Every year Jacksonville does a festival called "World of Nations" It is a great way for the kids to learn about other nations. Just a few pictures....
Friday, May 15, 2009
Family in town...
A bit out of order but before we went on our road trip we had family in town. Dave Peck & his gf/my friend Lisa came from Denver... another picture story!
Fun New Orleans
After we drove around the devistation we headed to our hotel on Canal Street. It's nice being married to a Marriott manager...
Fun.. looking for signs of home in Good Ol New Orleans
Our room with a view..
Fun.. looking for signs of home in Good Ol New Orleans
I have endless pictures.. such a tragic and beautiful city...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Austin to New Orleans
Flew to Texas a couple weeks ago to bring Amber home while her husband is in Iraq. On our drive home we stopped in Austin and then spent a night in New Orleans. Two cities on my lists of places I wanted to visit.. again.. pictures say a thousand words.
I was shocked when I saw the homes in New Orleans. I do not know what I expected four years after a hurricane that destroyed so much and so many lives were lost..but it was not the reality I found. I must say I am ashamed of us as a country because if this is what it is like now.. it must have been beyond awful then. There are brand new homes next to empty plots. There are occupied homes that still have the spraypaint marking the home had been checked. It is so surreal you can't begin to understand with out seeing it.
Superdome...
This home is blown out. There is no front door nor are there windows.
Austin, Texas
New Orleans
I was shocked when I saw the homes in New Orleans. I do not know what I expected four years after a hurricane that destroyed so much and so many lives were lost..but it was not the reality I found. I must say I am ashamed of us as a country because if this is what it is like now.. it must have been beyond awful then. There are brand new homes next to empty plots. There are occupied homes that still have the spraypaint marking the home had been checked. It is so surreal you can't begin to understand with out seeing it.
Superdome...
This home is blown out. There is no front door nor are there windows.
I'm wide awake and so alive... ringing like a bell...
As a girl I imagined my home having a basement with a dance studio. I could imagine the worn in, yet over waxed wood floors, surrounded by walls of mirrors and echoing music. Empty spaces filled with movement rehearsed time and time again until they became organic. A pirouette here and a kick ball change there, tiny feet learning first position. I could hear the sound of the tap shoes in sync with both each other and the beat.
I so looked forward to those times. In my memories are scattered dance routines. A song in the car will take me back to a parade or a recital. My body loved every painfully repeated step, steps I can still repeat today.
However, the moments I remember best are with the studio empty and the music free… slipping into unrehearsed movement. Allowing the notes pulsating in the air determine which way my body flowed. My heartbeat finding the rhythm which allowed my body to be lost in the moment, letting go of anything rational or dictated and instead ravishing the freedom to feel the music. Mirrored images of me twist and turn until dancing gave way to floating images of me projected thousands of times over in the reflection of reflections. Raw feelings consume me as if I could have dance forever.
Little did I know my worn in and over waxed floors would exist, just not as I had imagined. Our dances not conforming to predetermined motion but with the freedom I loved the most. Little feet that once pushed from inside me now lost among my not so little feet. My reflection mirrored in big blue eyes and faces that are pieces of me.
Dreams are not always realized with childlike perfection, but they are realized in their own way. Ballet shoes replaced by old socks sliding on the floor. Rehearsed steps have given way to the music being in control. Dancing is my reality just as it was meant to be.
If I never have a true dance studio I have these memories to drown in and I couldn’t ask for more.
I so looked forward to those times. In my memories are scattered dance routines. A song in the car will take me back to a parade or a recital. My body loved every painfully repeated step, steps I can still repeat today.
However, the moments I remember best are with the studio empty and the music free… slipping into unrehearsed movement. Allowing the notes pulsating in the air determine which way my body flowed. My heartbeat finding the rhythm which allowed my body to be lost in the moment, letting go of anything rational or dictated and instead ravishing the freedom to feel the music. Mirrored images of me twist and turn until dancing gave way to floating images of me projected thousands of times over in the reflection of reflections. Raw feelings consume me as if I could have dance forever.
Little did I know my worn in and over waxed floors would exist, just not as I had imagined. Our dances not conforming to predetermined motion but with the freedom I loved the most. Little feet that once pushed from inside me now lost among my not so little feet. My reflection mirrored in big blue eyes and faces that are pieces of me.
Dreams are not always realized with childlike perfection, but they are realized in their own way. Ballet shoes replaced by old socks sliding on the floor. Rehearsed steps have given way to the music being in control. Dancing is my reality just as it was meant to be.
If I never have a true dance studio I have these memories to drown in and I couldn’t ask for more.
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