This story was prompted by Hélène Vaillant’s weekly photo prompt challenge, “What do you see?”
https://helenevaillant.com/2018/09/17/what-do-you-see-sept-18-2018/
I was but a wee five year old when my parents moved our family to San Francisco. It was 1968, and we moved right into the heart and soul of the Hippy movement in the Haight Ashbury.
One would think that two immigrants from Jordan, moving to San Francisco during a highly charged era would have had caused them both to have apoplectic fits.
But oddly enough, since my Mother was an artist, she was very captivated by the hippies. She became very close with our neighbors Kathy and Maury who lived in the flat next door.
The flats in San Francisco, had walkways with railings that connect all the flats to the flats next door. It was interesting living because you were very close to your neighbors. This felt like home for my parents because back home it was similar, everyone was an Aunt, or an Uncle or cousin, even if they really were not genetically related.
Kathy also was an artist, and a hippy. She had very long flowing hair and didn’t wear a bra and tried to get my Mom to give up her Playtex 18 hour lift and support bra, but to no avail. Mom was set in her ways including the “bouffant do.” Even with these differences, they became best of friends, which lasted even when we moved to the suburbs a few years later.
Her husband Maury was a professor at UC Berkeley and he had a full on afro although he was caucasian, but had very tight curly hair. He and my Father would talk politics for hours. Maury was a kind and generous man and on the weekends, he would often take our family to San Francisco’s special places, Lands End, Ocean Beach, Golden Gate Park, and The Exploratorium. Indeed, he influenced my older sister over the years and helped her prepare for acceptance into Berkeley. Which she achieved after she completed high school.
For me, at five years of age, San Francisco shaped my personality and my interests over the years. Really, who I am still today. During the summer, we signed up for day-camp, and of course the teachers were hippies. I learned about acorns and seeds, and we would take long walks in the park and find leaves that took our interest so we could draw them later, we listened to musicians playing drums in Dolores Park, and I even got to sit in Carlos Santana’s lap.
When we started school, as a kindergartner, I got to participate in creating a beautiful mosaic. In fact, the one you see here. It was 1968, at Alvarado Elementary School in the Noe Valley. The San Francisco Unified School District set aside funds for Artist Ruth Asawa to lead an art program at the school that indeed continues to this very day with her son Paul Lanier taking the helm. This is no small feat with School budgets for the Arts next to nothing in most school districts across California.
But the true test of a piece of art is how it is interpreted by the community. And reading through everyone posts, I see it represented well in their poems and words. Indeed, I consider our blogging community full of artistic and creative, like minded people joining together to create our special community.
Getting to participate with creating this mural, taught me all about inclusion because the public school had people from all walks of life. It taught me that we live through and with our community. Just as you see the older Victorian buildings showcased, and interspersed with children, teachers, and flora and fauna.
I loved sgeoil’s poem as she captured it perfectly. I wish we could send it to Ms. Asawa now to thank her. Indeed, in 2000 they started another mosaic at the school, and the Principal shared,
“This mural shows what wonders children can create when working with artists and using their left-brain and right-brain skills,” says Alvarado Principal Phyllis Matsuno. “The mural project has had an incredible positive impact not only on the academic achievement of the students, but also on our school spirit.”
If you would like to read more about the mosaics; here is an article from 2000.
http://www.noevalleyvoice.com/2000/May/0005alva.htm
Thank you, Hélène for sponsoring this special moment and once again providing a sacred space to share our thoughts and creativity.
https://helenevaillant.com/2018/09/17/what-do-you-see-sept-18-2018/
Jordy’s Streamings 
Loved your write and especially love the beautiful mosaic you show here. I am an artist apart from my writing and do understand diversity. My parents hail from two totally different ethnic groups and cultural ways of doing things so growing up was full of colors…much like this mosaic.
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Thank you, Renee. I love that you describe diversity in many colors. Indeed, my favorite thing to do was to walk along Ocean Beach in San Francisco on a sunny day watching the diverse hroups of people and loving all the colors. There is joy in so being.
Jordan
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In 1968 I was living in Greenwich Village in NYC. The Jr high school I was attending was multicultural. And encouraged thinking outside the box. It was soon after that I began writing. I started with poetry. I have branched out into flash fiction.
I have been lucky to visit San Francisco and some other locations in CA. Thank you for the history you provided as well as your contribution to the mosaic which has inspired many wonderful verses.
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Wonderful, Jule! I would imagine Greenwich, NY, culturally was very similar to San Francisco. We were fortunate to have had those experiences and how they shaped us. Lovely.
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Dear Jordy thus was wonderful an enjoyable history lesson that blossemed into an art and spiritual story. Thank you for sharing 💜💜🍃
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Thank you very much, Willow!😘🙏🌹 It certainly did take on a life of its own.
Tis indeed spiritual, I hadn’t thought of it like that but it brought everyone together and the mosaic took on a life if its own as well. It’s survived for 50 years and now flowering other mosaics.
San Francisco is such a beautiful and spiritual city. One can find hundreds of mosaics and sculptures that capture the spirit of the city’s diversity and ofm course it doesn’t rival London’s centuries of historic artifacts but it is slowly kneading the fabric of the people.
Community is the glue that holds societies together in the same way love binds the universe together. What betterbwaybyo bring everyone together than through art?
Lovely, isn’t it?
Oh boy I drabbled on. 😊
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No you don’t dribble on at all 💜 it’s lovely to read
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Thank you, dear Willow!😊
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💜
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What an incredible experience to be part of creating such a beautiful mosaic. A wonderful way to tap into all children’s abilities and build that sense of community. It is interesting how all the responses reflected on a sense of community. It speaks to the power of the mosaic.
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Indeed, my thought exactly. I am thinking about somehow sharing this with the artist. The impact it had that shaped who we are. I would love to send her your poem. What so you think?
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Jordan I think sharing with the artist is wonderful idea and you pay me a huge compliment. I would be honoured if you sent her my poem.
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Thank you, will let you know of the outcome.🤗
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Please do!
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Thank you, Hélène. I do feel very blessed and thank you from my heart for taking partbin this sharing.
Oddly enough, in this same school, the playground was separated to keep the boys abd girls apart!! Actually, the boys were dismissed from class fifteen minutes earlier than the girls so they could play longer!
Was it like tgat in Canada?
Also, atill a littld groggy from back surgery and I found many grammatical errors, sorry. I will clean them up once, I rest tonight.
Big hugs, Jordan🤗
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In the Catholic primary school system, 1950’s, it was just girls in one school and boys in a separate school. When my daughter and son started school in the late 60’s, it was mixed, you are much younger then I am Jordan. My children are of your generation and they certainly did not get such fruitful and interesting education as you did, you also had terrific parents to show you the way, and…you sat in Santana’s lap….😄
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No kidding, I love Santana til this very day!! Thank you, Hélène, I do feel blessed.🤩
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Thank you Jordan for sharing this beautiful journey with us.
I am amazed at the education you were blessed with in the school system.
California has always been ahead of us in many cultural aspects
definitely more liberal and carefree compared to where I was in my part of Canada
in that same time frame.
Thank you for offering this incredible photo of the mosaic for the prompt.
The memories you shared touched me greatly.❤️🙏
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