- This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
The man who carved and sculpted Mount Rushmore was a poor Italian immigrant. He was so appreciative of being in the USA he took 7 years of his life to do it. He was a sculpter in Italy and when he immigrated to the US didn’t speak a word of English, even while he worked on Mount Rushmore, he didn’t know English. Have you ever seen it? It’s totally awesome and you wonder how the heck he did it!
His story inspires me.What or whose story inspires you?
I was inspired watching my daughter and niece bowling. Sounds stupid but it was truly fun and they were so cute with it. I was also inspired that I took them into the Apple store and offered them anything they wanted and all they chose was a new iphone case…. Something about their lovely spirits inspired me. We also went to eat at a nice restaurant and they ( son included) kept answering the waiter with “yes sir and no sir”….. He told them it wasn`t necessary and one glance at me let them know that it was! It`s no Mount Rushmore but it`s what I got for now 🙂
My 16 year old daughter made dinner for us yesterday, shrimp scampi and salad, and cake for desert. The cake stuck to the pan, and she was yelling at to me, where I was in the living room, “MOM!!!!! What do I??? HELP!!!! and before I could get there she had cut the stuck part out, and was giggling and eating it and said “Oh well.”
Panic to resignation to humor in 10 seconds.
She’s a beauty.
My daughter inspires me as well (seems like a theme here). She has always had a soft spot in her heart for those who have it more difficult than she does. She has always brought home friends of every color, stripe, and hue- kids with mental disabilities, hearing aids- you name it. She is straight but many of her friends are gay. We live in a very conservative part of Texas. In high school, she saw how hard it was for the gay students, so she started a Gay-Straight Alliance and ran it until she graduated. She had no problem going around to local businesses asking for donations for their fundraisers. At an age when many kids are so image-conscious, she just really wasn’t at all worried about all the people who told her she was going to hell, that she was making kids gay, or that she was gay herself.
She looks at people and sees them for who they are- not how pretty or popular or rich or anything like that. But what makes them special or unique as human beings. She even won an Associated Press award this year for a story she wrote about a child who lives in India. She isn’t afraid to state her opinion or stand up for unpopular causes.
She has taught me to be brave and speak out and to step outside my comfort zone in our very superficial and judgemental community where I was truly afraid to be myself.
lynng2-
your daughter is a beut! She sounds like a hoot.And everyone else too, I see the strength of character in your children! Kudos to you all, moms!
What inspires me, too, yuuuup, you guessed it: kids! Not just my own, but the teenagers with whom I work. Even if I have decided to become an elementary teacher (in a round about way to get to my goal to be a school librarian: one has to be a teacher first…), it’s the teens who are the real reason why I have decided to become a teacher in the first place. I have so quickly forgotten all the cute things my own babies said/did when they were babies (maybe there were just too many to remember them all), and some of the stories these teens have trusted me with is just… WOW! How could you forget?!! Let me explain what kind of teens I am talking about:
Over the years I have always just “had a job”. As a military spouse you end up accepting jobs from all kinds of fields. (Retail: sales, customer service; Hospitality: bartender, busboy, the cleaning lady!!…etc etc) But one thing all my jobs have had in common is that within 6 months to a year I end up in a supervisory type of position with a bunch of teenagers to “manage”. Boy!! Lemme tell ya:
They are so alive! They have their dreams, their heartbreaks, their apprehensions (they would rather die than actually admit fear). They all act so tough yet they come crawling to me sometimes with: “Ms. Hanna… I was wondering if I could talk to you….” And then they unload these bombs about hangovers, and pills, or jerks they have dated, or their real dreams, or things that they are so excited about. Or mental illness! Or how they had this party at their parents house, and then… They think they are so badass and in reality they are sooooooo sweet and innocent, yet soooo… I have no other word to describe it but “alive”, but they are nobody’s punk, or bitch, or whatever the term they use.
They bow to no-one. They question EVERYTHING! They love to the point of pain. And they have their loyalties. And OH BOY! The morals: They know exactly what is right and wrong. True, that is the annoying part sometimes when they cannot see the different shades of gray, but the the life they carry, the vitality, the excitement, the energy!!
That is what keeps me going. I sit at my desk, or do some menial tasks, and they don’t realize that I listen to their conversations. Or maybe they do sometimes, but they just don’t care. (I am “old” to them, after all) And I cherish every laughter I must quell. I cannot even share the stories with anyone because then it would sound like I was ridiculing them. But how could I?!! I remember the same exact things I used to say!
And I feel young again, and yet, so grateful for my life experience, how ever shitty it may have been. And that’s sometimes all I have on them because they really are no dummies. And then I see how much of that is because they really do question EVERYTHING! That’s how I wanna be when I die!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.