Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers. For the month of March we are challenging ourself to write a Slice A Day. Here we go!
Yesterday was one of those days that gave me a moment of clarity. See, I spent the entire morning at The City Museum in downtown St. Louis. If you are anywhere in the area, I highly recommend a visit. We started bringing my boys there when they were 3 and 6. It is so much easier now that I don’t stress out when I realize that they’ve just dropped down three floors in a slide. (and that is the 10 story slide mentioned yesterday at the left)
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| Luke on the left, Liam in the middle. Praying begins. |
When you
are walking around the museum, you can’t help but be in awe of the artistic
talent that has gone into making this building. In an abandoned warehouse an
artist, Bob Cassilly, and some of his team have turned what was considered
trash into amazing climbing structures and works of art. There is a bus hanging
off of the roof (you can climb in it), abandoned planes that you climb through
tubes to reach. A ten-story slide, caverns, and more. The place is really
incredible. My fear of heights sometimes makes it rough but I usually power
through. That being said, when you see your “babies” scaling through tubes 50
feet high, your heart does beat a bit faster.
I went
from observing an artist's work to my niece’s second grade music concert. The
title was Wonders of the Earth with
songs like The Continental Blues and Take me to the Islands. Listening to the
kids sing about the different hemispheres, the continents, topography,
cartographers, I was impressed. Even more so that my niece knew what all of
that meant. At the end the principal came out and thanked the crowd for coming
and supporting the arts. I looked around at the crowd of 300-400 for these 100
kids and my heart was full. The back of the program had something similar to
this written on it in regard to why music is important: WHY TEACH MUSIC? |
| Look at those faces. So awesome. |
And I
guess that is what I wanted to leave you with today. I think in this era of
testing and accountability all to often the arts are pushed to the back burner.
They aren’t tested so less and less time is devoted to them. But the arts give
us beauty. They make our mind work in new ways. They make us see the world
differently. They help us to express ourselves. They make children feel good
about themselves. What a beautiful reminder this day was.
