Why Art Freewrite

I free-wrote with Linda Osodi before her interview.  We free-wrote on the prompt:  why art?
She recites hers in the interview http://mysuperartfriends.blogspot.com/2010/12/linda-art.html

This is my freewrite reaction to:  why art?

• Because we can
• Because we must
• Because I can’t get through a day without a story or a metaphor
• Because we are at that level of civilization with a higher functioning brain
• Because we express
• Because we can use it to better see ourselves
• Because we can feel like we belong together
• Because we’d like to complain
• Because we want something pretty around the house
• Because we want to teach and be better
• Because we want to sing and dance and make a joyful noise
• Because we know we are going to die
• Because we want to explore the undiscovered country of our souls
• Because we want to find where our spirit lives and art gives us clues
• Because we have to cry and laugh
• Because we want to prove that time means nothing, that Moliere and Shakespeare and Hardy all speak to me from beyond the grave

When I was nine, I saw Franco Zeffirelli's masterpiece film Romeo and Juliet and I've never been the same.