1 -- Rochester's Best Combination of Art Festivals
the long running clothesline art festival + the new indie market = so much creative energy.
On Saturday after our outing I felt like coming home and making something.
2--our 8 year old boy in awe of the ivy covered buildings near the memorial art gallery. even though there was some kinda shmutzey stuff on my lens and the sunlight was blazing over the top of the building I like it -- looks very mystical. he really wanted to climb it -- thought the ivy was very, very cool.
3--fresh veggies that I have to cook and or freeze. I decided to cook {for a change}. Peppers, potatoes, onions, garlic. All grown right around here {fall is always a better time to do this domestic task called cooking in my opinion :)}
4-- Reflections on a visit to the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall. it is a replica of the memorial in Washington DC and it is traveling the country -- in Rochester this weekend and someone had said it was very beautifully done so we went.
among all the emotions that come to mind while we were there we also tried to find a way to explain to the kids what they were seeing to help them understand that its not just a wall with names on it. {we haven't been to washington, DC with them yet so this was a first for them}
I have one child that asks alot of questions {our daughter} and one that listens and takes it all in {our son} So as we made our way down the walk I overheard her say to him -- "All these names are soldiers that died, and all these people are in heaven" and he says, "Yeah, I heard about it, there is alot."
I was a little kid while the Vietnam war raged on, my parents being nearly new immigrants to this country were not personally involved, and I never knew anyone who had been in this war until much later in my life. But this is what I remember from the early 70s; I played with one of the neighbor girls and her brothers and other siblings during those earliest summers I remember. They were a fun family - lots of kids. My little sister was not born yet so I was an only child pretty much and It felt so good to play with a bunch of kids. The dad would always talk over the fence with my dad, possibly comparing gardens of homegrown veggies and compost piles or maybe how he made homemade wine. Whatever they talked about it was always friendly.
One day they were gone.
Just moved out and left. They left a void where the friendly used to be. No one knew where they went. Then, later, but I don't know how much later, we found out that they moved to Canada. Took the family out of here.
I missed my friend. I didn't know and understand until later just why the war would make someone do that. But I still missed out on a friend back then. I don't think the neighborhood was ever quite as fun.
All that makes me wonder about the long-lasting effects of war on us.
As I got older I met other kids that had dads, brothers or uncles involved. When I was older still I worked with a woman whose husband had been in the war. I commented one day on my plans for the weekend that included going up to Toronto to see Miss Saigon. She got this look on her face. Said she could never go see that after what her husband told her about his time there. My husband currently works with a Vietnam vet, he will occasionally share things with the guys but mostly says he "doesn't like to talk about it."
These days positions on the war are so varied -- and I'm not trying to make a commentary here.
But I wish leaders would learn from the past. Wish some of them would reflect more on what long-lasting impact is taking place right now in our current generation.
Kids get it in their own way. They shape their views from our reflections; good and bad. I hope we will we have a generation someday that does not rely on wars to solve problems. Will we ever have that? I wonder.
So the word for me this week is Reflect.
the long running clothesline art festival + the new indie market = so much creative energy.
On Saturday after our outing I felt like coming home and making something.
2--our 8 year old boy in awe of the ivy covered buildings near the memorial art gallery. even though there was some kinda shmutzey stuff on my lens and the sunlight was blazing over the top of the building I like it -- looks very mystical. he really wanted to climb it -- thought the ivy was very, very cool.
3--fresh veggies that I have to cook and or freeze. I decided to cook {for a change}. Peppers, potatoes, onions, garlic. All grown right around here {fall is always a better time to do this domestic task called cooking in my opinion :)}
4-- Reflections on a visit to the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall. it is a replica of the memorial in Washington DC and it is traveling the country -- in Rochester this weekend and someone had said it was very beautifully done so we went.
among all the emotions that come to mind while we were there we also tried to find a way to explain to the kids what they were seeing to help them understand that its not just a wall with names on it. {we haven't been to washington, DC with them yet so this was a first for them}
I have one child that asks alot of questions {our daughter} and one that listens and takes it all in {our son} So as we made our way down the walk I overheard her say to him -- "All these names are soldiers that died, and all these people are in heaven" and he says, "Yeah, I heard about it, there is alot."
I was a little kid while the Vietnam war raged on, my parents being nearly new immigrants to this country were not personally involved, and I never knew anyone who had been in this war until much later in my life. But this is what I remember from the early 70s; I played with one of the neighbor girls and her brothers and other siblings during those earliest summers I remember. They were a fun family - lots of kids. My little sister was not born yet so I was an only child pretty much and It felt so good to play with a bunch of kids. The dad would always talk over the fence with my dad, possibly comparing gardens of homegrown veggies and compost piles or maybe how he made homemade wine. Whatever they talked about it was always friendly.
One day they were gone.
Just moved out and left. They left a void where the friendly used to be. No one knew where they went. Then, later, but I don't know how much later, we found out that they moved to Canada. Took the family out of here.
I missed my friend. I didn't know and understand until later just why the war would make someone do that. But I still missed out on a friend back then. I don't think the neighborhood was ever quite as fun.
All that makes me wonder about the long-lasting effects of war on us.
As I got older I met other kids that had dads, brothers or uncles involved. When I was older still I worked with a woman whose husband had been in the war. I commented one day on my plans for the weekend that included going up to Toronto to see Miss Saigon. She got this look on her face. Said she could never go see that after what her husband told her about his time there. My husband currently works with a Vietnam vet, he will occasionally share things with the guys but mostly says he "doesn't like to talk about it."
These days positions on the war are so varied -- and I'm not trying to make a commentary here.
But I wish leaders would learn from the past. Wish some of them would reflect more on what long-lasting impact is taking place right now in our current generation.
Kids get it in their own way. They shape their views from our reflections; good and bad. I hope we will we have a generation someday that does not rely on wars to solve problems. Will we ever have that? I wonder.
So the word for me this week is Reflect.
1 comment:
hey babes,
i didnt know that that war effected u like that i guess its cause we never talked about stuff like that. i fell like living though a war is so scary and you never know what to expect because anything can happen.
love ya,
emm
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