I was just thinking today about when you are almost 50, as I am soon approaching...you have an interesting perspective on the world. I have clear memories of my youth when technology hadn't yet expanded our neighborhood to include the entire planet. Yet, I'm young enough to be somewhat comfortable with today's technology. For example.. I love my smart phone, my social media connections like Facebook and twitter and of course, as you can see here, I am trying to be a blogger.
What a contrast to the the days of my youth when I traveled to school in a horse drawn wagon...(Just kidding) but in the minds of today's youth it might as well have been because they just can't imagine a time when the main communication consisted of mailing letters and waiting weeks for a reply. And who can forget the telephone party line. In Eldon, Missouri we didn't just share the phone line but we also shared phone rings. At my house we answered the phone if it was a long and a short ring, but we could also hear the neighbors phone ring. Maybe it would be two long rings or two short rings. Believe me when I say, there were no hour long teenage phone conversation allowed. The world at that time was small and the ability most of us had to impact that world was equally small.
Today, I'm at lunch, when I received an IM from my Facebook account from a young girl in Saudi Arabia that likes my paintings and is anxious for me to see her newest piece. Can you believe it... I'm actually encouraging a young artist in a completely foreign culture to my own, with thousands of miles separating us and many years between us and yet... there she is talking to me excitedly telling me about her new painting...Yasmeen, you did a beautiful job on your painting and without knowing it you have greatly inspired a middle-aged, American woman learning to fire that passion for art in her own life.
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