Sunday....brains, spring...and memories
Saturday afternoon I left our snowy neighborhood for a talk on teaching reading by literacy expert Barbara Swaby. She talked about how our brains are built to talk and hear, but not really to read. She talked about how reading actually physically changes our brains.
Two hours later I left the library. As I drove home, I realized not only had the snow melted, but it was spring! A few brave flowers were blooming in the sun, the melting snow had left the grass green, and lilac branches had tiny green buds on them. Spring!
Today I had to go to a different library to pick up a book on hedgehogs. (One child's current obsession. Please. Can I have a hedgehog please? They only bite until they get used to you!) The library was hosting an opening for an art show from the Alzheimer's Association. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much - I only went into the gallery to be polite -the woman who stopped me in the hall was so hopeful. And then I saw the pictures. All painted by dementia patients. The images and colors were so powerful. Some did look like kindergarten pictures, and some were artistically done. But all of them were incredible. It was like looking into someones memory. Truly. An old barn. A glossy black mare and colt. A child sitting at a window, bathed in gold light. Hyacinths. I wondered why these pictures in particular were left in ravenged brains. They were stories. The whys behind them are probably lost. And I was not the only one with teary eyes.
3 comments:
Which of my brilliant cousins wants a hedgehog? Me too! But they're illegal in PA. Honestly, the fact that there are so many hedgehog adoption sites in Colorado is something I bring up everytime we talk about moving out there. :)
Rats are cool, too, you know. They do not live very long, though. I miss our girls a lot. Rats are so much smarter than hamsters/gerbils. And they don't sneak out of their cages.
Lorien, I try not to mention the boys names here - it's the one who is first alphabetically. And we are hearing about it all day long. I need to do some research into them. I mainly think the one dog is trouble enough.
Rabies treatments are much easier than they used to be. ;)
I would like to have seen those pictures.
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