Holding Onto Hope

Teen Living Programs serve youth ages 13 to 24 who became homeless because of serious family issues, including substance abuse, and physical or sexual abuse. Many are ostracized due to their sexual orientation. While escaping these situations and leaving their homes may provide temporary relief, life on the streets carries the serious threat of increased suffering from predators, disease, and greater physical deprivation.

Despite all of this, here’s how our youth describe themselves: amazing, different, unique, resilient, self-motivated, determined, loving, caring, persevering—or, as one youth put it, “Teens struggling with the issues of life.” In this way, they’re not unlike many other American teenagers.

via Meet Our Youth.

Graffiti or Art?

Modern Mummies

Wonder where my inspiration came from for such a gruesome idea as freeze dried human bodies?  Click the link below to read a reference to one of the articles that first caught my attention.

Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century

 By Christine Quigley

Sidney Cole

Sidney Cole was good with his hands.  Always had been.  As a kid he’d had a thing for Play-Doh.  The clay beneath his fingers, warm and pliable, willing to be pressed into any shape he wanted.  He used to work for hours at the table by his bedroom window, while the shadows from the metal bars of the fire escape grew deep and long and then began to fade again.

The Lyrics

The song seems to be about a lover who died:

“I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black” – The hearse and limos.

“With flowers and my love both never to come back” – The flowers from the funeral and her in the hearse. He talks about his heart being black because of his loss.

“I could not foresee this thing happening to you” – It was an unexpected and sudden death.

“If I look hard enough into the setting sun, my love will laugh with me before the morning comes” – This refers to her in Heaven.

via Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones Songfacts.