Peace and Love

Peace and Love

By: BA @ Kids Matter

It was the summer of peace and love.  The corner of Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco was alive with the sound of music and incense was floating through the air.  Young people with flowers in their hair traveled from all over the country to meet; searching for something… or someone.  They were searching for themselves; trying to understand and change the world around them. We all were.

Hundreds of thousands of people traveled to a town in upstate New York for one of the most remarkable events of the century; celebrating peace, love, and rock & roll.  It was a dream. It was a fantasy. It was romantic.  It was Woodstock. Hippies were cool.  Of course, that was not the reality. That summer was a time to believe in something.  After all, the Beatles told us, “All you need is love.”

I lived in a small town and led a very sheltered life. I spent summers riding around town with my friends, at the pool, and working at Day Camp as a counselor. In the fall, I went to football games, school dances, and participated in the high school band. Life was far removed from what was going on in the world. We knew what we saw on TV and heard on the radio. But we were young, therefore, bad news simply did not compute. Reality was what happened to other people. We were invincible, or so we thought. We greeted each other with the universal sign of the times and uttered the word “peace”.

That summer we fantasized about San Francisco and Woodstock. To celebrate the summer of love a group of us got together and staged the “Psychedelic Ball”. We met every day for weeks planning the perfect party.  We painted a huge mural in neon colors filled with peace symbols, flower power, and other influential graffiti. The mural was hung as the major focal point for the bash.  Giant colorful tissue flowers were everywhere. People were invited to come dressed as hippies complete with beads and bare feet.

When the black lights came on and the music began to play, we were transported away. Peace and love was alive in our little town. Everyone was there. We thought it was the greatest party ever.  We were young and naive.   So… very… naïve!   It was one of the last innocent moments that we would share before we went our separate ways.

College called some names, the draft called others. My father warned me to stay away from college demonstrations. Look what happened in Ohio (four dead) he told me. The war in Vietnam was in full force. Nightly news stories showed the horrors going on halfway across the world. Protests were raging all over the country against the war. People were losing their lives for our country. Makes you grow up fast! 

As we grew older, we realized that we were in the center of a world that was changing at such a rapid pace. We were right in the middle of history in the making.  The first man on the moon, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, segregation, integration, discrimination, and social unrest… as the Temptations suggested it was “a ball of confusion”.   

Living through the turbulence was “the best of times and the worst of times”. We lived through it and are better people because of it. Every generation thinks the same thing and it is probably true to some extent. We all have one thing in common and decades later it is still evident we continue to search for peace and love. John Lennon was right when he said, “Love and peace are eternal”. 

I’m not sure the search will ever end.

Peace

The Wedding of Your Dreams in 15 Minutes

Julia @ Kids Matter

I was recently asked to write a Blog about planning a wedding and getting married. I was a little thrown off guard by this request since my blogs are usually geared toward day care directors and teachers. I was asked to do this because I am getting married in just a hair under a month. I started this blog a few days after I was asked, and was rolling along as happy as a piggy in slop when my world crashed into a major road block.

The Government Shut Down of 2013! 

            My fiancé is one of the 800,000 Government employees who have been placed on furlough until the disagreement between congress and the current administration is resolved. I am not going to use this blog as a platform to discuss my political views; I see that enough on Facebook and have had my belly full at this point. What I am going to blog about is how this shutdown is affecting me and my world. My little world was filled with counting down the calendar days until I would be married to the man of my dreams.

            On my break this afternoon, with tears in my eyes, I had to call my florist and email my baker to ask exactly when I would need to cancel our order if the shutdown continues.  My florist told me I would need to let them know by October 15th. Followed closely to that unfortunate statement was her deepest apology for what we are forced into and how upset she is with our government.

            I am hurt that my dream wedding with the All Hallows Eve theme is being scaled back. We are paying for our wedding and honeymoon completely on our own.  I am upset that we got this far, and that all the hard work, careful budgeting, planning, designing, and working two jobs (I might add) are just slipping through my fingers like sand.  But… to be honest, I care more about him. I care more about those 15 minutes when we will look into each other’s eyes and make that life-long commitment to one another. We have a lifetime to have perfect moments and social events. All we need are those 15 minutes!

            When planning a wedding, you go through so many ups and downs that you don’t know which way to go half the time. Planning a wedding is very tough! It is almost like having a part time job.  You have so many things to think about: décor, theme, colors, bridal party, clothing, food, music, lighting, beauty, trying NOT to strangle your mother, avoiding having your cousin as a bridesmaid, toasts, whether throwing a bouquet is humiliating for your friends or not, DIETING, photographers (and HOW they live with themselves by charging what they charge), cake, limos, honeymoon location, rehearsal dinner, and on and on and on it goes!

            I worked in the formal wear industry for many years, so I know all about planning weddings and the hurricanes they can cause! I can tell you about going to bridal shows, entering drawings, planning a year ahead of time, not losing weight after your first dress fitting, etc. But, I’m not going to. I could write about how to haggle with caterers and the best time of year to reserve a venue. But I’m not going to. My advice to you… if you are planning a wedding, or waiting with baited breath for the question to be popped is to understand this… it’s all about those 15 minutes when you are actually getting married to your best friend. It’s about you and your life partner. Those 15 minutes are all you will truly care about when you are older and all is said and done.

Those 15 minutes are what you will think about as you walk hand in hand through the park on the first real crisp day of fall. It’s those 15 minutes that you will think about when you are being coached by the love of your life as you curse them and scream at them while pushing the life you made together into this world. It’s those 15 minutes that you will think about when you lose your job and come home to find your favorite meal and dessert with a ‘we’ll get through this,’ smile that could light Broadway. It’s those 15 minutes that you will think about as your spouse helps you recover from an illness or supports you on a slow walk through that same park 40 years later. And it’s those 15 minutes that you will think of while holding his hand as your life partner takes that last breath.

            Your marriage is not defined by what center pieces you have, or if all your bridesmaids have pink and white finger tips. It is defined by why you are doing this. You are doing this for each other!  You are doing it for those 15 precious minutes!

            I may have had to make some hard calls today about canceling things for my wedding, but I am not sad anymore. I know that all the planning in the world could not have prepared me for this road block. Nothing can prepare you for when life throws you curve balls. That IS life at its finest! It’s not allowed to be simple and easy going. If it were, then we would never truly appreciate anything!

            So, moral of the story… plan your dream wedding, but, ALWAYS have a plan B. Don’t strangle your mom (she is just from another time period and wants nothing more than to see you happy), and most importantly do it for those life changing 15 minutes!

P.S.   I would like to dedicate this blog to my coworkers here in J County for the prayers and offers to help my love bug and I as we stumble through the next few weeks. And, to all of you who may be wondering where your next car payment is coming from because you too have been furloughed, I am with you in spirit. Let’s all stand together and hope that they lay down their swords and get our America back to work.