This is, for me, an amazing experience. People are being so honest in this challenge, sharing so many important memories--poverty and death and abuse and racism side by side with the happiness and innocence and beauty of life and love and childhood. I'm humbled to think I had a small hand in these stories coming out. Thank you for your honesty, your courage, your openness. I've cried with you, and laughed with you, listened to your stories and poems, enjoyed your photos, music, and research, and marveled at your creativity. And we're only into the first third! I had no idea it would be this great. Thank you all.
What a cliche! I'm 8 years old and I'm in dancing lessons - tap and ballet. It figures my costume would be a turkey; sad to say I dance like one and only last 2 years in lessons. Long enough to learn "shuffle-tap-shuffle-tap" and not much more.
The costume, on the other hand, has lasted for years. I wore it for Hallowe'en and dress-up, my daughters wore it for Hallowe'en and dress-up games, and pretty soon my granddaughters will, too. That stupid turkey costume may well outlast me!
And take a look at the cool old stand-up box radio in the photo. My Dad and uncle made that; my brother still has it in his home.
I look at a picture like this, and I remember that room, those walls, the furniture, and I'm back there in that time, in that place (not in that costume, thank you!). That will always be home to me, even though I've lived in my current house for 20 years--longer than it took to grow up in that one.
This isn't a picture of me taking tap-dancing lessons--it's a picture of living in a family where an eight-year-old in a turkey outfit is worth preserving in a photo, where a first recital is worth commemorating.
It's a picture of home.
The costume, on the other hand, has lasted for years. I wore it for Hallowe'en and dress-up, my daughters wore it for Hallowe'en and dress-up games, and pretty soon my granddaughters will, too. That stupid turkey costume may well outlast me!
And take a look at the cool old stand-up box radio in the photo. My Dad and uncle made that; my brother still has it in his home.
I look at a picture like this, and I remember that room, those walls, the furniture, and I'm back there in that time, in that place (not in that costume, thank you!). That will always be home to me, even though I've lived in my current house for 20 years--longer than it took to grow up in that one.
This isn't a picture of me taking tap-dancing lessons--it's a picture of living in a family where an eight-year-old in a turkey outfit is worth preserving in a photo, where a first recital is worth commemorating.
It's a picture of home.
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