Change of Scenery

     Before spring cleaning my blog with a little updating of the main photo, I was thinking about the picture above and letting some of the thoughts lead me down a path I usually don't let people follow because it is my past. I think that it is not a part of me, but I am wrong.
     The photo is one I took at the Balinese Pavillion of theWorld Garden in Marzahn, Germany in 2008.  It was a beautiful Spring day and every plant in place was in full bloom. It was an absolutely magnificent showing that we had no idea awaited us at the end of our train ride out of Alexanderplatz.  The photo is a pityful example of the beauty we encountered on our visit, of the city, its people, history and culture. 
     What is astounding about this photo is that I took it at all.  I was brought up in the southern culture of the United States of strict religion and deep fear of anything and everyone different from it.  Small town and small mindedness could not hold me and I grew beyond the inflicted boundaries of racism, sexism and xenophobia. 
     Experiencing Berlin forced the last shackles of my upbringing to fall from my shoulders that I always thought held me down.  Being the lover of maps in the family, I fearlessly led my family through the trains from Alexanderplatz to Tiergarten, from Potsdamerplatz to Marzahn, all over the city where we overheard mostly nothing but German everywhere.  We tried our broken German on patient maitre d's and gracious storekeepers.  I was moved to tears in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum at the prominently displayed examples of what the people of East Berlin were willingly to endure to obtain what I so easily take for granted.  My proudest moment was watching my son communicate in his own way with a Berliner about his age at a park as we took a break for lunch.  He was eager to learn, to explore and make friends with someone he couldn't even understand.  I love that he accepts peoples' differences because I know it opens so many doors for him that had been closed to me. 
     This photo says all of that to me with just a glance at it.  I will replace it with one of equal meaning someday this Spring, if I can find one.