writings "green" "Forgiveness" "Memory" On Shoes Christmas Eve Vavarin Mother's Letter-1 Mother's Letter-2 _______ home :: sculpture :: biography :: children's teaching :: email Milena here

Memory After the Iron Curtain fell in 1990, I visited Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, the city of my birth. It was the first time I had returned since 1966, having left at the age of 10 for Israel and eventually America. Before this trip I used to visit this city almost nightly in my imagination - visit the streets, neighborhoods. I had its map deeply imprinted in my mind. I believe my interest in architecture began there. The angles, curving streets, city squares. A particular memory still is vivid: Wanting to surprise my mother with a present on her birthday, I walked the diagonal city streets to buy her two flowers - a white Narcissus with a yellow center encircled by a red rim, and a purple Iris. Crowded streets with strangers all around me, I a small child proudly carried home my two fragile flowers. It was to be my last spring in Czechoslovakia before we left. From then on I would return only through nostalgia, memory.