Smell the Flowers While You Can

Sing for the day, sing for the moment
Sing for the time of your life
Come for an hour, stay for a moment
Stay for the rest of your life

It's been a very interesting few days for me, as I've been away from home at a conference in New Jersey. And I am trying to see all the things here that I can, in the limited time that I have. Even as I post this (early Friday morning), my bags are packed and sitting by the door of my hotel room, ready to head home.

While we were being given a tour of Rutgers on Wednesday evening by a friend, I spotted some new photo ops: two lovely, old cemeteries right across the street from my hotel: the Christ Episcopal Church (from the 1700s, pictured above) and the First Reformed Church (from the 1700s and 1800s). I resolved to visit both first thing the next morning.

And so I did just that, and I had a marvelous time wandering among the pretty graveyards. Huge squirrels jumped from gravestone to tree. A blue and white sign proclaimed "Hate has no home here," and I stopped for a moment and thought about that. What a quiet, peaceful time I spent there as the morning light arrived.

After most of our day's conference activities had concluded, there was a very nice reception at the Zimmerli Art Museum, which belongs to Rutgers University. Before I attended the reception, I spent less than 20 minutes, wandering around, packing as much art under my belt as I could see in the very limited time I had.

What a nice collection they have! I know I did not see it all, but I saw plenty. Paintings, sculptures, mixed media, photographs. I spotted a very unusual mixed-media work that caught my attention, by the American artist David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992).

The work is colorful and visually bizarre. Atop the skull, which is covered in a blue map, with red and yellow lines drawn on it, is a watch that you can barely see. The work is officially called: Untitled (Lion's Skull and Baby Doll), 1985. (I call it by the simpler, more informal title: "Now you spit that OUT!") You may see it in the extra photos.

Of course, I had to look up the artist - for I am nothing if not inquisitive, that being one of my defining characteristics - and I learned some things about him. He was a very politically active artist who died at the age of 37 from complications related to AIDS (a cruel disease that took one of my husband's dearest friends).

Here you may find a Wikipedia article about this artist. Also, here you may see more of his works. If you google his name, you will find much, much more. Below is a quote from one of the stories I found online about this man:

"Wojnarowicz was driven to document the undocumented, to record and bear witness to scenes that most people never encounter. As a small boy, he and his siblings were kidnapped by their alcoholic father. In the suburbs of New Jersey they were beaten repeatedly, while neighbors pruned their flowers and mowed their lawns. Later, during the plague years, he watched his best friends die horribly, while religious leaders pontificated against safe-sex education and politicians mooted quarantine on islands."

Wojnarowicz wrote a number of essays and short stories, including a story about the suicide of a friend, called "The Suicide of a Guy Who Once Built an Elaborate Shrine Over a Mouse Hole." A phrase repeated throughout it is this: "Smell the flowers while you can," which I borrowed as the title of this blip, to tie my whole day's visual experiences together.

I've selected the classic Styx tune Sing for the Day, some of whose lyrics appear above, to accompany this story. Have you visited a graveyard lately? Have you visited an art museum? Go now! And so learn your place in the grand scheme of things. Know this: all good (and bad) things eventually come to an end. Make something - perhaps something beautiful, or even something ugly - if you can muster the courage. Smell the flowers while you can.