t sure what was in her mind, she thought connecting a baby blanket to a gun also suggested love and nurture, the beginning of life rather than the end of life, the yarn connected the two thoughts.

I felt good about what I wrote, and Maria felt good about what she made, she turned the tragedy into a piece of art so she could process it. I was able to sort out my emotions and anger about the killing.

It was exciting to see this, and to be a part of it. I’ve come to be more of a visual person since I started taking pictures, but when I really have to sort out my feelings, use words.

She thinks visually, she sees images, and that is how she expresses herself.

Creativity helps to heal and to think. I hope we won’t forget these lost souls.