what a lovely coincidence
that on this day
as i continue on my city parks journey
and drive through a neighborhood
i am lost
until
i come to the intersection of
pamela and patricia
the names of
my two sisters
one still with us
one gone forever
and today –
her birthday
i look ahead to find
they’ve led me
to the beautiful park right in front of me.
—
“don’t forget to leave your handprints on the ones you love
and your footprints around the neighborhood.”
― lisa c. miller
“between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.”
-iris murdoch
—
street in university of michigan’s student housing area – ann arbor 2017
photo credit: grandie f, age 7
grandies r and v
understand trust
“the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
-ernest hemingway
bird hills park
dolph park
dhu varen park
eberwhite woods park
—
loving all the forts, both big and small that i’ve discovered as i continue my journey through the ann arbor parks. forts are very sacred places. lots of heart and hard work go into the making of them – special spaces to meet and hang out with your gang.
(i’m about half way through the parks now -through the letter ‘i’)
– 80 down and 80-ish to go! –
onward.
—
“i have a lot of growing up to do. i realized that the other day inside my fort. “
-zach galifianakis
—
image credit: tumblr
my friend
who spends days working in our busy capitol city of lansing
comes home at night to the quiet little town of owosso
– its polar opposite.
in fact, it’s the home of the polar express
which wakes up the entire town with its early hour whistle blow
each and every morning from thanksgiving on through the holidays
but there is so much more here
with all the charm and quirks that only a small town embraces
from
the castle built by a local eccentric from the past overlooking the river
to
a tea room complete with hats and boas to wear
a trading post with gold, tools, guitar and guns
and best of all
the local five and dime store
complete with
an accordion on a bench waiting to be played
brach’s candy counter
wall of embroidery floss
balsa wood pieces of all sizes
suet cakes
pinatas
50 cent bags of popcorn
and
my favorite feature of all
the special of the week – napkin sale
which far surpassed all expectations
this was my lucky day for so many reasons.
—
“every week in a small town is very different. something is going on.”
– emily rose
-richie norton
mini gang
blue gang
surf and sun gang
—
the street was swarming with gangs of all kinds
at the woodward dream cruise 2017
metro detroit, usa
—
“the speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.”
-mary kay ash
as i walked in, i looked around and asked out loud,
“is this elvis day or something?”
i heard a deep voice following me in who answered,
“you better believe it baby.”
and that is how we found ourselves sharing a breakfast space.
luckily, elvis read the sign, waited to be seated
climbed up on the counter and belted out hits
elvis worked the crowd and met a tiny dancer
and changed costumes before my second cup of coffee
it was a full breakfast.
—
“to me, john lennon and elvis presley were punks,
because they made music that evoked those emotions in people. “
-joey ramone
A collection of fairy tales written by child refugees in Greece has gone on sale to help those like the book’s authors.
Travelling Tales features a rugby-playing dog, a king who grew to love animals and chickens fighting an alien invasion among its eight stories.
The book is the brainchild of Brazilian journalist Debora de Pina Castiglione and her sister Beatriz. The two combined their love of words and illustrations to create the book but the ideas came directly from the children.
Debora ran workshops with Syrian and Kurdish children aged between four and 14 years old, at three refugee camps close to Thessaloniki in Vasilika, Lagadikia and Oreokastro.
It gave the children something to do without focusing on their own lives.“The idea was not to have the children talk about their journeys or experiences fleeing war, at least not directly,” Debora said. “It was to let them tell the stories they wanted to, in ways they chose themselves.
“I think it’s important for young people to engage with one another. Children all over the world are watching the refugee situation, or hearing it on news programmes their parents watch and listen to, and as well as hoping it would be an interesting project for the children at the camps, I wanted to do something so the children outside of the crisis could see the children caught up in it on their own terms, as children with fun and interesting stories, just like they are.”
And there is something entirely captivating about the stories. In The Travelling Princess, Amira shuns her royal title to live as a poor person who goes around giving away gold she found as she explored the world.
In Aliens vs Chicken, Earth is under attack from extraterrestrials who want to steal all the chicken eggs in the world. While humans are relieved about the aliens’ demands, the chickens are not happy and fight back, reclaiming the eggs.
The story was written by nine-year-old Shahd who lives in the military camp of Lagadikia. Debora describes her stories as “full of adventure. Her creativity reminds us that there are heroes even where we least expect to find them.”
“We spent four months with the children,” Debora added. “In some cases, the children spoke English very well, and had quite clear ideas of their stories. In others, we worked with a translator, and also spent time with them to help them develop their ideas, to make the stories hold together better.
“But the point was that these are the stories of the children, so we didn’t change their words, or add anything they did not include themselves.”
Five professional illustrators helped to bring the stories to life, including Beatriz.
The book was published last month and is available in English as well as Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Dutch. It is for sale via Amazon priced at £10.
Money collected from the sale of the book will be used to help support projects that look for alternative housing solutions to the military camps.
—
“hope is a waking dream.”
-aristotle
—
credits: the irish news, Debora and Beatriz de Pina Castiglione, child refugees in greece
—
#teachers for refugees
I didn't have my glasses on.... 