My garage doors still surprise me every time I come home. For the past year and more, I have been experiencing them as a "prayer wall" – especially when standing in front, alone, or with others, or even from across the street. A mysterious intimacy arises in my heart, and I have observed this also in strangers who stop and contemplate. I wonder if therefore the conversations at this "prayer wall" always have a special flavor. We stop, slow down, and taste the sacredness of life....
In a comment beneath the series of black & white stills, Nicky wrote two weeks ago a beautiful musing about her looking at (and painting on) the memorial:
"when i look at this wall it feels like a prayer or meditation in memory. as someone from a colonized history, my ancestors come from the islands known as "the philippines," reclaiming prayer, practicing prayer is sometimes a struggle. my imagination creates snapshots of the peoples' lives as my eyes wander and swim across the words. it feels like time traveling, feeling past present & future at once. the experience also shifts from inward to outward, from my memories to reflections on collectiveness, collective history, collective memory. it stirs up the experience of painting & sketching so closely to the wall - and it's interesting to take it in, the names, words, lives from close range and then from a distance across the street. it brings up feelings of last year's summer uprisings - anger, grief, determination, hope – created connections so strong in our community and beyond, crossed continents & oceans like a mycelium. it has existed before & will continue to exist, but i wonder how many people have disconnected or silenced the call in themselves since then."
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