Our Girl from Brooklyn

 My mother and I watched the Kennedy Center Honors last night and she enjoyed it so much she actually stayed awake until 10 PM (so did I miracle of miracles).   What an amazing group of honorees and Neil Diamond was among them.   A boy from Brooklyn!   It brought me back to an evening in my parents den in Rochester watching HBO broadcast Barbra Streisand's return to the stage after many years' absence.   We were breathless waiting for her to come onto the stage and then she made that incredible entrance and began to sing that song with the refrain "I'm still here".  I heard a sob behind me and turned just in time to see tears streaming down my father's face as he whispered to the glorious woman on stage, "You are our girl from Brooklyn and we are so proud of you!".   If I remember correctly Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond were classmates at the NYC High School of Arts and Science.

Their music filled my life with delight -- soothed me in times of sorrow -- energized me in the good times -- called me to a deeper awareness at others.   And through it all I think all of us were so proud that the boy and the girl from Brooklyn had their names blazing in lights!

It was almost by accident that I realized the show was on at all last night - I'm not a big TV watcher and I've been knitting leg warmers for my mother and enjoying doing that in the evenings.   So I am delighted I realized the show was on and that Mom and I got to enjoy all that amazing artistry.

Singing, dancing, artistry -- the arts.   Maybe I haven't been so far away from those things I love as I've thought . . . the blog entries have me thinking and really reflecting and I realize I have immersed myself in the arts forever.    My commitment to community development has been to utilize the arts to life people up, to inspire, to draw forward the creative spirit in all of us.   I was watching the international group that Yo Yo Ma put together perform in his honor thinking that there is nothing like the arts to bring people together, to blend our differences into a seamless unity of beauty.   And then the finale . . .  this group of modern international young people, James Taylor, a classical group and a more modern almost bluegrass/jazz group all performing together with an incredible conductor and it worked . . . it more than worked.  It was brilliant!

To be more fully human is to embrace the artist in ourselves and to know it exists in everything and everyone in the created world . . . our music is the music of the stars . . . our written words are "The Word" that was in the beginning . . . our attention and engagement of the artistry of others is what Nell Morton calls "The Great Listening Ear" that preceded "The Word" in order to hear it into speech.

Let's thank all the artists of life for giving us encouragement and joy and faith in our own artistry!

Blessings
Donna