Kerblog - in your bag / with bombs in Beirut

Imagine having to make that decision, under extreme pressure of war as it surrounds you with explosions and screaming voices of people in pain. Having to create that ultimate list: what do I carry with me, should I have to leave the safety of my home? if I cannot make it back again, or if my house meets its demise under a bomb attack, what few material possessions must be in the bag i shoulder?

I remember my friends Liz B and Jennifer H, who both survived the big earthquake in L.A., back in the mid-1990s. They each had their precious cargo enumerated and stashed closely within reach for every time that new tremors started to rock the floor beneath them. Flashlight, bottled water, jacket were on both their lists. I remember my friend Treb, who survived the earthquake and subsequent hundreds of after-shocks that hit Taiwan in 1999. He told me that he was like a robot, programmed to rush to the stairwell of his apartment, at the slightest hint of a tremor. I can imagine those instincts being somewhat akin to what I feel my body doing whenever I hear those tornado warning sirens blasting in my neighborhood.

If you were to rush for survival, away from your home, what would be in that clutched precious pack on your back?

A 30-year old man, with a young son, is bunkered down in Beirut, Lebanon. He blogs daily, at least, and on many days, it seems that he posts to KERBLOG with the desperate frequency of a migraine-delirious person reaching for painkillers through the day.

Many, many of us (thanks to Ken Shimamoto for directing me to KERBLOG) are reading the fervent and honest postings of artist Mazen Kerbaj as he tires and tries to survive the violence in his beloved home city. The COMMENTS section of his blog is one of the most actively-used that I've ever seen. It is very touching to read these comments and know of the worldwide compassion and concern that are STREAMING LIVE on the www. Though we push these square plastic keys to type our words, the emotion and passion come through quite un-plastic. Just a few minutes on KERBLOG and I am reminded of how much we truly are one and the same as human beings----well, most of us, anyway.....

And now, here is the text which accompanies the drawing by Mazen Kerbaj [above]. By the way, Kerbaj has given the okay for folks to distribute, repost, publish his work--for the cause.



my life in a bag [posted Saturday, July 22, 2006 at mazenkerblog.blogspot.com]

each time i leave my flat, i take with me:

my passport and evan's one
a mini-disc recorder + microphone
2 t-shirts
2 underwear
2 pairs of socks
a notebook and pens
my trumpet
binoculars
a book
tobacco
a small camera
a lighter
a usb key
a toothbrush
4 batteries