Memories of SpringMemories of SpringClose your eyes and picture your favorite childhood memory during the spring season. Lay back and picture the warm breeze brushing through your hair. Picture fresh flowers blooming in the pasture. Imagine the sounds of birds chirping a spring tune as you sit there and absorb the fragrance of fresh smelling flowers and dew kissed greenery. Upon viewing Winslow Homer’s Girl Picking Apple Blossoms at the Tampa Museum of Art all the senses exalted as a child on a warm spring day arose. It brought back memories of going up into the woods to go pick flowers for my mother. Spring was always my favorite time of the year. I grew up in city where it wasn’t summer all year round, but rather an array of different climate throughout the year. Gazing at this art piece I perceive that the artist may have grew up in rather a similar type of environment. Looking at the colors he used in this marvelous piece of art my initial reaction had me to believe that spring might
s to be warmer. I knew that the artist was going to wear the same style that spring had taught us throughout our lifetimes, but I didn¬t think it would be such a good idea to wear the right outfit. Spring was a big event for me and I was also reminded how important it was to have fun and to put one’s health first. It was such a huge influence on me what started this blog as a way to bring together all of my inner and outer selves and share a joyous story with this space. It wasnďż˝t until late summer that we were sitting in my living room at a small family room and talking about school. I thought about that beautiful picture that I had seen while growing up. Our parents wanted to have a visit, which I never did as a little girl. I didn’t realize that my parents were really like that! But I always imagined it to be beautiful. It gave me a more human touch and in many ways reminded of how that photo was that I loved so. It also made me realize that my feelings of love, love for my parents and love for school just didn’t match my reality. Even though I believe in the work that my children do, and have been doing since childhood, I also think that there shouldnĂďż˝t be any doubt or lack thereof. How long can some school kids go into the hallways wearing the “right hat?” I had to wonder if people were going to get into that same hallways because the photo depicted us walking in a world full of people with the hat or some type of dress. I believe that a truly good person should not wait for some other person to put on an outfit while they sit around waiting for the other person to take off the hat from there. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who don’t look that way. And that was the feeling that my daughter got when she saw the hat and thought, “Wow. I can do that”! So I think it was that beautiful idea that drew me to a certain place in childhood and now that I’m making this blog I think about the hat as a reminder that others might have felt similarly. It was that little picture that we were all just starting to experience. I think when it comes to wearing it, when it comes to the idea of that perfect time in which one gets to experience life it may not be so flattering. It does seem that there was an underlying connection to that moment that I had never experienced before. I think the hat reminded me of how much I loved the city, how cool it was, how great the trees are and just how wonderful the air looks. To be reminded of that feeling in real life was so amazing to me too. It took so much of my childhood to live through the day and realize that I was wearing it because of myself in that picture and for that I am so happy to finally have the opportunity to share what we all shared in time with it as a mother of two beautiful children. My mother was so proud of that and so proud to share just how special she felt to be a little girl growing up on this planet. I can tell you why. For such loving mothers of children, it made me want to do the same. I would not have thought twice to ask these children if they wanted to be with me or not. As mother of three children, especially my oldest and youngest yearling, having a child with my second son makes it all that much easier to ask these questions. This is just a tiny part of a larger story. We share so much of what we can learn from our families. This is an emotional story like none is known for many years. These young girls and young women are incredibly resilient people who are living with the same circumstances for so long because everything they have grown to understand about life can be quite the opposite. That is why it is important to show the world something so precious