Category: reflections
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Paris: fashion!
I am not a fashionable person by any means, but I did notice a few things on this trip. One was that we just missed fashion week, so there were still folks in the business around with big traveling boxes of clothes. I noticed a lot of very large billboards with chic advertisements. Which, apparently,…
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Paris: oh, la la la la
I have been to Paris before, but not since 1989. While I saw some things in previous visits, many things were new to me. Plus, going as part of the Road Scholar tour allowed me to learn more things. One of the parts I loved was that our French tour guide (Agathe) told us things…
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Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY I can’t get enough of ancient Egyptian art and culture. Most museums I have visited have a few relics. I know this is problematic- these relics belong to the people of Egypt, not (in this case) the people of Brooklyn. Yet, I admit to feeling joy that I have been exposed to this…
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Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY I wasn’t paying much attention when I walked into this exhibit. I thought I would see some of Picasso’s work and learn something about cubism. Rather, the exhibit was a critique of Picasso, mostly through the eyes of Hannah Gadsby, asserting that he was a misogynist who purported to want to see things…
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Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn, NY Africa fashion I loved how the curator of this exhibit started this exhibit with information about colonialism. They noted which European countries colonized which sections/countries in Africa, and when freedom was achieved by each region. This impacts everything. According to one exhibit, cloth was introduced by the Europeans; Africans wove threads to make…
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Washington, DC
I remember my first trip to DC as a child, maybe in 1972ish, so I was 9ish. The airplanes and Dorothy’s red slippers in the Smithsonian, visiting the White House, hoping we would see President Nixon, and the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln monuments were my highlights. I recall my brother tripped an alarm at the…
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Brooklyn, New York
Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY, where I was married in 1988. I have been traveling to Brooklyn all my life. My maternal uncle, Jack Waldron, was a Catholic priest who dedicated his life to serving folks in Brooklyn, particularly those with fewer financial resources, who spoke Spanish, or who…
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Ithaca – Finger Lakes – FLX
When I returned from Chicago I saw things at home in a new way. This is natural: absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say! After feeling gratitude for my friends, the quiet was the first thing I noticed. So much noise pollution where we lived in Chicago. The next thing I felt happy…
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Chicago: Final reflections
2023 was quite a summer in Chicago. Like many places across the country we experienced extreme heat and smoke from wild fires. I had extreme joy as I took in the arts, food and Suzie and Char’s wedding. And, I had extreme sadness as we lost our good friend Robert in July and continued to…
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Beaches in Chicago
One of the wonderful things about Chicago is its location on Lake Michigan. The lake is so huge it feels like an ocean. And, there are public beaches all along. It is such an oasis in the concrete city.