Tonight I went to hear two survivors from the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima speak. While they had vastly different approaches to calling for peace; one called herself "Grandma" and ended with a call to action for peace chorus style, and the other was clearly speaking out of a place of rage and academic critique, both moved me and made me hope that the word "Hibakusha," or survivor of the atomic bomb, becomes a word we no longer need in any language.
Since I always seem to connect everything to books, I will mention that tonight I thought about a book that I have not thought about in a long time. When I was in grade school, I remember reading a book called
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Sitting at this talk tonight, the vivid memory returned to me of the young girl's struggle to fold the thousand paper cranes and to be granted her one wish, which was to live.
Narrative, in my mind, is the most powerful of all art forms...
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