member my grandfather, an immigrant from Odessa, Russia, singing me to sleep in Russian, a sound and language that accompanied me into adulthood. How many of us bring those early immigrant memories into our adult lives?
I remember Donald Duck Orange Juice in the can
I remember staring at the television screen, wide-eyed and mouth agape, as they reported five journalists had been killed in their own newsroom at the Capital Gazette. I remember how my heartbeat quieted, and at the same time, how it filled with fear.
I am thrilled to remember all the moments young people of come to a realization through learning important for our world in generations to come. Young people learning is our future!
I remember when the world was less angry, when people were kinder to one another.
I remember being so envious of my cousin's ladybug record player and her ability to win board games and land big ribbons at the 4-H fair. But I also remember victories and gifts of my own, so I learned we all get different baskets.
I remember Sony at my 8oth birthday party reading poems. I remember David roaming the whole state with his poems vagabond style before he became the great impresario of the poem, the growth has been amazing. Years ago Wick was wonderfully small and local. Now both the size and the quality has become nearly universal. This is clearly David's old man and admirer of Sony and the others who is speaking.
I remember my first day at Kent State, a Haitian boy with few English words in his pockets, trying to find home; a place that transcends language. At the parking lot of Prentice Hall, memories talked back to me. They brought me back to 2004 when fear policed my classmates' courage leaving their bodies bare to my 13th-year-old eyes, stealing my innocence. We all speak fear, but we are fluent in love.
I remember the whispers in the sunlit classroom at the International Institute of Akron -- the whispers heard around the world. These were soft murmurs from Nepal, from the Congo, from Afghanistan. I remember how we shared intimate stories, how we left our souls exposed like stars in darkness. I remember how we stared into each other's eyes like maybe truth was hidden there. I remember how they turned to me, how they trusted deeply as they read langauges of love aloud. I remember they laughed at their mispronunciations, how we decided nothing written in love could really be wrong. I remember talking about love and how my heart flooded with the finest, most unparalleled form of it. I remember how I floated in this universe after class was over, replaying the meaning of today. I remember existing. I remember the soles of my shoes on the hot concerete as I stepped out to leave this safe space, and I remember growing somber as I realized the love pulsating within me couldn't be eternal living in a world like this. I remember remembering the sunlit classroom, the faces and the soft smiles resting upon on. I remember reasoning I would try to make this feeling last anyway. I would give love anyway.
I remember marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Boston - April 1965.
I remember my mother describing how my father, a WWII Navy veteran, wept as he sat and watched the events of 9/11 unfold. Having fought to preserve the nation's freedom, he never imagined an attack on our freedom om American soil. He passed away 3 days later. We are sure it was of a broken heart.
I remember the first time I read a poem that was really very and casually gay, Joe Brainard's "I Remember."
I remember how Interfaith Action for Justice was so naturally modeled when I was a young person by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, when I was a college student by Reverand William Sloane Coffin, when I was a young parent by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and now by people such as Meditation Teacher Sylvia Boorstein.
I remember watching the brilliant physicist Richard Garwin explain in simple language to my congressperson why space-based missile-defense would destabilize the international standoff between the Soviet Union and the West. He believed that even political people could learn to think in terms of data, systems, physical principles, and act in the fullest sense as patriots.
I remember the trail of Bobby Seale and other Black Panthers in New Haven CT which began in late April of my freshman year of college, and the massive protest for justice and peace in New Haven that took place about the same day as the violent suppression of protests at Kent State University.
I remember the way my father looked before he died. He had a smile on his face and a moment before, he had whispered a dirty joke. He taught me to die knowing it was part of life, knowing to be grateful for what came before, and to meet what was to come with a smile.
I remember as child being very sensitive to strangers and then somewhere along the way, I lost some of my empathy.
i remember when i was young, the roars and shouts of loud guns.
now im a man and live free
I remember hating my mother more, when she told me so casually--"I wonder if your boyfriend is autistic." Parents are just people-- ugly, beautiful, cruel, kind. I will be a better one.
I remember my father standing at attention when the American flag went by at a local parade. He was so upset and sad that the soldiers marching were slovenly and did not stand up straight and proud. That was in the Vietnam era and being a "soldier's soldier", it broke his heart. He loved America, he fought for her and he was buried in his Army uniform. I am so proud of him.
I remember my feet in the lake, my father beside me, catching sunfish, the way the dock swayed in the wake from a boat. I was the girl in the red striped bathing suit, I was the girl who climbed on his shoulders.
I remember fishing with my grandfather. Rowing toward a calm spot in the lake. Sitting with bamboo poles dangling over the boat. Bobber jumping up and down with the ripples of the water. Just being.
I remember my grandma's apple pies and applesauce. She had an apple tree in her yard at Point Chautauqua and everybody called her Mrs. Applesauce. Dear, dear lady who had a kind word for everyone, but carried a lot of sorrow in her heart because her only child, my mother, was mentally ill. Her apple pies and sauce helped my brother and sister and I grow up and have many happy moments.
Memories of my father are difficult - happy, sad and somewhat guilty. He helped us appreciate nature and importance of family and helping people. I think he wasn't always appreciated by his family. And sometimes he got too close... I hope he is at peace now.