Tag Archives: hope

The Only Existing Footage of Anne Frank

Recently a friend shared with me a short video clip called. “The Only Existing Video Footage of Anne Frank.” The video is only twenty seconds long. It gives the viewer a brief snap shot of a street in Amsterdam during 1941. It shows people walking down the street, a bicyclist, a couple who was just married. Then the camera pans upwards to a nondescript balcony. From the second the lens sets its sight on the balcony, one immediately recognizes the profile of this famous young girl. Anne Frank leans over the railing, then looks behind her as someone from within the house beckons her. Her unmistakable ringlets cascade as she looks down toward the street. She is not on the film for more than two seconds. This silent film clip is the only known footage of her.

She has become an icon, a cultural phenomena, an important bookend of an era full of the suffering and murder of countless Jewish families. Anne did not survive the war, in fact her father was the only survivor of the group that hid out in the secret annex. After being liberated, her father, Otto Frank, left Auschwitz in search of his family. Upon learning his wife has perished, he returned to Amsterdam with the hope of finding his two young daughters. He finds, of course, that they too have died. A friend gives him Anne’s writings and diary. Otto then works to fufill her one wish: to have her diary published.

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A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes…

My friends hate Disney World. This bothers me. I don’t hate Disney, although they’re a huge corporation; a big conglomerate that doesn’t stop at Disney but sprawls over oceans and across continents like most historic empires. I don’t think my friends hate them for this reason either. Although they blame their hatred of all things Disney on their high ticket prices, and $5 bottles of water, I think it is something that goes deeper than this.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot of talk about people disliking Disney’s “Princess” message, and that it’s dangerous for little girls to grow up thinking they are one day going to find their “prince charming and live happily ever after.” I will admit to being a victim of this mentality, but reality made sure it didn’t last for long. I don’t think I’m the only woman who after years of dating jerks and creeps, was surprised to find out that even “Prince Charming” is less than perfect, human if you will. Regardless of this surprise, I still don’t hate Disney.

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Filed under Dreams, Fairy Tales, Fun, Inspirational, Life Lessons

Get Busy Living

Years ago when I was waffling through my own misspent youth, my father quoted me a line from his favorite move, “The Shawshank Redemption.”  The film itself is about a wrongly imprisoned man who spends two decades chiseling a hole in his cell wall that eventually leads him to his freedom. This movie is very insightful; the plot alone metaphorically serves as an example for the persistence and human spirit it takes to reach a goal without breaking, no matter how impossible. The movie quote really did change my life, and I’ve thought of it through the years whenever I became hopeless.

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Filed under Inspirational, Life Lessons

Evaluated

Painting by Hayley Rose, Copyright 2008

 

Throughout my lifetime, I can recall the instances in which I got the look. It was typically given to me by what I can most tersely describe as “left-brained people.”  They’ve squinted their eyes, raised their eyebrows, and scrunched-up their noses at me without even attempting to hide that they were questioning my sanity. However, in my youth I’d existed in a blissful ignorance, never suspecting anyone of doing this to me until one day….

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Filed under Healing, Inspirational, Life Lessons