about COMMUNITY

post #333

   Happy last day of April! I get to go this afternoon to my granddaughter's 6th birthday party, a few days before the actual date. Today is warm and sunny so far, so it's a good day to be outside with friends and the new puppy and the wandering cat who chose to have 2 kittens a few days ago behind their wood pile. Also there are the 3 recently added hens from nearby neighbors.  Who needs party favors!!
      During this past week, I have been connected to a local effort to speak up in support of refugees, immigrants, and others in the world who may need safety in a new place, including the place we live. I took the draft of the statement composed by some in Morehead to share with my writers group, which meets monthly, and we tried some things and had a good discussion!  But we didn't feel we got it exactly right (like in "write"....) Then this morning, Marie Bradby, in my writers group, emailed us all a fleshed out draft, and I am eager to share it here today.  Thanks, Marie!  The conversation continues. This is indeed something for all citizens to think about:


An Affirmation for Community

       In these challenging times, we are reminded that almost everyone in America has immigrant roots, whether the Irish we so proudly support on St. Patrick’s Day or people from Cuba, Sudan, Serbia—all seeking a better life. The ancestors of many black Americans were forced immigrants who fought and won the freedom and rights enjoyed by all others. No one has had it easy, not the Germans running desperately from the Third Reich, and not the American Indians—the natives of our country—struggling to hold onto the core of their culture from the blustery shores of the Atlantic, to the purple majestic mountains, to the mesas of the southwest.

        As descendants of immigrants and indigenous natives, we have so many things in common: paramount is the yearning to be free from oppression, persecution, discrimination, violence. We seek to raise our families in peace to be contributing members of society.

       Now, we face the need to think about how we can proudly embrace our community to include new neighbors, thereby enriching our [Morehead] home.

       We believe the lives of all of us are strengthened by the joining of strands of difference, just as a strong rope is formed from separate fibers. Let us use this time to come together as Americans.


              And now a few recent photos, mostly thanks to my work in my photo class at Morehead State. I'm grateful to have had to find these photos which otherwise I wouldn't have made.          
             Thank you for reading this particular post, and, as always, for being interested in my photos.

hiking in Laurel Gorge, in Elliott County, with daughter (and granddaughter)

Sunday morning -- for a photo shoot for the class I'm taking this semester

the pond where I live, and I'm sitting in my car, with a beanbag on the open window ledge to rest my camera on, to improvise a tripod

Another photo assignment is to try a photo in the style of another photographer. I was lucky to be able to do this when the morning light was overcast and just right.

I'm still doing the assignment, capturing mother/daughter -- and puppy -- where the path goes goes up, then down, headed to the waterfalls. One of my favorite photos growing up was the last photo in The Family of Man. This section of our path to the waterfalls has always reminded me of it.