Liberty is lost

I was looking recently at my photos from my trip to New York City in March, and I came across a photo of lower Manhattan taken from Liberty Island. The shot was framed so well, in fact, that Ellis Island can be seen in the bottom left corner as the panorama caught the reflection of the World Trade Center off of the waters in New York Harbor.\nI think of the freedom of that day, the cool, biting sea air that was kissing my half-frozen cheeks as I stood at the feet of Miss Liberty herself. I think of the rest of that week in New York and the many shows I saw, the museums and the life of that city that drew me in like a fish on a hook.\nI spoke to my brother the other day about all of this and to my great happiness he told me that he would not hesitate for a second getting on an airplane or going to school at Columbia University in Manhattan. It proved to me that people are not going to change their lives because of this -- or perhaps it is just too early to tell. I know that I would never hesitate going back to visit New York City again, nor would I hesitate going to the top of the Empire State Building. But what exactly would I do differently now? The question really is, have I lost my freedom or do I choose to limit it? \nEveryday now, I wake up thinking, "Please God do not let there be a draft" not because I don't love my country and believe that this act should be left unchallenged, but because I didn't choose to be in the armed forces. My life's choices were made with the knowledge that I am not a soldier -- I am an artist; the way I fight my wars is on the stage. I also fear that airline travel will go up in price, companies will diminish and that the profession that I hold dear will be laughed off the earth as trivial. I fear that the loss of our innocence will mean the arrival of censorship, martial law, anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim / Arab sympathies in a fashion as horrific as apartheid. And of course, nuclear war is always a dreadful thought.\nI was born into an America where the dogma was that we all have a choice, that our freedom was ours to do with what we choose, and that everything that I have in my life can be mine if I choose it to be. I hope that I will once again be allowed to photograph freely as a civilian, in a non-war time, in lower Manhattan from Liberty Island, where I can confidently say I am celebrating my freedom.