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Rosemary Lauth's avatar

I love this poem.

I love the ordinary. Crave it, yearn for it, cherish it.

Two recollections prompted by this:

- an Auschwitz survivor recalled her parents readying her for a “hike” she thought it would be a sunny outing and she argued incessantly to wear her new sandles. The parents knew better but did not want to frighten her. They made her wear sturdy leather shoes. The hike thru the snow of the Alps took its toll on little feet. Not hers.

Many years later, she spoke with relish of yearning for “the ordinary” and one can imagine why.

-Baby Emma vocalized her own loud reaction to a fire truck, to the astonishment of those in earshot! Her shouting the word, while unable to form the “t,” shaping an “f” instead, was extraordinary.

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Ien Nivens's avatar

Extraordinary.

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