tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29304144940872516412024-03-12T19:29:46.376-07:00New York City ReflectionsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-28405329214678858042016-09-10T18:22:00.000-07:002016-09-10T18:22:47.274-07:00France!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This package is pressed between two pair of black jeans in my suitcase. As Drew and I wait at Clinton National Airport to board our flight to Atlanta then on to Paris, we watch our bags being loaded onto the plane. There it goes, my large brown Samsonite with the shiny silver ribbon.<br />
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"A journal," the instructions specified on the <i>What To Bring</i> list. I already had one, still wrapped in its original parchment paper. When I bought it two months ago, I knew I would need it . . . sometime. A writer can never have too many. But I never dreamed that it would be traveling with us to France, especially to Chartres.<br />
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The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartres_Cathedral">Cathedral at Chartres</a>, about an hour southwest of Paris, is a UNESCO World Heritage Center. UNESCO describes it as a "high point of French Gothic art... a masterpiece."<br />
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For labyrinth lovers, like me, Chartres Cathedral is THE destination, as it was for pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages. On its floor, under its voluminous vaulted arches, lies a <a href="http://www.labyrinthos.net/photo_library14.html">labyrinth</a> built in the early 13th century.<br />
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For the next five days, I will participate in a labyrinth pilgrimage at the cathedral, led by Dr. Lauren Artress. I will add my footsteps to the thousands of other pilgrims who have traveled through its doors and circled the labyrinth for the past 800 years.<br />
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I chose not to unwrap the journal before we left. I can hardly remember its features - flowered cover, perhaps, lined pages or blank? I anticipate peeling off the tape and unfolding the layers, much as I anticipate the journey ahead. The destination known, the details yet to unfold.<br />
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THEN . . .<br />
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Drew and I will travel through Normandy and Brittany for ten days, a whole different kind of journey.<br />
I'll be sure to save plenty of blank pages.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-78608714864887135152016-05-21T21:03:00.000-07:002016-05-22T10:46:22.160-07:00The Titanic - One Woman's Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As Drew and I entered the <a href="http://lsc.org/see-whats-happening/current-exhibitions-and-experiences/titanic-the-artifact-exhibition/">Titanic Artifact Exhibition</a> at the <a href="http://lsc.org/">Liberty Science Center</a> in Jersey City, we were each given a boarding pass.<br />
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Mine was ticket #17758, belonging to Mrs.Victor Penasco y Castellana (Maria Josefa Perez de Soto y Vallejo), of Madrid. She and her husband had boarded Titanic at Cherbourg on April 10, 1912, two days before the ship hit an iceberg and sank. Other particulars were listed on the reverse side.<br />
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I would not learn of Maria's fate until the last room of the exhibit, where all passengers were accounted for. Maria and Victor were guests in First Class cabin C-65. Knowing that women, children and first class passengers had the greatest chance of securing lifeboat seats, I predicted that Maria had survived. But perhaps not. She could have refused to leave her husband; they both could have believed the boastings of an "unsinkable" ship and ignored the crew's instructions, or...<br />
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I carried Maria's card around with me as I looked at artifacts salvaged from the wreck. A comb, shoe, diamond bracelet, razor, perfume bottle. What had been her story that night? What possession of hers still lay on the ocean floor?<br />
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According to the boarding pass, Maria (age 17) and Victor's <i><b>Reason</b></i> for traveling to New York was "an adventurous two-year honeymoon. While staying in Paris, they decided to extend the magic with a transatlantic voyage on Titanic." Victor was described as <i>extremely wealthy</i>. <br />
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The <i><b>Passenger Fact</b></i> at the bottom of the card intrigued me: "Maria's mother-in-law had warned the couple against taking a trip by sea, saying it was bad luck for a honeymoon. To fool the families, Maria and Victor left their butler in Paris, instructing him to mail several pre-written post cards to Spain while they traveled to New York and back." A ruse that backfired, badly.<br />
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The large white placards loomed on the wall beside the exit sign, row after row of names - 2208 of them; 1503 lost, 705 survived. I scanned the First Class Survivors' list. I did not find Maria. My eyes dropped down to those Lost. Sadly, Victor was there; but not his wife. Once again, more slowly, I searched among the Survivors, and there.... there she was. She and her maid, Fermina had lived!<br />
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The boarding pass lay on my writing desk for a week. I'd look at it and wonder, "What happened to Maria? A very young widow, her husband tragically and suddenly gone. After Titanic, then what?" Today, I googled her and to my <i>amazement</i> found --<br />
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A photo....<br />
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"After six years of mourning, Pepita (name her family called her) married Baron de Rio Tovia, a man of many titles, had two sons and a daughter and lived the life of a wealthy and connected matron."<br />
--<u>Titanic, Woman and Children First</u> by Judith Gellar<br />
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She died in 1972 at the age of 83.<br />
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A woman I know only through the random selection of a card with her name on it.<br />
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A woman whose story I'm privileged to know, even briefly.... and to share.<br />
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<i><b>** The Titanic Artifact exhibit closes on May 30, 2016. </b></i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-91100744772642972162016-04-24T17:22:00.000-07:002016-04-25T14:05:41.680-07:00Empty Bowls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A colorful bowl</div>
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A creative bowl</div>
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A handmade bowl</div>
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An empty bowl</div>
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This bowl, made by a child's hands, sits on our kitchen counter to remind us that... </div>
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<i><b>somewhere in the world, someone's bowl is always empty.</b></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MBx5HsGKJJ2bi0xCmmZzrgQk7osW07lCd9oPELj6KqhiOx4t7B4ClJhQHfOtWms3omrqBaf2I1fSRjQ9q4CUA71aPjuUn-yVd1MVAVpX1kGDJGH4oAsLV1L8WchUmAsRFOe0YF-AO6Q/s1600/IMG_1816-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MBx5HsGKJJ2bi0xCmmZzrgQk7osW07lCd9oPELj6KqhiOx4t7B4ClJhQHfOtWms3omrqBaf2I1fSRjQ9q4CUA71aPjuUn-yVd1MVAVpX1kGDJGH4oAsLV1L8WchUmAsRFOe0YF-AO6Q/s320/IMG_1816-2.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
I selected it on Saturday from a collection of equally dazzling bowls at the Empty Bowls Cereal Café in Hoboken, an event sponsored annually by <a href="http://www.allsaintsdayschool.org/page">All Saints Episcopal Day School</a>.<br />
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My friend, Amina O'Kane, who is the Director of Admissions and High School Placement at the school, invited me to come. I had admired her own empty bowl months before, and wanted to learn more.<br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">When I googled </span><a href="http://www.emptybowls.net/" style="text-align: left;">Empty Bowls</a><span style="text-align: left;">, I was surprised to find that it's a project which spans almost every state in the U. S. and many countries around the world. As their website states, Empty Bowls is "an international grassroots effort to raise both money and awareness in the fight to end hunger." At each local event, individuals handcraft the bowls. At All Saints, they were created by students. The donors receive bowls along with a simple meal - soup and bread, or in the case of All Saints, all-you-can-eat cereal. The money raised at the cereal café benefits the <a href="http://hobokenshelter.org/">Hoboken Shelter</a>, which in 2015 served 182,000 meals, and <a href="http://www.stmatthewtrinity.org/socialministries.html">St. Matthews lunchtime ministry</a> which serves about 75 guests a day. </span></div>
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I couldn't resist picking up a <i>second</i> bowl from the table. A bowl that grows food!! Recycled paper pulp, water and seeds -- ready to pop in the soil and water -- created by third graders. A small pink smile in the middle of one of the attached cards caught my attention, along with a delicate heart to the right. There were obviously two secret ingredients in the mix. Happiness and Love....from </div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"> Children </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"> Making a Difference!</span></div>
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*For <a href="http://climatekids.nasa.gov/seed-paper/">instructions</a> about how to make your own seed bowls, check out NASA's Climate Kids. The seed papers can easily be shaped into bowls.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-12189551033119287372016-02-08T15:33:00.000-08:002016-02-08T15:34:38.069-08:00Your Own Journey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today concludes my six Mondays (<a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-blog-awakens.html">January 3</a>, <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/when-journey-chooses-you.html">January 11</a>, <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/sunday-afternoon-visitin.html">January 18</a>, <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/listen-to-voice.html">January 25</a>, <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-950-page-journey.html">February 1</a>) of reflection on <span style="font-family: "chalkduster"; font-size: 16px;">Journey.</span> I could keep going and going as I now see a journey in just about everything in life; but there are other subjects that catch my fancy.<br />
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I've known since I began this series that I would end with <a href="http://maryoliver.beacon.org/">Mary Oliver</a>'s poem, <i>The Journey</i>. Mary is my favorite poet. Thanks to my friend, Margie Beedle, who secured tickets for us to attend one of her poetry readings, I've heard Mary read this poem in person.<br />
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I wish you peace, courage and growth on your own journeys. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3t2FGOo8S549Ln8qVzSxwjjCSbHM0DhC1RAjzg8kUddoqLl8_aBd6K2MhiDTtiHhYEW2kl2kkZhFhAFD6F09asGNU6ANsLsWqbVgmps_l4xMLuo4vYlw90qeYUdTLkx0mp-VId51F7c/s1600/IMG_5005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3t2FGOo8S549Ln8qVzSxwjjCSbHM0DhC1RAjzg8kUddoqLl8_aBd6K2MhiDTtiHhYEW2kl2kkZhFhAFD6F09asGNU6ANsLsWqbVgmps_l4xMLuo4vYlw90qeYUdTLkx0mp-VId51F7c/s320/IMG_5005.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A cairn beside my labyrinth </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i><b>The Journey</b></i><br />
by Mary Oliver<br />
<br />
One day you finally knew<br />
what you had to do, and began,<br />
though the voices around you<br />
kept shouting<br />
their bad advice -<br />
though the whole house<br />
began to tremble<br />
and you felt the old tug<br />
at your ankles.<br />
"Mend my life!"<br />
each voice cried.<br />
But you didn't stop.<br />
You knew what you had to do,<br />
though the wind pried<br />
with its stiff fingers<br />
at the very foundations,<br />
though their melancholy<br />
was terrible.<br />
It was already late<br />
enough, and a wild night,<br />
and the road full of fallen<br />
branches and stones.<br />
But little by little,<br />
as you left their voices behind,<br />
the stars began to burn<br />
through the sheets of clouds,<br />
and there was a new voice<br />
which you slowly<br />
recognized as your own,<br />
that kept you company<br />
as you strode deeper and deeper<br />
into the world,<br />
determined to do<br />
the only thing you could do -<br />
determined to save<br />
the only life you could save. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-68208893761053278462016-02-01T07:08:00.000-08:002016-02-01T07:54:57.589-08:00A 950-page Journey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew';">
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><i>My series of reflections on </i></b></span><span style="font-family: "chalkduster"; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Journey</span><b style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i> continues…...</i></b></div>
<div>
(For background, refer to <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-blog-awakens.html">January 3</a> entry.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFhXQeVVUlf3qT52bOBZhLDm_xnmi6lzkOXY9k1v6c4-muAUM4Mk_UJD9ZQddHC9GlMj6cJkWeiAy8FCYwh4JrZ9vwRFBoGdqtfae0lIWWpP3y6Ek1MsYRFUqJpox3qyGEefC1lQtJC0/s1600/IMG_5098.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFhXQeVVUlf3qT52bOBZhLDm_xnmi6lzkOXY9k1v6c4-muAUM4Mk_UJD9ZQddHC9GlMj6cJkWeiAy8FCYwh4JrZ9vwRFBoGdqtfae0lIWWpP3y6Ek1MsYRFUqJpox3qyGEefC1lQtJC0/s320/IMG_5098.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
If I were to turn this book over, most of you would immediately recognize the person on the cover. Even though there's not a single word to accompany his self-portrait, you would know. I often leave the book turned upside down on my nightstand, on purpose, because of the severe expression on his face. Angry, suspicious...or sad, perhaps? It's all in the eyes. "Keep your distance," they seem to say. <br />
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I purchased my copy over two years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I attended a book talk by the authors, <a href="https://www.bestlawyers.com/About/TheFounders.aspx">Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith</a>. Since then it's been waiting on my bookshelf, almost forgotten. One of those books you have to be in the mood to begin, if nothing more than because of its shear size.<br />
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At 950 pages, the biography could be a hand weight. Sometimes it takes both hands to leverage it off the nightstand onto my lap, where I read a few pages, then hear it clunk on the floor as I fall asleep. To date, I'm on page 144. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKwrrlM6nO1eJsMzcHimwfmISnaMm3mJnFwAKhw81ExIBRklixBrT352Tz1DteebpmcROI9YelVi8TPCytW3kLsbJcMMdVWSqwXWm4fBKQ2wMhpj1wWb_GCE7PuYzDJkjvcbf1Q7M5VYg/s1600/IMG_5087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="98" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKwrrlM6nO1eJsMzcHimwfmISnaMm3mJnFwAKhw81ExIBRklixBrT352Tz1DteebpmcROI9YelVi8TPCytW3kLsbJcMMdVWSqwXWm4fBKQ2wMhpj1wWb_GCE7PuYzDJkjvcbf1Q7M5VYg/s320/IMG_5087.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So, why my commitment to follow the subject's journey, to keep rejoining his story night after night? Because I want to know how it all began.<br />
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On page 144 (age 23), he has no intention of being an artist. The authors make no mention that the idea has even crossed his mind. The closest he's come to art is working for his rich uncle, the art dealer. Fired from that job, he's tried teaching, preaching, being a missionary in a mining camp -- restless, "suffering great misery," as he said in a letter to his brother. When - and more importantly, <i>why</i> - does he pick up a paintbrush for the first time?<br />
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I know how his story ends. Tragically. Yet in only a decade as an active painter, he produced over 900 paintings and 1100 works on paper. Today, his art hangs in the most prestigious museums in the world. In 2015 one of his paintings sold for 66.3 million dollars. <br />
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With great fortune, I've stood with my nose inches away from his thick brush stokes. I've swayed with the movement of his trees and felt the pulsating heat from the glow of his sun, painted as no one before him had painted. I imagine the artist sweating in the near-noon heat, transforming what he sees before him to what flows from his brush. And each time I've wondered about the man, about what led him to the creation before me.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYCyUdp3HKVN8Wph83RtJgQTiL01iETyk_4jVqN5SVXDHWyVtFNj5MPwgTmdEhnZZ5nv1sNJ-fu6nDXdG026FTleW5V3uMVM5ezhbpDka-48HA_gb-JzkzuLJPfsPtNIViSJo8UmHaDok/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYCyUdp3HKVN8Wph83RtJgQTiL01iETyk_4jVqN5SVXDHWyVtFNj5MPwgTmdEhnZZ5nv1sNJ-fu6nDXdG026FTleW5V3uMVM5ezhbpDka-48HA_gb-JzkzuLJPfsPtNIViSJo8UmHaDok/s320/images.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Hence, I keep reading. And knowing what I know about journeys, I'm fully aware that I'm reading for more than a single event -- that so-called spark of creative genius or moment of inspiration. I'm reading for the story of a <i>life.</i> A journey that didn't begin with a brushstroke, with a man discovering a solitary paintbrush on his path. <i>It's as much about the steps before, and then, the steps after.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSGbZtfEZE2I-3pecm7RyNw1Yqd_AFKLBKGu3nIB_njtNExVpVp3EZMPcfrygDM2gaSEiGaJxzC42cDQaYZtoSz8U_kJz14Gn81M6hyKhDwDvtoFmT5lt38WeZZLSDgCV2hqPQjqrXOEI/s1600/IMG_5093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSGbZtfEZE2I-3pecm7RyNw1Yqd_AFKLBKGu3nIB_njtNExVpVp3EZMPcfrygDM2gaSEiGaJxzC42cDQaYZtoSz8U_kJz14Gn81M6hyKhDwDvtoFmT5lt38WeZZLSDgCV2hqPQjqrXOEI/s320/IMG_5093.jpg" width="243" /></a>After 950 pages, I hope to better understand the face on the cover, how <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gogh/hd_gogh.htm">Vincent Van Gogh</a> painted not only what he saw in the mirror, but carried with him - on the inside. Even now, I place it back on my nightstand, right side up. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbytNcSsKQ600LnUpiaG-N69ANeFhBxZtMThuOquHWyzk-FJQ6tiPGmpI029gAyfqZNKyBCCUwgP52ylOC9zNadScUj2gurhwBlmx6-5zaBS8k9Tm8bY7Y6COyGTV61ZabbiLCJrP5Kk/s1600/IMG_5096.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnbytNcSsKQ600LnUpiaG-N69ANeFhBxZtMThuOquHWyzk-FJQ6tiPGmpI029gAyfqZNKyBCCUwgP52ylOC9zNadScUj2gurhwBlmx6-5zaBS8k9Tm8bY7Y6COyGTV61ZabbiLCJrP5Kk/s320/IMG_5096.jpg" width="99" /></a><br />
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*<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Van-Gogh-Life-Steven-Naifeh/dp/0375758976">Van Gogh, The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-80057371410381293892016-01-25T08:54:00.000-08:002016-01-31T11:27:18.015-08:00Listen to the Voice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew';">
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><i>My series of reflections on </i></b></span><span style="font-family: "chalkduster"; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Journey</span><b style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i> continues…...</i></b></div>
<div>
(For background, refer to <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-blog-awakens.html">January 3</a> entry.)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkgS2mziGG9uNyCIK5ykF6T1zNElu7mJrpgN5s_dRv8Va9fynh_nWf8RfBnRs-E3eB1J4onoo9Csm9slJS9ySRctC9DJQBxwT_WQADeQQGs7g6kpZGxbiDLQqHQh3xZzaIEd_qbDXWLrs/s1600/IMG_5080.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkgS2mziGG9uNyCIK5ykF6T1zNElu7mJrpgN5s_dRv8Va9fynh_nWf8RfBnRs-E3eB1J4onoo9Csm9slJS9ySRctC9DJQBxwT_WQADeQQGs7g6kpZGxbiDLQqHQh3xZzaIEd_qbDXWLrs/s320/IMG_5080.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Art supplies. <i>My</i> art supplies, not my grandchildren's, even though the book says "for KIDS." Through the years, I've filled and re-filled a basket of art supplies for them - crayons, markers, paints, clay, pipe cleaners, construction paper, glue, scissors, sketch pads… and gladly joined in <i>their</i> projects. It's not that I haven't been creative in other areas of my life, but when it comes to drawing, painting, designing - from ideas in my head rather than stamped with instructions - I've felt stuck in first grade. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRQWXaIZphllYG_tPDBW624MOWeQx21B_95s5VmteQa9mmvq5CZsNwOyWZ-7BjLfEfdfMb7Uj87kaNGZCB284anPjR8DXvPiXNRnU1Z0vGkIjTTbIouCYOMnDnTTvbnCA8RiqXYugerKE/s1600/IMG_1557.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRQWXaIZphllYG_tPDBW624MOWeQx21B_95s5VmteQa9mmvq5CZsNwOyWZ-7BjLfEfdfMb7Uj87kaNGZCB284anPjR8DXvPiXNRnU1Z0vGkIjTTbIouCYOMnDnTTvbnCA8RiqXYugerKE/s320/IMG_1557.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
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You get the idea.</div>
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Art classes seemed scary. Everyone would be better than I. Only "artists" take art classes. I had to know what I was doing before I even signed up for the class. Obviously, my reasoning was stuck in first grade, as well. </div>
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But something fundamental has changed in the last few years. I've started listening to voices. Voices that initially had nothing to do with art, but had everything to do with honoring myself.<br />
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Like the voice that inspired me to create a meditation room - complete with purple curtains, enroll in my first writing workshop, write a blog, lead labyrinth retreats for women, embark on a <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">50-state labyrinth journey</a> and write a book about it, present at <a href="https://labyrinthsociety.org/">The Labyrinth Society</a> Annual Gathering. What would have happened... if I had ignored her? <br />
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Then, a month ago, a voice whispered, "Take a look at this art class." I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I noticed a friend's posting about an online class she was helping teach - <i><a href="http://classes.kialagivehand.com/">The Journey Within: A Year of Handmade Art Journals.</a></i> I read the details: "creative exploration through art journaling and handmade books, using mixed media for those who want to express themselves using words and images." I paused for only about a minute and a half, long enough for my 60ish year-old self to reassure the hesitant 7-year-old. "Bring your beautiful, creative spirit along. We're on this journey together."<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkX6xiyDysV1COTSqG2iScHfgueYneURQBT4p5hFzOycA_qoX22Kj_AqtTOuesFbRIOmz3RytCJpf36Coh2ZEdQOeepEdrqNA_yvVRyQ7bG5LSJ43HGJE3pro0mjc_gmgBhfynLAvjSk/s1600/IMG_5083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkX6xiyDysV1COTSqG2iScHfgueYneURQBT4p5hFzOycA_qoX22Kj_AqtTOuesFbRIOmz3RytCJpf36Coh2ZEdQOeepEdrqNA_yvVRyQ7bG5LSJ43HGJE3pro0mjc_gmgBhfynLAvjSk/s200/IMG_5083.JPG" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">front</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_irTqh1DJvN1IvNHLxA2QN-3EGbgZ5RKmVQ1xX56b0IFJMUJoPD5ZggQPA6UZHBEmLW7Ch9pCKpwlLPSXPiQ7H7s7gDZeR8ajzrlL8s8NofGttps3RzNz4fa-2RxbYySRvWCWcMMH-FY/s1600/IMG_5082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_irTqh1DJvN1IvNHLxA2QN-3EGbgZ5RKmVQ1xX56b0IFJMUJoPD5ZggQPA6UZHBEmLW7Ch9pCKpwlLPSXPiQ7H7s7gDZeR8ajzrlL8s8NofGttps3RzNz4fa-2RxbYySRvWCWcMMH-FY/s200/IMG_5082.jpg" width="166" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">back</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've completed my January journal, a mini one, decorated with <a href="https://www.zentangle.com/">Zentangles</a> and held together with a pipe cleaner.<br />
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<i> </i><br />
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I've filled it with quotes. And one watercolor - my first ever! The prompt was to find seeds, look closely at them, then select a meaningful quote to accompany the artwork. I followed the video tutorial step-by-step, stopping and starting, dabbing and detailing. It felt like meditation.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQCYNnkVWW4AIbjZW4aA309f8MwjJYYMsZDA_tkBNSZEpbNMr18rlyzieJS1tqMIl1A6RG2o4hjAMeQa3XNm4EJBz86CJSrvWu8JVTHoem_sSJWLrMfk5ymDa8c-akAwhKcH2KBq77w4/s1600/IMG_5085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQCYNnkVWW4AIbjZW4aA309f8MwjJYYMsZDA_tkBNSZEpbNMr18rlyzieJS1tqMIl1A6RG2o4hjAMeQa3XNm4EJBz86CJSrvWu8JVTHoem_sSJWLrMfk5ymDa8c-akAwhKcH2KBq77w4/s320/IMG_5085.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I bravely share my creations not to say, "Look at what <i>I</i> did," but rather, "Look at what <i>any</i> of us can do."<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
That voice you hear? It's your own. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Listen and step forward, with confidence, on your own journey. </div>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-55210096389693159752016-01-18T06:54:00.000-08:002016-01-18T06:54:04.787-08:00Sunday Afternoon Visitin'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew';">
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><i>My series of reflections on </i></b></span><span style="font-family: "chalkduster"; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Journey</span><b style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i> continues…...</i></b></div>
<div>
(For background, refer to <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-blog-awakens.html">January 3</a> entry.)</div>
<br />
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My father was one of six children, all born in the family farmhouse in Pine Grove, Arkansas - a smattering of farms, houses, and churches - just a "stone's throw" from Sparkman (today's population 419.) Only two of the siblings remain, my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Nat. I rarely saw Uncle Nat during my growing up years, but Aunt Carolyn was a constant. She was the Auntie Mame in my life, with her cool sportscar and designer sunglasses, trendy Dallas apartment, accomplished nursing career, and hip Christmas presents. I wore her elegant lace and organza wedding dress when Drew and I married. As years passed, I unconsciously dropped "Aunt," and Carolyn became my friend.<br />
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Carolyn spent last week with me, transitioning from Florida to Arkansas (no, not the other way around) after retirement. <b><i>Fifty years</i></b> of nursing! In the evenings, she drank a glass of wine while I sipped tea, and told me stories. Stories that sounded vaguely familiar, from when my grandparents used to tell them, as they rocked on their front porch. But I never listened. Old stories. Who wanted to hear <i>those</i>? I do, now.<br />
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"On Sundays we'd all pile in the truck and go to church at Sardis," Carolyn began. "We'd always be late, Mama and Daddy trying to get us six kids out the door. Some Sundays, we'd have 'dinner on the ground,' with everybody bringing something. Mama's fried chicken and egg custard pies were scooped up in no time. Then we'd go visiting (visitin'). I hated it. All those adults talking and talking. To Cousin Lou Bert, Virginia and Sue's house, Aunt Liza, Rufus, Cousin Willie, Uncle Jeddie…."<br />
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"Stop. I'm lost," I said. "You went from one house to another all afternoon? Where did all of these people live? I need to see a picture of this."<br />
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I tore a piece of paper from a sketching tablet, grabbed a pencil and placed them in front of Carolyn. "Would you please draw it for me. Start with the farmhouse and show me where you went."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY-V2c6BOBiKKtHjQPZSOORe3jXmC2nKZy1t8soCjeCmJVo5aj8eObeGiku6eh7ljUpDk_HWjhUjkLkyUd_PPLYGIR6U21PGslTb8e8BmGhBCXvhExMvrsST8mgxmpxqOcfSdpoLFB1Q0/s1600/IMG_1514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY-V2c6BOBiKKtHjQPZSOORe3jXmC2nKZy1t8soCjeCmJVo5aj8eObeGiku6eh7ljUpDk_HWjhUjkLkyUd_PPLYGIR6U21PGslTb8e8BmGhBCXvhExMvrsST8mgxmpxqOcfSdpoLFB1Q0/s320/IMG_1514.jpg" width="184" /></a><br />
She began slowly, adding more and more details as her hand moved across the page . "Let's see, our house was here, the church was here…"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt1T0l0LX5m0z_1rRQU17s0JBbGQhbLedwivDsLWwfbYMYX-OuGf1csOjRyw2-RNgl0cmei_zQNXhmSCSVc0n-NtIPi6rf9IXEEYDnc7rnDe3KjiYKMoNDw27WbL9Fhi1H6vekby-El5o/s1600/IMG_1512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt1T0l0LX5m0z_1rRQU17s0JBbGQhbLedwivDsLWwfbYMYX-OuGf1csOjRyw2-RNgl0cmei_zQNXhmSCSVc0n-NtIPi6rf9IXEEYDnc7rnDe3KjiYKMoNDw27WbL9Fhi1H6vekby-El5o/s320/IMG_1512.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
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Within fifteen minutes the paper was filled with lines, names, arrows - flowing from relations to friends and back again - until Carolyn had sketched much more than a Sunday afternoon journey. She had reconstructed an entire community of people who had touched her life. A map of memories.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbITmNPYHrDBF-_0PHUKjCGJuwqN-HiILh0j0iLR-mX_mC_dRxiwV6O0NVIFNjCA8I6T393VOmz8Z4oCV5yWcC5skkjG6-G8Tj2Ma1seZY5rb9_nPkz50KRd0mng-w6YSAY3Q2VBb1ke4/s1600/IMG_1524.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbITmNPYHrDBF-_0PHUKjCGJuwqN-HiILh0j0iLR-mX_mC_dRxiwV6O0NVIFNjCA8I6T393VOmz8Z4oCV5yWcC5skkjG6-G8Tj2Ma1seZY5rb9_nPkz50KRd0mng-w6YSAY3Q2VBb1ke4/s400/IMG_1524.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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One day soon - it doesn't have to be a Sunday - Carolyn and I will take the map and drive to Pine Grove. It may be a long day, so we'd better pack a lunch. I'll fry the chicken if she bakes the egg custard pie.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-28896333098535958922016-01-11T08:54:00.000-08:002016-01-11T08:54:51.293-08:00When A Journey Chooses You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><i>My weekly reflections on <span style="font-size: large;">Journey</span> continues…...</i></b></span></div>
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(For background, refer to <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-blog-awakens.html">January 3</a> entry.)</div>
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Who comes to mind when you think of a hero? Anyone like this?</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlPB0RfSTdOdlmfYgdlmL4FiGldRAsgBBFfQaRuv5Th9w-LHMzAQ6qeaZ_EMfwf2U7L1q3z9d8oO5U28-ngsH4esIS3HLfY8woYsvKvxQTxuxDYmgM8sDNs_9K2Y8oQvrQJrnjXcNXo4/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlPB0RfSTdOdlmfYgdlmL4FiGldRAsgBBFfQaRuv5Th9w-LHMzAQ6qeaZ_EMfwf2U7L1q3z9d8oO5U28-ngsH4esIS3HLfY8woYsvKvxQTxuxDYmgM8sDNs_9K2Y8oQvrQJrnjXcNXo4/s400/images.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">credit: Study.com</td></tr>
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This little guy surfaced when I googled "heroes examples." Not quite what I had expected, but I like him! He's dressed the stereotypical part - weapons at the ready - even a coordinated vest and cape outfit. But the detail that appeals to me <i>most</i> is the expression on his face. Can you see his mouth? It's tilted in an "I'm-not-too-sure-about-this" kind of way. And his eyes, one slightly higher than the other. If we could see his eyebrows, one would be elevated. Unsure. Maybe even frightened. But, there he stands.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQe_OnjYRGp4QhzKHNMreZ8eFzjUN9j0wVKqcsImiocBeVkcbLl3qhayN8r88QFr0paQOmDiyaxEMyr1B5DcZT8xfGps2zcWvSnXttXW04eXUPqne3hX14-s4zLnYxYfWp91jcDhw-24o/s1600/content.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQe_OnjYRGp4QhzKHNMreZ8eFzjUN9j0wVKqcsImiocBeVkcbLl3qhayN8r88QFr0paQOmDiyaxEMyr1B5DcZT8xfGps2zcWvSnXttXW04eXUPqne3hX14-s4zLnYxYfWp91jcDhw-24o/s200/content.jpeg" width="129" /></a><a href="http://jcf.org/new/index.php">Joseph Campbell</a> - American author, scholar, mythologist - published a book in 1949 (new edition in 2008) titled, <u>The Hero With a Thousand Faces</u>.<br />
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He writes of the "hero's journey," a pattern found throughout world mythologies, in which an archetypal hero follows three basic steps: Departure, Initiation, Return. Star Wars' creator, George Lucas, relied heavily on Campbell's work. His main character, <a href="http://www.starwars.com/databank/luke-skywalker">Luke Skywalker</a>, an unlikely hero himself, set out on a personal quest and ended up saving the Galaxy. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBKZnkQ3ynj5VlkYMGSbwQc0MZlYqmzerQL3GTniiUR0-rj2dDqiZVfjoWHV6JkHGIYjq1XvOWRe8zmSwjAji62PLTqgfbwa09ntFcETjjQhTB_bWVzu283wsD2FpQA5oWvBlFk_j23TY/s1600/_40804695_macarthurnew270.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBKZnkQ3ynj5VlkYMGSbwQc0MZlYqmzerQL3GTniiUR0-rj2dDqiZVfjoWHV6JkHGIYjq1XvOWRe8zmSwjAji62PLTqgfbwa09ntFcETjjQhTB_bWVzu283wsD2FpQA5oWvBlFk_j23TY/s200/_40804695_macarthurnew270.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: BBC</td></tr>
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In a recent TED Radio Hour (December 18, 2015) broadcast, "<a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/458496650/the-heros-journey?showDate=2015-12-18">The Hero's Journey</a>," four speakers shared their unique experiences as journeyers. One was <a href="http://www.ellenmacarthur.com/">Dame Ellen MacArthur</a>. In 2005 she became the fastest person to circumnavigate the globe, in a sailboat, nonstop, solo. Twenty-six thousand miles in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes, 33 seconds.<br />
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A monumental and heroic accomplishment, to be sure; but it was a comment she made at the end of her talk that captured my attention even more.<br />
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…<i>"You're not brave to take on something you choose. I think real bravery is taking on something that you don't choose like young people in recovery from cancer or leukemia or, you know, people who lose a close friend. You then have to deal with something that you have no idea how to deal with - you cannot in any way prepare for. And, for me, they're the heroes. And they're the unsung heroes, but they're the heroes."</i><br />
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Three friends of mine have recently begun journeys, not of their own choosing. Two lost husbands to cancer, another to an accident. The Departure stage of their journeys was unplanned - no time to put on armor, grab the sword, outfit a yacht with supplies for 71 days, or plan a personal quest. Perhaps they feel somewhat like our little hero with the red cape. Yet, like him, they show up. And take steps forward, day by day, with <b>uncommon</b> bravery and strength.<br />
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<b>Heroines of their own journeys!! </b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ann, Jan and Mary Beth</span></b></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-2855074860222801572016-01-03T21:24:00.000-08:002016-01-04T04:28:53.658-08:00A Blog Awakens <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been writing a blog for almost six years, in Moscow and now New York City. My postings have drifted farther apart in the last few months as I have devoted more time to writing my book, <i>Labyrinth Journeys ~ 50 States, 51 Stories</i>, about my two-year journey to walk a labyrinth in each state and interview its creator -- all women. The writing continues, with a goal for completion of the draft by April 1st (no April Fool's joke intended.)<br />
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I've recently considered discontinuing the blog altogether. My heart just hasn't been in it. Until this morning. I was listening to <a href="http://writersalmanac.org/">The Writer's Almanac</a>, as I do every morning as I put on my make-up, when <a href="http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/">Garrison Keillor</a> began talking about Lucretia Mott.<br />
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"This day in 1793, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/lucretia-mott-9416590">Lucretia Mott</a> was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. She quit her job as a teacher at a Quaker boarding school near Poughkeepsie, New York when she found that she was being paid less than half of what the male teachers all made, simply because she was a woman. The experience sparked her first interest in women's rights. In 1848 she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first convention for women's rights in Seneca Falls, New York.<br />
It was Lucretia Mott who said, 'The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.' "<br />
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The day Lucretia chose to step away from her job, she stepped toward something greater. She began her own journey. <br />
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Journey. The idea captivates me! It captivates me more each day as I sit at my computer and write about another woman's journey… and contemplate my own. I pay closer attention when people share their stories. I even watched <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_2088207187"></span>The Force Awakens<span id="goog_2088207188"></span></a> with new eyes. Where is Luke in his journey? Is Rey's journey following a similar path? <br />
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By the time Mr. Keillor's soothing voice had read the final Poem for the Day, I had a plan.<br />
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I will continue the blog - weekly - on Mondays. I will write about Journey. Perhaps someone's journey, or about Journey itself. I will see what surfaces, and for how long. A journey is ever-changing.<br />
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Please join me.<br />
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Today, I begin by thanking you, Lucretia. <br />
For the journey you began for women's rights over 200 years ago.<br />
I wonder, though...what did you learn about <i>yourself</i> on the journey?<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDWQbi2qoLY9_DsnZCr3l2gjRakoodHOx5ojQNAiYViR_w1SaLSNthKB9vkg5JUPkko1ecgQeAzBv_K8NE6-Hsn3GqTSwA1lzwg_SHggQ8015UTuS-NgyczG2EXR_g1KdfZSgULIxolAY/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDWQbi2qoLY9_DsnZCr3l2gjRakoodHOx5ojQNAiYViR_w1SaLSNthKB9vkg5JUPkko1ecgQeAzBv_K8NE6-Hsn3GqTSwA1lzwg_SHggQ8015UTuS-NgyczG2EXR_g1KdfZSgULIxolAY/s320/Unknown-1.jpeg" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Lucretia Mott (painting by Joseph Kyle - 1842)</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-65793532816637770662015-12-09T11:41:00.000-08:002015-12-09T11:41:27.606-08:00A Face of Peace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I originally posted this story on September 11, 2012. In light of the increased, disturbing rhetoric against Muslims, I am re-posting it. My hope is that as unknown faces become known, peace - rather than distrust and fear - will spread throughout our world.<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin-fVycB6EZ-XVnwnoS3h5IigOF5UfFpDNdniLEGSIdkf3dsv0EaVDAnPjXOBtcgjfndFqoMZvMocAvtc-d7OVVWa7argUpdZLcpVzUT4oa-2d_FV9duO7gb2aADBh8R5XO-TZQztjVqg/s1600/IMG_0162.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin-fVycB6EZ-XVnwnoS3h5IigOF5UfFpDNdniLEGSIdkf3dsv0EaVDAnPjXOBtcgjfndFqoMZvMocAvtc-d7OVVWa7argUpdZLcpVzUT4oa-2d_FV9duO7gb2aADBh8R5XO-TZQztjVqg/s320/IMG_0162.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mohammed Azziz</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A Face of Peace</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I had never met a Mohammed before. I had never met a Muslim before. Living in small Arkansas towns for 36 years, then Alaska for 11 more, the chances were slim that I would have crossed paths with one. Then in 2000 Drew and I accepted jobs at Cairo American College and spent the next four years living in Egypt, a country </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">where approximately 85% of the population is Muslim.</span><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Mohammed Azziz was the first Mohammed I encountered. I remember naively thinking, “He must be <i>very</i> special to have the same name as THE Mohammed.” As I gradually met more Egyptian men teaching and working at the school, driving taxis, selling souvenirs, delivering groceries, and parenting students in my 2</span><span style="font: 8.0px 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><sup>nd</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> grade classroom, I quickly deduced that at least one out of every three Egyptian males must be named Mohammed. Sharing a name with thousands didn’t make “my” Mohammed any less special.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We had been in Egypt for less than 24 hours when I walked into my new classroom. I had spent most of the night before, wide awake, at our dusty kitchen table scribbling the same question across my journal pages, “What have we <i>done</i>!?” As I sat in a jet-lagged Twilight Zone, surrounded by a jumble of desks and boxes of books, Mohammed, the custodian for the 2</span><span style="font: 8.0px 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><sup>nd</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> grade classrooms, opened the door. In his 25 years at CAC, he had surely seen this pitiful sight before - a teacher new to the country, new to the school - close to tears.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Mrs. Twylla,” (which sounded more like Mrs. Shwylla), “I am Mohammed. Welcome to Egypt." He extended his hand and smiled, the same glad-to-be-alive smile that I never saw Mohammed without. Until 9/11.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We worked together that day, hanging blue and yellow bulletin board paper, arranging desks, sweeping, dusting, stacking books, creating a space for children to learn and grow. For the rest of the year, Mohammed greeted me every morning, cleaned my classroom every afternoon. We learned about each other’s families. He taught me an Arabic word each day and, like Professor Henry Higgins (though more gently), asked me to repeat and repeat until correct. My favorite expression was the one I heard him say whenever anyone needed his help, “Moofishmooshkala,” “No problem.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I was writing the day’s schedule on the board, the first day of school after 9/ll, when I heard the door open. Mohammed entered. Pale, solemn, shoulders sagging. He walked directly to me, took my hands in his, and with tears in his eyes, looked into mine. “Mrs. Twylla, I’m so sorry what happened to your country. It’s crazy people, crazy people.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I nodded. “I know, Mohammed, I know,” the only words to escape before sobs swallowed the rest. Sobs of loss…. and overwhelming hope.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-68541850623212043642015-10-13T14:30:00.000-07:002015-10-13T14:30:40.010-07:00The Anne Frank Tree in Arkansas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've read <u><a href="http://www.abebooks.com/9780385473781/Diary-Young-Girl-Definitive-Edition-0385473788/plp">Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl</a></u> three times, climbed the steps to the Secret Annex at the <a href="http://www.annefrank.org/">Anne Frank House</a> in Amsterdam, toured and written about The <a href="http://annefrank.com/">Anne Frank Center USA</a> in Lower Manhattan. A copy of the book sits on my writing desk in Arkansas, among other books that inspire me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TYIxoVTO4ZQLsSVXxUas6txHXDsEHO9wpytdLBoW06MOe7GXW3lXQwRZFOXpI8t0rgtEdclQGOKQ6BFik7psMGxbIIiVnEPFDGALXRxPKnwWRKWLRoV4cJkPMpQh4F6gkOaTSevRcVo/s1600/IMG_5079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8TYIxoVTO4ZQLsSVXxUas6txHXDsEHO9wpytdLBoW06MOe7GXW3lXQwRZFOXpI8t0rgtEdclQGOKQ6BFik7psMGxbIIiVnEPFDGALXRxPKnwWRKWLRoV4cJkPMpQh4F6gkOaTSevRcVo/s320/IMG_5079.jpg" width="162" /></a></div>
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In short, I'm a huge admirer of a girl who died 70 years ago, at the age of fifteen. A girl no one would have ever heard of, if her diary pages had not been discreetly scooped up by <a href="http://www.annefrank.org/en/Anne-Frank/All-people/Miep-Gies/">Miep Gies</a>, one of the "helpers" who hid Anne, her family and another from the Nazis. One of the Gestapo who stormed their hiding place on August 4, 1944, emptied Anne's father's briefcase of "valuables," dumping her diaries - two years of her writing - on the floor. For many people, those discarded pages have become the most personal and compelling account of the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143">Holocaust</a> they will ever encounter.<br />
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During the two years in hiding, Anne shared an intimate relationship with only one thing outside the confines of the Annex, a tree. A white horse chestnut that grew in the courtyard outside the attic window. She wrote of it often in her diary. Among my favorite entries...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoIrwOla8fDFDSQvnZ0s1cQXasGF8DXM8_OjkfhyphenhyphenUkjJiHf8dM87Q-zP_fpb_EWFKSi6a_kOguqlC_8wE16Fmjvij_Mn3GyzoHtFlDPEGoETp6YgHrLCMI-XLUjVxs_4GUBdgueQVQO4s/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoIrwOla8fDFDSQvnZ0s1cQXasGF8DXM8_OjkfhyphenhyphenUkjJiHf8dM87Q-zP_fpb_EWFKSi6a_kOguqlC_8wE16Fmjvij_Mn3GyzoHtFlDPEGoETp6YgHrLCMI-XLUjVxs_4GUBdgueQVQO4s/s400/images.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AP photo/Peter Dejong</td></tr>
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<i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs, from my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy."</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> February 23, 1944</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Anne's Tree" survived her by 65 years, blown over in a rainstorm in 2010, after being weakened by moth/fungus infections. Before it died, visionaries at the Anne Frank House gathered chestnuts, germinated them and developed a plan to donate its saplings "to memorialize incidences of intolerance and discrimination across the United States and around the world… and tell a greater story of surmounting the obstacles of discrimination of any kind." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Eleven saplings were designated for planting in the United States. Little Rock, Arkansas is the only city to receive two. One at Central High School, site of the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration">Little Rock Integration Crisis</a> in 1957…</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaycW6wdF3Iq3hcoqdOKnp0hrpBFtperCoBn_8CIn5B_E_MWhX2R2qJYIgK6DcZ1oBaTCzTMUKmiedcoABQ_4H3BNOOZkWNI8lU5t5TrT5_67pmn9I37SATkD0wOt4nLId4xjaCIL9nEU/s1600/IMG_5071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaycW6wdF3Iq3hcoqdOKnp0hrpBFtperCoBn_8CIn5B_E_MWhX2R2qJYIgK6DcZ1oBaTCzTMUKmiedcoABQ_4H3BNOOZkWNI8lU5t5TrT5_67pmn9I37SATkD0wOt4nLId4xjaCIL9nEU/s400/IMG_5071.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and the other at the <a href="https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-presidential-center">Clinton Presidential Center</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I visited the Clinton Center last week, 45 minutes from our home in Arkansas, where President Clinton helped dedicate the permanent installation on October 2. The sapling (temporary substitute while the "real" one is acclimating in a local greenhouse) stands in the center, with a picture of Anne in the foreground. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She is flanked by two glass panels, etched with her words on the left and President Clinton's on the right. Three glass panels complete the illusion of a house, of containment, confinement. They stand witness to Anne's story and tell their own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=556">Chief Heckaton</a> - hereditary chief of the Quapaw during the Arkansas Indian Removal of 1830 (Trail of Tears) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=725">Melba Patillo Beals</a> - one of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine">Little Rock Nine</a> (African American students denied entry to all-white Central High School) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.georgetakei.com/">George Takei</a> - actor and activist (confined to Rohwer Relocation Center, Japanese internment camp, in southeastern Arkansas during WW II). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Victims of intolerance, discrimination, hatred, prejudice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Like Anne.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Like millions of others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As I walked away from the exhibit, a man took my place, followed by a couple, soon to be joined by a tour group at the far side of the parking lot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One sapling, many voices, plead for us… to listen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><a href="http://www.annefranktreeusa.com/">The Sapling Project</a>, sponsored by the Anne Frank Center USA, launched Confronting Intolerance Today in 2013, highlighting "innovative approaches to combating intolerance." Particular areas of focus are "hate crimes, combating prejudice, tolerance and the rule of law and LGBT rights."</i> </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-11714748584089783672015-09-27T14:21:00.000-07:002015-09-27T20:03:27.187-07:00John Symons, A Voice of Peace <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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John Symons, a dear friend of ours, died recently. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John and Ann Symons, Victory Day<br />
Moscow, Russia - 2008</td></tr>
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We met John and his wife, Ann, in Juneau, Alaska - over twenty-five years ago - when we all worked for the Juneau School District. We knew them, then, more in short greetings, "Hi, nice to see you. How are things going?" than in conversations. It wasn't until Drew, as director of the Anglo-American School of Moscow/St. Petersburg, asked Ann to interrupt her retirement and come to Russia as upper school librarian, that our relationship deepened. John came along as "Supportive Spouse," having retired a few years earlier. Ann's two-year contract at AAS extended, year by year, to six -- as ours did to seven.<br />
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In a city of 13 million, give or take a few million, we spent more time with Ann and John in Moscow than we ever did in the midst of Juneau's 30,000. Expatriate life tends to do that, bring people together quickly and cement them cohesively, in the absence of family and familiarity. The casual grocery store greeting in Alaska developed into toasts of friendship over Thanksgiving tables in Russia.<br />
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At our home in Arkansas this week, I found the basket of paper cranes John gave us. He folded thousands of them during our time together in Moscow, pulling a square of origami paper from his bag whenever he had an idle moment. The crane became, for John, an outward symbol of the cause he carried so passionately within -- peace.<br />
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I remember the day he opened his bag and gave handfuls of cranes to students….<br />
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John, Ann, Drew and I were chaperoning a group of AAS high school students on a trip to Egypt. On a ten-hour bus ride from Cairo to Siwa Oasis, a town about 30 miles east of the Libyan border, we stopped at El Alamein museum and cemetery. As adults, we knew little about the World War II battles that were fought in the heat and desolation of the North African desert. The students knew even less. They listened respectfully to the guide explain strategies and point out troop movements with his pointer, but we could see the "Why did we come<i> here</i>?" expression in their faces.<br />
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It wasn't until we stopped at the Commonwealth Cemetery that they began to make human connections… because of John. As each student stepped off the bus onto sand, he handed her/him an overflowing handful of paper cranes. "Place these on graves, and as you do, read the names and ages of the soldiers," he said. The students walked slowly, quietly among rounded headstones, reading. Within minutes, the tan landscape was dotted with color.<br />
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"They were so young."<br />
"One soldier was only three years older than me."<br />
"They died so far from home."<br />
"What did they die for?"<br />
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--- <i>reflections in journal entries shared by students</i><br />
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<i>*******</i></div>
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Wanting to remember and honor John in some meaningful way, I selected a blue crane from the basket this morning and took it to the labyrinth in our yard. As I entered and circled toward the center, I thanked John for his devotion to peace, his voice of reason, for the<i> good</i> he brought into this world. I left it at the entrance, beside the cairns. Whether it decides to stay and dissolve into the earth, or fly away, its spirit of peace will spread…..along with John's. <br />
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NOTE: Shortly after posting this story, I received an email from Ann. Another of their friends - Holly Pruett - in Portland, Oregon, also, posted a story about John and his paper cranes on <a href="http://www.hollypruettcelebrant.com/blog/rip-geezer-john">her blog</a> -- today!<br />
Serendipity, indeed!!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-77383134195751941232015-09-20T21:35:00.000-07:002015-09-21T04:29:03.606-07:00An Afternoon at the Met with John Singer Sargent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In New York City - like anywhere else - it's easy to stay home on a Sunday afternoon. Clean the apartment, catch up on email, or fall asleep as that book you've been wanting to read slips out of your hands onto the floor. All admirable options. But then, there's that brochure from <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a> on the table, the one that's been laying around all week. The one announcing the final two weeks of the <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/sargent-portraits-of-artists-and-friends"><i>"Sargent's: Portraits of Artists and Friends"</i> exhibit</a>. The Metropolitan Museum of Art!! It's a forty- five minute subway ride + walk away. I haven't been there in months.<br />
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What am I waiting for?<br />
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I enter the first exhibition room to find each painting encircled by at least five people, who have apparently asked themselves the same question. Some listen to audio guides, others read commentaries beside paintings, while a few quietly whisper comments to a companion. We all patiently wait our turns for the coveted spot in front of the next piece. If we bump a bag or brush against a hand poised to take a picture, we say a polite, "Excuse me," and move on.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Singer Sargent, Self-Portrait (1886)</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.biography.com/people/john-singer-sargent-9471905">John Singer Sargent</a> received high praise during his own lifetime, but would undoubtedly be complimented by such reverent admirers, ninety years after his death. He is often referred to as "the leading American portraitist of his generation"(1856-1925). I'm unfamiliar with portrait painters who came before or after, but I can scarcely imagine any more gifted. Examples in the Met exhibit include:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carolus-Duran (one of Sargent's teachers)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Butler Yeats</td></tr>
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As admirers, we each pause longer in front of one painting than another, for reasons we might be hard-pressed to explain. Is it the subject, the technique, an expression or setting? Or a feeling, perhaps.<br />
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I stopped at each of the ninety-two paintings, and returned to two.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Gust of Wind</td></tr>
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The first was a portrait of a woman - not seated in a chair, or posed as a statue - but on the move, outdoors, holding her hat in place as she strides through the grass. I want to know her story. Where is she going, and might I tag along? The commentary describes it as "one of Sargent's most daring compositions - freely painted and boldly abbreviated." Perhaps his subject was equally daring to move beyond a life of expectations.<br />
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The second could have been voted "The Most Unlikely To Get A Second Notice." It is unfinished.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woman and Collie</td></tr>
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A dog with his kind face and tongue hanging out; a faceless woman bending forward -- a friend, mistress, stranger? With only a few brushstrokes, Sargent began a portrait of companions, then "abandoned the composition before completing it." No reason why. He has left us to continue their story. As a writer, I'm intrigued by the challenge… yet more intrigued by Sargent's ability to capture my imagination, by what he has left <i>undone</i>.<br />
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I'm almost out the museum's front door when I turn around. I reach in my purse for my credit card, then walk to the membership desk. "I'd like to renew my membership, please."<br />
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Next time, it's….<br />
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American Quilts and Folk Art<br />
Ancient Egypt Transformed<br />
Celebrating the Arts of Japan<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-9307830084745133162015-06-10T17:20:00.000-07:002015-06-11T03:23:28.868-07:00My Labyrinth - Finished!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP6dcmSeT_amrn_3vDr6A4ZGjUis_T9XNyI07Ob4hrKlCQIAOWt0_Yqn7YHEqM7IsmoI9EX4kmF95edX_GveC8YWuhe5MDyR9449wcxAQRzn_PN2hsfK3ERKt7k3PeQqYVEoBr1qBYkFU/s1600/IMG_4964.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP6dcmSeT_amrn_3vDr6A4ZGjUis_T9XNyI07Ob4hrKlCQIAOWt0_Yqn7YHEqM7IsmoI9EX4kmF95edX_GveC8YWuhe5MDyR9449wcxAQRzn_PN2hsfK3ERKt7k3PeQqYVEoBr1qBYkFU/s400/IMG_4964.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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My labyrinth is finished!! </div>
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A year after I dug the first trench and laid the first brick, it's finished. Those of you who read my blog postings last summer, "My OWN labyrinth," Parts One and Two, probably assumed that it was finished long ago, that I have been peacefully walking it ever since. I had assumed as much myself. But then came the August morning when I spent forty-five minutes unearthing two hulking rocks, only to discover a network of entrenched tree roots underneath. I threw my shovel in the air, plopped down on one of the rocks, and reached for my phone.<br />
"So, Ben, what was your plan, again?" I asked our son-in-law who had tactfully suggested an alternative to my dig-a-trench method earlier in the planning process.<br />
Without a hint of "I-told-you-so" in his voice, Ben outlined the plan that I was, by then, more than happy to embrace.<br />
No more digging!<br />
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Eight months passed. Eight months when the ground lay quiet, when I quieted myself. My initial drive to "get this done now" and "my way" gradually calmed, much like my breathing during meditation. In the mindfulness that followed, I realized what - in my haste - I had forgotten... the two most important elements I wanted my labyrinth to represent. Peace and community.<br />
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As dogwood and redbud bloomed and green replaced brown, my family and I set a date, April 11th. Ben calculated amounts. I researched sources and ordered supplies.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zO2WsCuRiq6Zp8n9gWxq_fip4B0GCcMS1jhtYStK5xv0Ea5kpDQ9uGAR6pyVjtcupqc2DHQoRt9VW1m1_Zx_W8U4lloFnCqXGvdsG8aQ5z0eeaZR56pRmTO4wuyDL-BhQUd_psrtvAw/s1600/IMG_4879.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5zO2WsCuRiq6Zp8n9gWxq_fip4B0GCcMS1jhtYStK5xv0Ea5kpDQ9uGAR6pyVjtcupqc2DHQoRt9VW1m1_Zx_W8U4lloFnCqXGvdsG8aQ5z0eeaZR56pRmTO4wuyDL-BhQUd_psrtvAw/s200/IMG_4879.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">9 yards of topsoil</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBiCBVJUV09z0UNxQRfmabiWgfkPBqQ5dekSZTddJ3YYzgBsOSoxfHRb50AqYDAe-5z_VX47HPcQcBXCcmYyby0og5nkNkJpv3uMlYwFggXNPJYYpFYpVwSMfjB2RLpUXQ5eJ0-alb3Y/s1600/IMG_4883.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQBiCBVJUV09z0UNxQRfmabiWgfkPBqQ5dekSZTddJ3YYzgBsOSoxfHRb50AqYDAe-5z_VX47HPcQcBXCcmYyby0og5nkNkJpv3uMlYwFggXNPJYYpFYpVwSMfjB2RLpUXQ5eJ0-alb3Y/s200/IMG_4883.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1165 bricks (Did I mention that Ben majored in math?)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">155 rolls of Bermuda sod</td></tr>
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Then the creation began!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clearing away the remnants of Plan A, then tilling (Drew)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Schlepping (son Jason)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEj1_oJwKKcT1jkPABxrzu7VU4CPMs2SZ00YFNGMPM8qgR7b-i1tpw1aJ9zgEl3jCDwWSVwlxsQaN7joS8Jyyh8DKNBrtTBHhnK-HW0pfdDDR1gjBIwdp-T_hANueTNUb0naF85u48hU/s1600/IMG_4908.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEj1_oJwKKcT1jkPABxrzu7VU4CPMs2SZ00YFNGMPM8qgR7b-i1tpw1aJ9zgEl3jCDwWSVwlxsQaN7joS8Jyyh8DKNBrtTBHhnK-HW0pfdDDR1gjBIwdp-T_hANueTNUb0naF85u48hU/s320/IMG_4908.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Measuring ( Jason, Ben and grandchildren Luke and Ruby)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laying bricks (Ben, Jason and I)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adding the last piece of sod - Done!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cutting and placing sod</td></tr>
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When I open our bedroom blinds in the morning, I look down on the completed labyrinth. It waits for me to walk. As I place one foot in front of the next, I remember a husband's enduring support, a grandchild's hands, a son's strength, a son-in-law's vision, a family's love. And I whisper, "Thank you!"<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-71908652253045245662015-02-28T12:56:00.001-08:002015-02-28T19:44:52.945-08:00Clementine Hunter, Folk Artist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The book caught my eye the minute I walked into the children's section of the Harlem library, two years ago this month --<a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month"> Black History Month</a>.<br />
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Who was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementine_Hunter">Clementine Hunter</a>? The African American woman on the cover intrigued me. There was a directness to her stare, yet kindness in her eyes, humility in the way she cradled a collection of paintbrushes in her hands. Like she was proud, but uneasy with the attention.<br />
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When I removed the book from the shelf, settled into a child-size chair and started reading, I had no idea that Clementine would eventually lead me to <a href="http://www.melroseplantation.org/">Melrose Plantation</a> in Louisiana.<br />
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She lived 85 of her 100 years (1888-1988) on the grounds of Melrose, about 25 miles from Natchitoches, working as a manual laborer - picking cotton, harvesting pecans, cleaning, washing, cooking. Similar work that her Grandmother Idole had done, as a slave. She attended school for only ten days, and never learned to read or write.<br />
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Clementine had lived half her life before she painted her first picture on a window shade, using brushes and tubes of paint discarded by an artist staying at Melrose. Another guest at the plantation, Frances Mignon, encouraged her to paint more. For the next fifty years, she produced between four and five thousand paintings, on whatever she could find - bottles, cardboard, brown paper bags, roofing shingles, canvas. She drew what was in her memory.<br />
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The artist's first exhibit was on her porch and clothesline. The sign on the front of her house said,<br />
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C. Hunter</div>
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Paintings for Sale </div>
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She sold her first paintings for 25 cents.<br />
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As the years passed, Mignon helped Clementine promote and sell her work. Her reputation as a folk artist grew, and her paintings were displayed in galleries miles from her front porch and clothesline. Today they can be found in museums and galleries all over the United States and sell for thousands, up to tens of thousands, of dollars. </div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">I ordered a copy of <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Art-From-Heart-Kathy-Whitehead/dp/0399242198">Art From Her Heart</a></u> and placed it, cover-side out, on our bookshelf so I could see Clementine each time I sat down to write. A woman who didn't start painting to become wealthy, lauded, or to have a United States' president invite her to the White House. </span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><i>She painted because it was in her to do it. </i> </span></div>
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A year and half later, I was mapping my trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to visit the 49th labyrinth on my <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">50-state journey</a> and interview its creator. I looked up at Clementine and wondered, "How far away is Melrose from Baton Rouge?" I had read that the plantation is now a National Historic Landmark and that several of Clementine's paintings are on display. "Two hours and thirty-two minutes," Google responded.<br />
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The morning of June 13, 2014, I drove along curvy Louisiana back roads from Natchitoches to Melrose, arriving fifteen minutes before the plantation opened. The day's first visitor, I parked in the dirt lot beside the gated entrance, got out and walked under huge pecan trees - ones from which Clementine had likely gathered sacks full of nuts. I joined the first tour and listened politely as the guide explained the plantation's history, eager for him to get to Clementine's part. As we stood on the upstairs porch, he walked over to a door, placed his hand on the knob and said that we were about to enter a room in which some of her paintings were displayed. "No photos, please," he added.<br />
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I walked in the sunlit room and instantly felt like I was surrounded by a rainbow. Clementine's bright colors sparkled, pure and honest, directly from their tubes onto canvas and bottle. The scenes of every day life - picking cotton, getting married, playing cards - began telling their stories, as if delighted to have the door opened, new faces to greet. And the zinnias… purple, orange, white, yellow, red!<br />
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Without photos in my camera, I wanted something to take away with me, a reminder of the joy I experienced in the midst of Clementine's art. I stopped at the gift shop. Posters, muted notecards, nothing that felt real. Until… I spotted an original painting perched on a window ledge. Yellow zinnias in a red pot.<br />
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"Who painted this?" I asked the clerk.<br />
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"Clementine Hunter's grandson, James. She taught him how to paint," she answered.<br />
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"I'll take it!" I said, and gently took it off the ledge.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLbol_wSmc-e6cRomjweS5RCkHlOgUw_CMNBaN2NOGHuVnOOPFlK-FC19naLgp23tGDccrwox5HOXyCZeqVhEQmv1v-y3k3-_bj1qQc3R-EgX0XzTN07fMkftSD8E4izOHFWD5Pdi2Io/s1600/IMG_1720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLbol_wSmc-e6cRomjweS5RCkHlOgUw_CMNBaN2NOGHuVnOOPFlK-FC19naLgp23tGDccrwox5HOXyCZeqVhEQmv1v-y3k3-_bj1qQc3R-EgX0XzTN07fMkftSD8E4izOHFWD5Pdi2Io/s1600/IMG_1720.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
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Three of Clementine's paintings shown in <u>Art From Her Heart</u> by Kathy Whitehead.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-71174489891270910842014-12-21T10:35:00.000-08:002014-12-21T10:55:45.180-08:00Holiday Wishes!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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During this holiday season, I wish you a day as peaceful as I experienced last Saturday at The New York Botanical Garden, filled with….. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Kokonor; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Undisturbed solitude</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVhZRCQI_olb6lAC-XAGT3h4RVZJGib74FJ5OY3UUZSEZ83QqiTrS_Mw2GW-2AkqCrWoinoJFXUCx8w1tgpJKzvTRx7gCL0yQG6HXEn5eCc8qsMyq5VTMiNkFYstJFTR0QDMddWdbVXw/s1600/IMG_2117.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVhZRCQI_olb6lAC-XAGT3h4RVZJGib74FJ5OY3UUZSEZ83QqiTrS_Mw2GW-2AkqCrWoinoJFXUCx8w1tgpJKzvTRx7gCL0yQG6HXEn5eCc8qsMyq5VTMiNkFYstJFTR0QDMddWdbVXw/s1600/IMG_2117.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And a line of poetry that touches your soul</span></div>
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(Former United States Poet Laureate, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/billy-collins">Billy Collins</a>, read selections from his newest collection, <u><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15798111-aimless-love">Aimless Love</a></u>. His poems are dotted throughout the Garden during the holiday season.) </div>
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<b>Watercoloring</b></div>
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by Billy Collins</div>
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The sky began to tilt, </div>
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a shift of light toward the higher clouds,</div>
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so I seized my brush</div>
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and dipped my little cup in the stream,</div>
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but once I streaked the paper gray</div>
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with a hint of green,</div>
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water began to slide down the page,</div>
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rivulets looking for a river.</div>
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And again, I was too late--</div>
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then the sky made anther turn,</div>
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this time as if to face a mirror</div>
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held in the outstretched arm of a god.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-88827705390919347392014-12-07T18:07:00.000-08:002014-12-07T18:07:37.301-08:00A Winding Road to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I exited the #6 train on Spring Street with directions in hand to the <a href="http://www.tenement.org/">Tenement Museum</a> at 97 Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. A ten-minute walk. Twenty minutes later I was ???<br />
I should have crossed Delancey (isn't that a movie?), then taken a right on Orchard, but Delancey was no where in sight. Almost to Canal, I knew I was headed the wrong way, so I stopped in a jewelry store for directions. A helpful saleswoman pointed me down the sidewalk I had just walked. (She was Chinese. I'll explain why that is significant later.)<br />
"It's the big, busy street. You can't miss it," she said.<br />
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I retraced my steps, carefully reading each street sign along the way, only to find myself back at the subway stop. No big, busy street. No Delancey sign.<br />
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Again, I asked for directions.<br />
A man loading paint cans on a dolly, looked up when I said, "Excuse me. Can you tell me where Orchard Street is?" (Forget Delancey. It apparently had disappeared.)<br />
In a pronounced Swedish accent, he said, "Let me look on my phone." After a couple of swipes, he pointed, "That way, toward Delancey."<br />
"Thank you, but I just came from there, and no Delancey!" My morning mindfulness mediation was wearing thin, and I was already late to meet my friend, Marian, and her sister, Marjie.<br />
"Oh, Kenmare turns into Delancey," he explained. "Follow Kenmare and you'll see it."<br />
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Kenmare I had seen, twice.<br />
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A few blocks down Delancey, and I should have encountered Orchard, but…<br />
Is this sounding familiar?<br />
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I stopped for a third time, entering a shoe store, where two African-American men greeted me from behind the counter.<br />
"Am I anywhere close to the Tenement Museum on Orchard?" I asked.<br />
"Sure, on the <i>other</i> side of Delancey," one of them answered.<br />
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Thanking them, I crossed Delancey, walked thirty seconds, and there - finally - was my destination! Half an hour late, but still in time for our tour, "Sweatshop Workers."<br />
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Around the corner from the museum's visitor center, Marian, Marjie and I stood with a group of ten others in front of a door. The door to a five-story tenement building which housed nearly 7000 people from over 20 countries between 1863 and 1935.<br />
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A sign hung to our left, beginning the story we were to hear in the next hour. <br />
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When the door closed behind us, I imagined being one of the 7000 who walked into this dark, narrow hallway. Would have I been grateful to have a roof over my head? Would I have wanted to turn around and run? Pray? Rejoice? Where would I have summoned the strength, not only in my legs but in my heart, to climb the steep bannistered stairways to my tiny tenement home and my new life?<br />
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When <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/11/its-been-week-since-my-friend-marian.html">Marian and I visited</a> <a href="http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm">Ellis Island</a> last month, we learned that as a result of the 12 million immigrants who traveled through its gates, approximately 100 million descendants populate this country. And their number continues to grow with each generation. As I stood in two of these family's apartments and heard their stories, I was inspired by the lives they created - despite the hardships they endured. I was proud of a country, <i>my</i> country, that provided them opportunities, <b>and</b> valued their contributions.<br />
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But America is not only <i>my</i> country. It belongs as much to the Chinese woman, the Swedish man, the African-American men who pointed me along my way -- ironically, to an immigrant museum.<br />
One building among hundreds like it, where people built <i>their</i> lives and the life of a nation. <br />
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<i>Today's immigrants, like their predecessors, are transforming the neighborhood - and challenging us to provide new answers to old questions. Who is American? What does it mean to be a citizen? What is our responsibility to those in need? What should "home" look like? It is their future that gives the past - a past that this Museum studies and celebrates - such resonance.</i><br />
-- <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tenement-Story-History-Orchard-Street/dp/0974917206">A Tenement Story</a></u><br />
{The History of 97 Orchard Street and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum}<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn1Fzz5pLP1JiYJN1lCyFA0qVTu9fUfdh_JJaXZtfuVKH259csEDoCFKnVQb1GaMJqAMbEEPmjYWvL6qnfQ1PqKSrQV8KgfP4Vges5KbiNyuRxWFbyaVKoDQKY5_lG5uJqRKZRWCgu_XM/s1600/images-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn1Fzz5pLP1JiYJN1lCyFA0qVTu9fUfdh_JJaXZtfuVKH259csEDoCFKnVQb1GaMJqAMbEEPmjYWvL6qnfQ1PqKSrQV8KgfP4Vges5KbiNyuRxWFbyaVKoDQKY5_lG5uJqRKZRWCgu_XM/s1600/images-1.jpeg" height="251" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit - Tenement Museum</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-34024980905424694942014-11-17T07:40:00.000-08:002014-11-17T10:01:08.803-08:00Connecting Around the Labyrinth <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I ask people if they have walked a labyrinth or know what one is, most usually think I'm talking about a maze. Like the one that Harry Potter fought his way out of in "The Goblet of Fire," or the cornfield variety whose puzzling twists and deadends have caused more than one lost walker to call 911. I explain, as someone did for me as a labyrinth novice, that a labyrinth is trustworthy - not deceitful. It is one path, the same path, that leads the walker to the center and back out. With the path certain, the walker can free his/her mind to meditate, ponder, question, notice. <br />
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Imagine my excitement this weekend as I rubbed elbows with over 100 people whose every other word seemed to be labyrinth!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmNbgslEMlHOuR0Wut1ncVYZ9bi8m3EXVpCCSmBjiTDqbkixkDiDf2GHLj4LlAuZUENyrJ15mK4e0om6-nJVgaqnQIrYafBY_usVEoDr5fpzyMmepwG1HdbStLhU3S_tqvRYct9jleG4/s1600/IMG_4740.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnmNbgslEMlHOuR0Wut1ncVYZ9bi8m3EXVpCCSmBjiTDqbkixkDiDf2GHLj4LlAuZUENyrJ15mK4e0om6-nJVgaqnQIrYafBY_usVEoDr5fpzyMmepwG1HdbStLhU3S_tqvRYct9jleG4/s1600/IMG_4740.JPG" height="253" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opening ceremony of the 16th Annual Gathering of <a href="https://www.labyrinthsociety.org/">The Labyrinth Society</a> at<br />
the Duncan Center in Del Ray, Florida</td></tr>
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Not only were they <i>talking</i> about labyrinths but <i>making</i> them, from the contemplative to whimsical!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN7QZJvBrz65sJBLAz-3HFmkohdBzNwCpEu1DlIBwPr4QqBNxZV0AjjdtrJLuQfAPZhwPVQuifpcPjKhBsESyAbyu6vLHNBToSTW_wJv5NJgILljpj_VwLGzh_C6mKPLXDLDq7awoleXk/s1600/IMG_4744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN7QZJvBrz65sJBLAz-3HFmkohdBzNwCpEu1DlIBwPr4QqBNxZV0AjjdtrJLuQfAPZhwPVQuifpcPjKhBsESyAbyu6vLHNBToSTW_wJv5NJgILljpj_VwLGzh_C6mKPLXDLDq7awoleXk/s1600/IMG_4744.JPG" height="252" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peace Labyrinth<br />
(designed by Lisa Moriarty; painted by Steve Selpal)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMLVMGixyU7IQyeaIamc_uUU2vplfvWcf3KZlJ7EXhr3CFU6hs7vUSQLGJ4PJsrKi8Vk24voz8jgnuWmw74rAmJdCTe8UNwZxiefgm1HxuhN9XhRVLxhKetS_8LpjnJBi6QkgLjBoyaAk/s1600/IMG_4739+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMLVMGixyU7IQyeaIamc_uUU2vplfvWcf3KZlJ7EXhr3CFU6hs7vUSQLGJ4PJsrKi8Vk24voz8jgnuWmw74rAmJdCTe8UNwZxiefgm1HxuhN9XhRVLxhKetS_8LpjnJBi6QkgLjBoyaAk/s1600/IMG_4739+(1).jpg" height="296" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pinecone Labyrinth<br />
(created by Tony Christie and Ole Jensen)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSK70y2PkXoSILR2JCiGCMLoLj6WJZeSbAxujV3ZhQB54rPsAk7fTwU7atbvrL_0hAdZVktvSPu97xmGTLXeiI6_gJBkc9vNe0fbEOGhv72KQ6664R53918TeQvFpSjjHR3ZhJDhdRbWo/s1600/IMG_4741.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSK70y2PkXoSILR2JCiGCMLoLj6WJZeSbAxujV3ZhQB54rPsAk7fTwU7atbvrL_0hAdZVktvSPu97xmGTLXeiI6_gJBkc9vNe0fbEOGhv72KQ6664R53918TeQvFpSjjHR3ZhJDhdRbWo/s1600/IMG_4741.JPG" height="260" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flower Labyrinth<br />
(created by Tom Vetter)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlphxkQ6CIYWyl22_2VRGZys-QA0hNhp20xg2ro1YfYNvU0SfKv0OW5WpYHonXsUpePMkQlUzZIIoKCCbd1a40H_y-umUL5-RIr4ppKykApUaEJngB8gqXATpuAxJCnNnBsPXjKiaepw4/s1600/IMG_4763.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlphxkQ6CIYWyl22_2VRGZys-QA0hNhp20xg2ro1YfYNvU0SfKv0OW5WpYHonXsUpePMkQlUzZIIoKCCbd1a40H_y-umUL5-RIr4ppKykApUaEJngB8gqXATpuAxJCnNnBsPXjKiaepw4/s1600/IMG_4763.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flamingo Labyrinth, of course!<br />
It's Florida.<br />
(created by <a href="http://discoverlabyrinths.com/lars-howlett/">Lars Howlett</a>)</td></tr>
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<i>Connection</i> was my intention for my first labyrinth Gathering.<br />
Connection with others for whom the labyrinth holds unique significance, personally and within community.<br />
Deeper connection to self on my continuing path of discovery.<br />
<i><b>RE</b>-connection</i> was an added bonus!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUt_xueNuNXpOqat7qEam_rZXGVARFcnybGVzQd66MoE0I1gS91vdQquf7CjAES7MdYWE2vkeWHulww3FZJi5Eyb88gOoGGFJPQYAfw55E_hmEya5UI_wxoRLu9BCx-pcewn2pPvOzWs0/s1600/IMG_0488.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUt_xueNuNXpOqat7qEam_rZXGVARFcnybGVzQd66MoE0I1gS91vdQquf7CjAES7MdYWE2vkeWHulww3FZJi5Eyb88gOoGGFJPQYAfw55E_hmEya5UI_wxoRLu9BCx-pcewn2pPvOzWs0/s1600/IMG_0488.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catherine walking her backyard labyrinth during my<br />
visit - April 19, 2013</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.catherineandersonstudio.com/">Catherine Anderson</a>, whose labyrinth in Charlotte, North Carolina was the 18th I visited on <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">my 50-state labyrinth journey</a>, was a fellow participant! The chances that I would select her labyrinth to visit in North Carolina, then meet her again one and a half years later in Florida, speaks to the connecting power of the labyrinth.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sharing a peace labyrinth at the Gathering<br />
(designed by <a href="http://www.pathsofpeace.com/about.html">Lisa Moriarty</a>)</td></tr>
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The challenge after any conference or retreat which transports you from the "ordinary" into a realm of possibility and inspiration, is to somehow fit your experiences into the rhythm of daily life. A quote by one of the presenters, <a href="http://www.fdlsophiafoundation.com/garyboelhower.html">Gary Boelhower</a>, gives me a direction…<br />
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"The actualization of a journey is in the revisiting." </div>
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As I unpack my suitcase this morning, I move forward with the next step -- Reflection.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-19514281599312436622014-11-07T12:33:00.000-08:002014-11-08T14:45:45.940-08:00"Voices of Millions" at Ellis Island<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's been a week since my friend, Marian, and I visited<a href="http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm"> Ellis Island</a>, and I am still haunted by it. Haunted in the same way that images of Titanic's vacant decks and abandoned staterooms beg that their stories be told. In the same way that the stillness of a Civil War battlefield, now peaceful, holds thousands of stories within its silence.<br />
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There are 12 million stories in the halls of Ellis Island, 12 million! Immigrants - some alone, others with friends or family - who passed through the Great Hall from 1892-1954. Each with a story.<br />
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Perhaps it was the artifacts on the 3rd floor of the Immigration Museum that triggered my imagination. Encased in glass, preserved exactly as they were found before restoration began in 1999.<br />
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Who lay in the hospital bed?<br />
Was she frightened, separated from her family,<br />
suffering from tuberculosis?<br />
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Who sat in the chair - stamping papers, asking questions?<br />
Did the faces across the desk follow him home at night, or blur into oneness?<br />
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Perhaps it was the windows, now smartly shaded, where views of Manhattan meant a new home to one, a dream denied to another.<br />
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Or perhaps it was the faces.</div>
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<a href="http://elenimylonasart.com/">Eleni Mylonas</a>, photographer/artist roamed the abandoned remains of Ellis Island for three months in 1983. "I wandered around in silence, letting myself be guided by unknown forces compelling me to explore unlikely desolate corners of the endless mass," she wrote. One of her photographs hangs on the 3rd floor of the Immigration Museum.<br />
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Ellis Island, now empty of the immigrants who came and went, continues to be alive with their dreams. Our country is alive with their ancestors, approximately 100 million of them.<br />
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As Eleni Mylonas described it, "….the voices of the millions of people who came through here, building a temple with their highest joys and deepest sorrows." </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-47074658826093375302014-10-13T21:08:00.000-07:002014-10-16T18:32:24.347-07:00Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I awakened to rain. </div>
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Pudgy downpours</div>
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squeezed through gutters.</div>
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Lively droplets</div>
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puddled in mud. </div>
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Birds' bath</div>
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gushed.</div>
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Flower pots </div>
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weeped.</div>
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Flash!</div>
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Flood Warning</div>
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I poured a cup of tea and sat on the window seat at our Arkansas home. It would be a cozy inside day. Perfect! I needed to tweak my book proposal for <u>Labyrinth Journey ~ Fifty States, Fifty-One Stories</u> and email it to a publisher.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitsxN2sun-my-TNxW26GRZvPWnId3EtzaBVklnJBglz4eSWVz3etizJRUNEI7N-j1c4fPzHYO4YDQ1e4fQTeGQPvHABSHBKR7q5w04zUUCTmQEsWQjMunME_wu_xlFXAyJrETCCCHm3Is/s1600/IMG_4716.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitsxN2sun-my-TNxW26GRZvPWnId3EtzaBVklnJBglz4eSWVz3etizJRUNEI7N-j1c4fPzHYO4YDQ1e4fQTeGQPvHABSHBKR7q5w04zUUCTmQEsWQjMunME_wu_xlFXAyJrETCCCHm3Is/s1600/IMG_4716.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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No need to rush here, there.<br />
No distractions to rake, weed.<br />
The weather was my ally as I pulled chair to desk and opened my computer.<br />
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Yet at the same time, son Jason sat at the Little Rock airport. Flight to Corpus Christi delayed, then cancelled.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxF-dVuRtvcIhWSWfC_ssBCgyrsClfOK8nneGZhvhCCI-i59tYZOtH5lCtJbIfZwVOMitGLVznG3AwujM-wJGb5KYw1UkQRQq0lrVu2R61M80r30G2dxxJ_vS2RwdCTHY49Jq-JHx4Xy0/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxF-dVuRtvcIhWSWfC_ssBCgyrsClfOK8nneGZhvhCCI-i59tYZOtH5lCtJbIfZwVOMitGLVznG3AwujM-wJGb5KYw1UkQRQq0lrVu2R61M80r30G2dxxJ_vS2RwdCTHY49Jq-JHx4Xy0/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
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No luck re-booking for tomorrow.<br />
No opportunity to attend the anticipated conference.<br />
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The same weather, not so perfect.<br />
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Such a lesson in perspective, isn't it?<br />
Not a <i>new</i> lesson; nothing I don't already know.<br />
But a reminder.<br />
To appreciate<br />
To be aware<br />
To gingerly hold both<br />
in the palm of my hand.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-75451262223875507582014-09-22T11:49:00.000-07:002014-09-25T07:28:30.616-07:00A Mindful Weekend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Books seem to magically appear in my life when I need them the most, but I may not know it at the time. A book may even sit on the shelf for months, until my life catches up with what its pages are waiting to share. It was because of a book that I spent the past weekend at <a href="http://www.copperbeechinstitute.org/">Copper Beech Institute</a> in West Hartford, Connecticut at a mindfulness retreat.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1N83sfCzhguVPcN0KEhW0tYvJNMkLjrMf3WWa_uYU-UVmgvf-WPdAWuewlpF5wujz5pP9aQXoV4Jxis8ixROXBo0TsbEt_mulWf2Dr9j03PmSkONwG1q8K_8qvlzylkisfzt_5_2AtGc/s1600/IMG_9678.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1N83sfCzhguVPcN0KEhW0tYvJNMkLjrMf3WWa_uYU-UVmgvf-WPdAWuewlpF5wujz5pP9aQXoV4Jxis8ixROXBo0TsbEt_mulWf2Dr9j03PmSkONwG1q8K_8qvlzylkisfzt_5_2AtGc/s1600/IMG_9678.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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The book, of course, came along on the train ride from Grand Central Station to Waterbury, Connecticut, then in friend Marian's car on to Copper Beech. I'm not sure which of us was more excited, although I kept hearing muffled giggles from the zippered compartment of my suitcase.<br />
The book's author,<a href="http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/"> Sharon Salzberg</a>, was the featured speaker at the retreat. Book and author were to be reunited, and I was going to meet the author whose words course through my mindfulness meditations each morning. It was a toss-up.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLmzEkcFs9TY_wzi7Q2Y-1tmi2k0Zin1yct9YdYPR12qJDuybsRe1Dd1UTTC5JhAGZSe6AXxtrDBMGdOdN1MwhRS70UtTWqy2rl3s0lyXYExJjDRMwCMAX7HkVk_s_6Yd4fG_PVpcC9-E/s1600/IMG_4706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLmzEkcFs9TY_wzi7Q2Y-1tmi2k0Zin1yct9YdYPR12qJDuybsRe1Dd1UTTC5JhAGZSe6AXxtrDBMGdOdN1MwhRS70UtTWqy2rl3s0lyXYExJjDRMwCMAX7HkVk_s_6Yd4fG_PVpcC9-E/s1600/IMG_4706.JPG" height="320" width="265" /></a></div>
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<u><a href="http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/books-audio/253">The Force of Kindness, Change Your Life with Love and Compassion</a></u></div>
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Kindness as a <b>Force</b> sounded like a misnomer when I first picked up the book seven years ago. A force is strong, heavy, powerful. Kindness is well, <i>kind</i>. Gentle. It doesn't bowl you over like an 80 MPH wind, but sits beside you and helps you hang on. It stays and picks up the pieces afterwards. A force, perhaps, with a quieter nature.</div>
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The well-loved book - read three times, underlined, starred, decorated with blue post-it notes - continues to push me along a path of compassion toward self and others. It introduced me to lovingkindness meditation and, along with <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Is-Every-Step-Mindfulness/dp/0553351397">Peace Is Every Step</a></u> by <a href="http://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/">Thich Nhat Hanh</a>, encouraged me to live in the present moment. It prepared me for a longer path, <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">a journey of labyrinths</a>, where self-discovery and insight spiral through other walkers I meet along the way.</div>
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With a hundred or so men and women this weekend, I practiced sitting meditation, walking meditation, lovingkindness meditation. I stretched my body in gentle yoga. I walked a peaceful labyrinth in the early morning as the sun was topping a circle of trees.</div>
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I was kind to myself. The place where all kindness must begin.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ5N7_-te3_VSkJzmR10nLa0ttHa17QAC0zJ7UecB08IH93Zy1HUeCXwuUjhgb8CCKoFO8sRBX-U4C-ZmeLpstAKllYeZl60FLEk0vICxYB0T4Jl4i71tXHM5TWXougg7AeIUMn0CUWD8/s1600/IMG_4700.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ5N7_-te3_VSkJzmR10nLa0ttHa17QAC0zJ7UecB08IH93Zy1HUeCXwuUjhgb8CCKoFO8sRBX-U4C-ZmeLpstAKllYeZl60FLEk0vICxYB0T4Jl4i71tXHM5TWXougg7AeIUMn0CUWD8/s1600/IMG_4700.JPG" height="400" width="292" /></a></div>
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As I handed Sharon my book to sign, I had a gushy speech, filled with flowery words of author admiration, all prepared to deliver. But when it came to the moment, I said simply,<br />
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"Thank you. Your words have made a difference in my life."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWU3IrTwqA1MNFajN3s8CQ1F-DA9IzBK4HAu3vIKBmIq1dyeyTblh3cPNH4zLLAetSKKp1JvUFDDkU_DddHM0Ccj5vZwLWMItIK34p30AUw3cbg_tzb_HARMSTob68gM7HaAdnzwwi_QY/s1600/IMG_4707.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWU3IrTwqA1MNFajN3s8CQ1F-DA9IzBK4HAu3vIKBmIq1dyeyTblh3cPNH4zLLAetSKKp1JvUFDDkU_DddHM0Ccj5vZwLWMItIK34p30AUw3cbg_tzb_HARMSTob68gM7HaAdnzwwi_QY/s1600/IMG_4707.JPG" height="355" width="400" /></a></div>
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The book could hardly contain its excitement as Sharon's pen touched the paper.</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>We both carry her words inside us with a smile.</b></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-88951169746962030802014-09-07T16:45:00.000-07:002014-09-08T04:22:44.748-07:00The Most Important Words in Today's NY Times<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I love our Sunday morning routines, especially on a day as lovely as today! Blue skies, fluffy clouds, cooler temperatures minus the humidity. We're out the door by 7:30, down the 49 floors from our apartment, out the revolving doors, onto Washington Boulevard. Monday-Friday one of Jersey City's busiest streets. But today, quiet, peacefully quiet. One car slows down our jaywalk across two intersections, passed a shaded park lined with red and white periwinkles and remnants of roses, stubbornly hanging on for dear life.<br />
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Five minutes later, we're at Starbucks.<br />
A couple of classic oatmeals, blueberry scone, grandé coffee for Drew, tall-vanilla-nonfat-decaf latte for me, or a "What's the use?" as one baffled barista once dubbed my order.<br />
And a <i>New York Times</i>.<br />
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<br />
A thick Sunday <i>New York Times</i>. An even thicker <i>New York Times</i> stuffed with two added inserts, The New Season of fall movies AND The New Season of theater, classical and dance. At least two hours of reading enjoyment!<br />
<br />
We find a bench, dappled with a sunshine/shade pattern, and put the paper aside. The view grabs our attention, more than any headline could.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaJqpSTdJybagbsFmFwtg-ySNyO8xFdZFEqNwOrZxapVhhrOb7AGVXDLKLzYtsBbqxuFkWW8y6Gqp9UMwVW7dG8PuEtlPKLb_v8gLiDokg9e-PfdiEKmouY_ApUvvCpGKi0Pg05_qCcs/s1600/IMG_4672.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaJqpSTdJybagbsFmFwtg-ySNyO8xFdZFEqNwOrZxapVhhrOb7AGVXDLKLzYtsBbqxuFkWW8y6Gqp9UMwVW7dG8PuEtlPKLb_v8gLiDokg9e-PfdiEKmouY_ApUvvCpGKi0Pg05_qCcs/s1600/IMG_4672.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a><br />
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Boats at Newport Marina<br />
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The Hudson <br />
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Downtown Manhattan skyline<br />
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One World Trade Center<br />
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Adjectives only get in the way.<br />
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I sift through each section, read, set aside. Drew does the same as we exchange the front page for "Travel" for "The Sunday Review."<br />
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Then I start my own piles - "Keep" and "Save." There's always something in "Save" that has caught my eye, that I will bring home and clip. Yes, I'm a newspaper clipper! Each week, anywhere from five to ten items end up on my bulletin board, "Things To Do in NYC" file, in an envelope to a friend or family member, my journal, or on the refrigerator door. I never question why they appeal to me. They just do, and they usually affect my life in a positive way.<br />
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Here is this week's collection…..<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje92_fBHQ0J5Nlsar1cmMq8uIFmvPTxS42KFlj-glYJ3-_T88CQFsnPPek1g7Y_5xnBlws_yBmZ0wXyP78UamEu_XT4u5AKVM5TpTR0Sfmi2zlXaELKQPvYdDz-HEnHz9NZui6w5FwzIQ/s1600/IMG_4684.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje92_fBHQ0J5Nlsar1cmMq8uIFmvPTxS42KFlj-glYJ3-_T88CQFsnPPek1g7Y_5xnBlws_yBmZ0wXyP78UamEu_XT4u5AKVM5TpTR0Sfmi2zlXaELKQPvYdDz-HEnHz9NZui6w5FwzIQ/s1600/IMG_4684.JPG" height="367" width="400" /></a></div>
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-article ("Liking Work Really Matters") by Paul A. O'Keefe which cites research for what seems common sense. "Being interested in a task is essential to being good at it." Why do we often forget this?<br />
-bits and pieces from the bestseller lists with interesting books highlighted in yellow<br />
- article about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Close">Glenn Close</a> who will be appearing in "<a href="http://www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/johngoldentheater/a-delicate-balance.php">A Delicate Balance</a>" on Broadway. The dates of the play go on my calendar and the article to our daughter, Katherine, who assisted Ms. Close recently at the Apple store in Portland, Maine, where she came in for help with her computer.<br />
-an advertisement for the movie "<a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/myoldlady/">My Old Lady</a>," which starts Wednesday - looks delightful<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
And a quote - the most <b><u>important</u></b> find in my two hours of reading, by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Sotloff">Steven Sotloff</a>,<br />
the second journalist killed by ISIS.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCeYk1RkeecwimhpPnIcw-Q1ewictqU9ONFbE0zWY2TdYQReI47lCbm-cXlFXgrDykR5-HqeKnWqH8qGlyNRIMwqQgUnJxpKhog1BIiM3_oCh5Et0TQfMlbOAqxmAQjoZvsV4_gKWVQoQ/s1600/IMG_4677.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCeYk1RkeecwimhpPnIcw-Q1ewictqU9ONFbE0zWY2TdYQReI47lCbm-cXlFXgrDykR5-HqeKnWqH8qGlyNRIMwqQgUnJxpKhog1BIiM3_oCh5Et0TQfMlbOAqxmAQjoZvsV4_gKWVQoQ/s1600/IMG_4677.jpg" height="345" width="400" /></a></div>
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It goes on the refrigerator so I will read his words every day.</div>
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Words which will endure long beyond the lives of those who ended his. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Chalkduster;"><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Live your life to the fullest and fight to be happy</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">…</span><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Chalkduster; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Everyone has two lives. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Chalkduster; font-size: 14px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The second one begins when you realize you have only one.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-16434938955607490012014-08-23T17:19:00.000-07:002014-08-24T03:12:49.309-07:00Jane Franklin - One Woman's Story, Almost Forgotten<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Have you heard of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Mecom">Jane Franklin</a>? </div>
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The picture on the cover of the book won't give you a clue. It is a portrait of her granddaughter, painted in 1765. </div>
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No picture of Jane survives. </div>
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The fact that she ever lived would have long been forgotten, had it not been for her older brother, known to the majority of Americans (colonists) of <i>his</i> time and of <i>ours</i>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.ushistory.org/FRANKLIN/info/">Benjamin Franklin</a>. </div>
<br />
I happened to hear the book's author, <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/jlepore/home">Jill Lepore</a>, interviewed on <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/10/10/231431080/meet-bens-sister-jane-historys-forgotten-franklin">NPR's Fresh Air</a> almost a year ago. I added the title to my "To Read" list, then forgot about it until July when I was searching for a book to take on vacation. Not quite a beach read for our beach vacation to Maui, but I was purposefully looking for a book of substance - about a <i>woman</i> of substance.<br />
The trip to Hawaii was the culmination of my 2-year <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">journey</a> to visit a labyrinth envisioned and/or built by a woman in each state. I carried their stories with me as I traveled to meet the 50th woman, walk her labyrinth and hear her story.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Apple Chancery'; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: left;">The power of stories</span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Only through listening to women tell their stories </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
have I learned how deeply another person's story can impact my own.</div>
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All we know of Jane Franklin's story is through Benjamin's letters to her, the few surviving letters of hers to him and other family members, and her <i>Book of Ages</i>, where she recorded the births and deaths of her children. It is surprising that Jane, born in 1712 "when the Massachusetts poor laws required that boys be taught to write and girls to read," learned to write at all. Benjamin taught her, before he ran away from home to write his own story.<br />
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While her brother became famous, Jane lived on the edge of poverty with a husband, constantly in debt, and a total of twelve children, eleven of whom died. She cared for her ailing parents and took in boarders to help with expenses.</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: center;"> She worked hard, <b>very</b></span><span style="text-align: center;"> hard. </span></div>
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She loved, lost, and lost again. </div>
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She read whenever she could </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and wrote her letters.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
No one knows where she was buried. Perhaps near the 20-foot granite obelisk erected for Benjamin in Boston's Granary Burying Ground.<br />
<br />
At the end of her book, Jill Lepore quotes <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/virginia-woolf-9536773#synopsis">Virginia Woolf</a>'s essay, "The Art of Biography":<br />
<br />
<i>The question now inevitably asks itself, whether the lives of great men only should be recorded. Is not anyone who has lived a life, and left a record of that life, worthy of biography -- the failures as well as the successes, the humble as well as the illustrious? And what is greatness? And what is smallness?</i><br />
<br />
It is Jane herself who answers Virginia's probing questions. In her own hand. In a letter to her brother.<br />
<br />
"I am willing to Depart out of it [life] when ever my Grat Benifactor has no farther Use for me.<br />
I know the most Insignificant creature on Earth may be made some Use of in the Scale of Beings, may Touch some Spring."<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQeHTBLRrEq0ZeYIOJdZMaW9l-sOeK-Eh0kJRAclyfl6yupSXReux65z7shUr3fkqDZXOEDn7zBqHZK64ALzioZDWRgu5vc5WlQTF7P_2vlult9Y-lKXqg1Qvd6-CSxR7YAuXSC87OfI/s1600/IMG_4658.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHQeHTBLRrEq0ZeYIOJdZMaW9l-sOeK-Eh0kJRAclyfl6yupSXReux65z7shUr3fkqDZXOEDn7zBqHZK64ALzioZDWRgu5vc5WlQTF7P_2vlult9Y-lKXqg1Qvd6-CSxR7YAuXSC87OfI/s1600/IMG_4658.JPG" height="55" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first page of Jane's Book of Ages</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-4044244120575890042014-08-11T10:09:00.003-07:002014-08-11T10:43:36.268-07:00My OWN Labyrinth - Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When I daydreamed of building a labyrinth in our yard, I naively imagined that we would whip it into shape in a weekend or two.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Labyrinth laborers </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
preparing the ground</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
measuring </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
marking </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
hauling</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
setting the design</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
then</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
stepping back </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
arms folded</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
proudly</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
proclaiming </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
it</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"Finished!" </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It is Step 2 in my 3-Step Plan. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
1. Complete visits</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
2. Build labyrinth</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
3. Write *book</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
But two weeks into the project, sitting on a pile of bricks, I slow down long enough to hear that voice, the one that lets me fret a bit before imparting her wisdom. Today it comes in the form of a question. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Have you learned <i>nothing</i> on this <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">journey</a>?" she asks. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I detect impatience.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Of course, I know where she's headed with this line of questioning. I know...but I forget.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>The path takes time to walk. </i></div>
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<i>There are lessons to be learned in the doing, the day-to-day, the creation.</i></div>
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<i>Pay attention to what is before you.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Breathe.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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The "army" of laborers has temporarily left. Without them I could not have begun. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tAOxyn1pbYscceatmblRJ8j0gj2LQICVJCr2bohTwndtD5TL0GqlYO1TP8h_qaTOurGZJhXzutWWasSZxAmYPZ747PDcMnSGgSRXVIKxku46sJvVbtUxZoixeyJRS7SH1-bQnW1BeZo/s1600/IMG_4528.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-tAOxyn1pbYscceatmblRJ8j0gj2LQICVJCr2bohTwndtD5TL0GqlYO1TP8h_qaTOurGZJhXzutWWasSZxAmYPZ747PDcMnSGgSRXVIKxku46sJvVbtUxZoixeyJRS7SH1-bQnW1BeZo/s1600/IMG_4528.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne Hornstein, whose labyrinth in Florida was the first I walked on my fifty-state journey,<br />
helps me measure the center. She "happened" to be driving to Colorado and<br />
offered to consecrate the space and help with the lay-out. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drew unloads 100+ bricks and pushes them,<br />
one wheelbarrow load at a time,<br />
to the labyrinth site (opposite side of the house.) <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiDXxTN_xshpjbTiUpzqei8P3RL27gwqq0cQvPRfiO9UryvNo0liO4OF6a654jg1K4eEoDfB5h70Aqrx0ZP2kOZmxdv0sBrMTb8NDWale1fx2Qkl2VGI1330pJ0Gj6VdB4t8mOdDSwak/s1600/IMG_4568.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiDXxTN_xshpjbTiUpzqei8P3RL27gwqq0cQvPRfiO9UryvNo0liO4OF6a654jg1K4eEoDfB5h70Aqrx0ZP2kOZmxdv0sBrMTb8NDWale1fx2Qkl2VGI1330pJ0Gj6VdB4t8mOdDSwak/s1600/IMG_4568.jpg" height="320" width="198" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our son-in-law, Ben, precisely measures<br />the center circle of bricks.</td></tr>
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The labyrinth and I share the space for quiet hours, surrounded by trees, birdsong and inquisitive mosquitoes, only moderately repelled by Deep Woods Off. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEBuMPEAOEBp2QpFL5AdPlcZDJ4aq2ijfxR_fzWjDBXJ6CKhGghIk0O3ALXpRygsrcIMOW64PSYsfLtl4HNZSN7ZfOZj5W3Tvo9DlStZToD78eQCDY7V2hVifitKOtDY9XT6yAiax-Q4/s1600/IMG_4592.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQEBuMPEAOEBp2QpFL5AdPlcZDJ4aq2ijfxR_fzWjDBXJ6CKhGghIk0O3ALXpRygsrcIMOW64PSYsfLtl4HNZSN7ZfOZj5W3Tvo9DlStZToD78eQCDY7V2hVifitKOtDY9XT6yAiax-Q4/s1600/IMG_4592.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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It won't be finished for several months, as I go back and forth to New York, and as other hands take turns digging trenches and laying bricks.<br />
I take a deep breath and realize that's as it should be.</div>
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The labyrinth is growing, </div>
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one brick at a time.</div>
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As am I.</div>
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*working title of book -</div>
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<u>Labyrinth Journeys</u></div>
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<u> Fifty States… Fifty-<i>One</i> Stories</u> </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2930414494087251641.post-5459884533067982762014-07-30T21:16:00.000-07:002014-08-01T21:21:21.895-07:00My OWN Labyrinth - Part 1 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"Sure, I'm going to build my own labyrinth," I've been telling women for the last two years. Women who have already created theirs; one woman in every state, as those of you know who have been following my <a href="http://newyorkcityreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/those-of-you-who-are-facebook-friends.html">journey</a>.<br />
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"So, what do you think is holding you back?" asked Mary in Iowa, as we visited at the edge of her prairie labyrinth last summer?<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPFj1ywWltucQxJ2PwXzFr8Cmpt52O9nGnoVS7gBBKESLD-1RjgxB7INr9HnUNA8-jXYW8JJg9B6IuPc_fu86zI5W5olEsRnwl6gJBE6VigXZXxP3rWknMnVfg5KWlc-_7Bgon0nNTho/s1600/IMG_2186.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPFj1ywWltucQxJ2PwXzFr8Cmpt52O9nGnoVS7gBBKESLD-1RjgxB7INr9HnUNA8-jXYW8JJg9B6IuPc_fu86zI5W5olEsRnwl6gJBE6VigXZXxP3rWknMnVfg5KWlc-_7Bgon0nNTho/s1600/IMG_2186.JPG" height="222" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mowed entrance to Mary Dreier's "Soul of the Prairie" labyrinth,<br />
which circles through a field of prairie grasses. It is marked by a bell,<br />
peace pole, and stone.</td></tr>
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The question caught me off guard. My pat answer, "I'm just not at our Arkansas home long enough to get started, " was true enough, but was there more? Mary's intuition seemed to think so, but it has taken me another year and the completion of my travels, to name it.<br />
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Was it that I hadn't located the spot on our five acres that "felt" right? Three tree-circled spaces looked promising. I even asked the trees, "What do you think? Would you be OK with a labyrinth in your neighborhood?" No response, which I interpreted as, "Thanks for asking, but keep looking," as if this were a game of Hide-and-Seek, and I was still "cold."<br />
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Was it that the whole project was too overwhelming? Did I lack the confidence and/or ability to begin? Yes, and yes.<br />
I knew I wanted to build a <a href="http://labyrinthlocator.com/labyrinth-typology/4337-medieval-labyrinths">Chartres-style labyrinth</a> with its 11 circuits and 34 turns, but how?<br />
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Would the path be grass, gravel, mulch, or?<br />
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Would the lines be brick, rock, plants, or?<br />
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Who could help me with the math, my least favorite subject since….forever!?<br />
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But still, there was <i>more</i>. Like a pot of boiling water that simmers down to the last inch, I expected my answer to be at the bottom, easily fished out and served on a plate. As we know, though, answers tend to be a bit slipperier than that.<br />
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"<i>You are not yet ready to build your labyrinth. You will know when you are</i>," came the ambiguous voice, once I calmed the churning waters long enough to listen. <br />
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It was clear that "ready" did <i>not</i> mean the perfect spot, the ideal<br />
materials, the tricky math. It meant <b>me</b>.<br />
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Building a labyrinth is an emotional and spiritual investment. It's a connection to an ancient design that people have walked for thousands of years, for reasons we will never fully understand. I walk them as a meditation, for calm, peace, reflection, guidance, for whatever I may need to notice. I am drawn to labyrinths built outdoors, in the earth, where my feet touch ground as I walk. There is a living connection between us.<br />
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Until two weeks ago, I was not ready.<br />
Now I am. <br />
How do I know?<br />
I just do.<br />
Intuition?<br />
That feeling you can't fully explain, but that won't go away.<br />
Until you listen.<br />
And act.<br />
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Or maybe the labyrinth itself is ready to be built. All I know is that I'm now laying bricks, with the support of amazing helpers!<br />
Please join me next week for Part 2 - "Beginning!"<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioLuOwUkBovGqo5aSpK3Kiz6ODOTzkmxGPFLtxhE4RGEYMMHY4lii94MA9qWgya55UXYCkDoKTPGUO9a4siFNavbLqyPzOPsRuNfc3o1Nl_49CoNKnd4Q0pVpdRyre5ko4wOY8bLB4cys/s1600/IMG_4571.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioLuOwUkBovGqo5aSpK3Kiz6ODOTzkmxGPFLtxhE4RGEYMMHY4lii94MA9qWgya55UXYCkDoKTPGUO9a4siFNavbLqyPzOPsRuNfc3o1Nl_49CoNKnd4Q0pVpdRyre5ko4wOY8bLB4cys/s1600/IMG_4571.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Son-in-law, Ben, along with grandsons,<br />
Luke and Nate help me get started.<br />
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I'd appreciate your comments… <i>How do you know when something is "right" in your life -</i></div>
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<i>to move forward,</i></div>
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<i>make a change,</i></div>
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<i>take one path over another…</i></div>
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<i>to begin?</i></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4