I can not say how proud I am that the Smithsonian Mag website has decided to feature Pysanky for Peace on their home page and site! It gave me the biggest shock of my life seeing my humble eggshell up there with so many other talented artists.

Stuff like this is the dreams, if you grew up reading history textbooks for fun, because you grew up understanding that history is the context of our lives, regardless of how divorced it seems, the way we teach it. When you grow up seeing numbers on the arms of the elders in your community, and the fear in your grandmother’s eyes when she hides history books about the time periods that featured your family’s own most tumultuous attempts at surviving history, doomed or no, you cannot help but learn this fear and awe as visceral. An organization like the Smithsonian has the power of the divine for its ability to influence people in their understanding of the world around them, through how it portrays the actions of the people it serves, and the people it does or does not see itself as serving. It is with the awe of this lifetime of adoring the Smithsonian’s work, that I took in this wonderful news, while processing that I had endured falling into a coma from which approximately 10% of people wake, without falling back into a vegetative state.

I have experienced many Shehechiyanu moments in my short lifetime, moments where history, anscestry, coincidence line up to create something truly inspiring, miraculous, extraordinary. I consider this one. I am deeply touched, and humbled, by the places this pysanka has traveled. Slava Ukraini, and Shema Yisrael! If I fall back asleep tomorrow, and don’t wake up in a strange hospital again, if my miracle ends with this breath, I would be happy to let it go with this. I would be happy knowing that in some small way, history has seen my creations and storytelling, through the eyes on this eggshell, and that I have left some small fingerprint showing the ethos with which I have thrown myself into the time I have had.

Shalom and thank you,

שלום ותודה רבה

Nolie

נאולי