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Sunday, 22 August 04 :: free to be you and me

i'm currently listening to the album free to be you and me. its for my friend j, she turned 7 on saturday and her party is on monday.

i know i'm an adult now. i know i'm an adult because i am now giving to children in my life something i grew up listening too.

my grandmother had the album. i remember discovering it at their house in wild rose shores, in annapolis, md. it had a white cover. and a songbook. i listened to it a lot. a lot a lot a lot. and i learned the words to all the songs.

years later i stumbled across the cd and bought it. goddess, i'd grown up with that music.. telling people 'its alright to cry' and being inspired by atalanta and her heroic run to gain her independence. i knew that if atalanta could do it, i could too. i knew that my generation was a generation of atalanta's..

and now its a generation later. the kids of ours are listening. at times i think that maybe the lessons are archaic. maybe these kids, the kids of my friends who are being brought up with so many variations on family, with the knowledge that who they love doesn't matter just that they do love -- all people -- that matters. i wonder. briefly.

i know that these lessons are universal. that no matter what our kids know, its good to hear it again. its good to hear it in music that is fun and calming, joyful and playful all at the same time. i know that this music that i'm handing down to this generation is just as important now as it was then, because the lesson needs to be taught. the kids do need to hear it. and its not so bad if its reinforced.. over and over and over.

posted by brooke at August 22, 2004 07:29 PM

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about
i'm brooke, born in '73. i am currently a phd student in instructional technology. this is the blog where i capture all the neurotic, and the few non-neurotic, moments that seem to come with being a phd student (if you want to read less neuroses and more professionalism go to: oer's, dl's, reuse and culture: it's about a phd student researching digital resources in a multicultural world). i have been from eugene, oregon for a long time.. 8 years specifically (its my home now, but i grew up in southwestern virginia), but now i'm here in logan, utah at utah state university. after finding my roots in eugene i never could have expected that i would leave that liberal oasis and head to utah. but i did and there are days when its a blessing and days when i'm tempted to go back to oregon and beg the folks at lost valley educational center to let me move in. but i won't leave because there are days when this process is better than any kind of high i could ever imagine. what else? i collect things, i have 2 cats, 2 kayaks, 2 laptops (i'm a geek - one mac, one pc). i can be emailed at brookesblog@rivervision.com.