I am late for the Festival set up by Yulahu, however I can not miss the opportunity to participate. Yes a Festival was announced before I went away and I only now have had the time to write my reply. Why bother you may think? I will tell you exactly why. I have now tried out my holiday home over at Multiply and whilst is a very sweet place it does not fulfill my needs. The camaraderie of my 360 Family and Friends and the interaction here has to me meant such a solid base for Caring and Sharing in such a creative and positive way that I wish to support the Yahoo ship right up to its final departure.

My attempt at the Festival is here for you to read below and I encourage more of this type of creative sharing to come through in the future.

The Statue Man and His Family

The family that plays together stays together or as it is said.

Let me introduce my family to you?

My Father and my Mother. My brother and our two Sisters along with our two little dogs Handsel and Gretal live in a German town not far from Frankfurt.

Our family originally from a near by European Country are now settled here and we children attend local schools. Mother is an artist and our Father is a teacher. He is also a sculptor in his spare time and has developed the best character for busking, and when he busks we all go with him on weekends to the Romerplatz in Frankfurt Germany.

So it is on many occasions we the family go with him and watch him perform in his busking style as the character of the Statue. You can see us all together our family and our little dogs watching Father and enjoying his portrayal as a Statue on the paved streets in front of the old buildings and statues of times gone past.

Father is a fun loving and very creative man and he teaches us so much in life. Not only is there a twinkle in his eyes that even the mask of the Statue cannot hide, there is a love of life and all that life brings to us as a family, which like so many others of us now move along with the times in Europe, in the 21^st century.

Father says it was a struggle to get us here for these new beginnings but freedom does come at cost, not that my parents talk to us about that cost, so Dad now Busks in his free time as a man representing the ‘freedom to choose his way of life’ unlike the lives he and my mother knew when they were growing up in their original homeland.

We all support Father and help him to create his Statue by carrying the costumes in our bags and rucksacks. Mother is an excellent artist and has made the costume for Father and she does his make up too. My Older Sister made my Father place the white flower on his hat as a sign of Peace and my young brother and sister keep Handsel and Gretal occupied while they wait for his performances.

We are all spell bound with excitement as Father in his charismatic and charming way encourages people to stop and ponder his busking performance. I always enjoy the atmosphere because my Father emanates such a powerful presence that most people stop and smile and some even drop some money at his feet. The money he collects is sent back to his homeland to an orphanage that our family now support. Not every child knows the love of a family life and Mother tells us that We are Blessed.

I tell my story to a beautiful lady who stopped by and took some photos of my Family and my Father on a Sunny afternoon. She was very interested in our family because she said it reminded her of her beautiful family back home. She said that she could feel the bonding and closeness of our family in the hustle and bustle of the Romerplatz and that my Father was the first statue man she had observed with such a grand grinning smile. We know why he smiles and grins so proudly, it is because he knows that we are free to build our own statues up to the sky and form our own loving and close friendships with our family and friends in this our newly found Home of Freedom. Where we can express ourselves in Safety even as a Statue Man.

Written by Milli 2007 for Julianna.