Backpacks
Years ago, I remember seeing rows and rows of shoes in a Holocaust Museum exhibit—the shoes had been collected from one of the camps. And the notion that shoes hold our identities (footprints) has stayed with me as a metaphor.
Today, page one of The Boston Globe shows gays and lesbians celebrating California’s legalization of gay marriage. As a married lesbian in Massachusetts, I am proud of my state and thrilled that the California court went even further in its judgment—offering gays and lesbians from any state the opportunity to travel there and marry.
But on page two of The Globe, I found a decidedly different image:
These are the backpacks of Chinese school children who are now either missing or dead after the devastating earthquakes on Monday, May 12. A new metaphor, I suppose, for identity—that which we carry on our backs.
All in the turn of a page.
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