France!

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.

 "A journal," the instructions specified on the What To Bring 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.

The Cathedral at Chartres, 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."

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 labyrinth built in the early 13th century.

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.







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.


THEN . . .

Drew and I will travel through Normandy and Brittany for ten days, a whole different kind of journey.
I'll be sure to save plenty of blank pages.







       

The Titanic - One Woman's Story

As Drew and I entered the Titanic Artifact Exhibition at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, we were each given a boarding pass.

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.

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...

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?




According to the boarding pass, Maria (age 17) and Victor's Reason 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 extremely wealthy.

The Passenger Fact 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.

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!

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 amazement found --

A photo....

And information...

"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."
--Titanic, Woman and Children First by Judith Gellar

She died in 1972 at the age of 83.

A woman I know only through the random selection of a card with her name on it.

A woman whose story I'm privileged to know, even briefly.... and to share.



** The Titanic Artifact exhibit closes on May 30, 2016. 





















   








     

Empty Bowls

A colorful bowl

A creative bowl

A handmade bowl

An empty bowl

This bowl, made by a child's hands, sits on our kitchen counter to remind us that... 

somewhere in the world, someone's bowl is always empty.

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 All Saints Episcopal Day School.


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.

    

When I googled Empty Bowls, 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 Hoboken Shelter, which in 2015 served 182,000 meals, and St. Matthews lunchtime ministry which serves about 75 guests a day. 

I couldn't resist picking up a second 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  

                                                                      

                                                                      Children 

                                                               Making a Difference!

*For instructions about how to make your own seed bowls, check out NASA's Climate Kids. The seed papers can easily be shaped into bowls.

     

Your Own Journey

Today concludes my six Mondays (January 3, January 11, January 18, January 25, February 1) of reflection on Journey.  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.

I've known since I began this series that I would end with Mary Oliver's poem, The Journey. 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.

I wish you peace, courage and growth on your own journeys.

A cairn beside my labyrinth 

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save. 

A 950-page Journey

My series of reflections on Journey continues…...

(For background, refer to January 3 entry.)

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.

I purchased my copy over two years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I attended a book talk by the authors, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. 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.

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.

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.

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, why - does he pick up a paintbrush for the first time?

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.

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.

Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun

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 life. A journey that didn't begin with a brushstroke, with a man discovering a solitary paintbrush on his path. It's as much about the steps before, and then, the steps after.

After 950 pages, I hope to better understand the face on the cover, how Vincent Van Gogh 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.

*Van Gogh, The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith









   

Listen to the Voice

My series of reflections on Journey continues…...

(For background, refer to January 3 entry.)

Art supplies. My 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 their 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.    

You get the idea.

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. 

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.

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 50-state labyrinth journey and write a book about it, present at The Labyrinth Society Annual Gathering. What would have happened... if I had ignored her?

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 - The Journey Within: A Year of Handmade Art Journals. 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."

front

back

I've completed my January journal, a mini one, decorated with Zentangles and held together with a pipe cleaner.




      



     


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.

I bravely share my creations not to say, "Look at what I did," but rather, "Look at what any of us can do."

That voice you hear? It's your own. 

Listen and step forward, with confidence, on your own journey.  

   

Sunday Afternoon Visitin'

My series of reflections on Journey continues…...

(For background, refer to January 3 entry.)

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.

Carolyn spent last week with me, transitioning from Florida to Arkansas (no, not the other way around) after retirement. Fifty years 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 those? I do, now.

"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…."

"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."

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."



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…"






  

     













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.

     

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.

When A Journey Chooses You

My weekly reflections on Journey continues…...

(For background, refer to January 3 entry.)

Who comes to mind when you think of a hero? Anyone like this?

credit: Study.com

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 most 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.

Joseph Campbell - American author, scholar, mythologist - published a book in 1949 (new edition in 2008) titled, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.


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, Luke Skywalker, an unlikely hero himself, set out on a personal quest and ended up saving the Galaxy.

Photo credit: BBC

In a recent TED Radio Hour (December 18, 2015) broadcast, "The Hero's Journey," four speakers shared their unique experiences as journeyers. One was Dame Ellen MacArthur. 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.


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.

…"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."

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 uncommon bravery and strength.

Heroines of their own journeys!!  

Ann, Jan and Mary Beth

      

 

A Blog Awakens

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, Labyrinth Journeys ~ 50 States, 51 Stories, 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.)

I've recently considered discontinuing the blog altogether. My heart just hasn't been in it. Until this morning. I was listening to The Writer's Almanac, as I do every morning as I put on my make-up, when Garrison Keillor began talking about Lucretia Mott.

 "This day in 1793, Lucretia Mott 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.
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.' "

The day Lucretia chose to step away from her job, she stepped toward something greater. She began her own journey.

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 The Force Awakens with new eyes. Where is Luke in his journey? Is Rey's journey following a similar path?

By the time Mr. Keillor's soothing voice had read the final Poem for the Day, I had a plan.

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.

Please join me.

Today, I begin by thanking you, Lucretia.
For the journey you began for women's rights over 200 years ago.
I wonder, though...what did you learn about yourself on the journey?

Lucretia Mott (painting by Joseph Kyle - 1842)

A Face of Peace

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.

Mohammed Azziz

A Face of Peace

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 where approximately 85% of the population is Muslim.  

Mohammed Azziz was the first Mohammed I encountered.  I remember naively thinking, “He must be very 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^nd 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.

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 done!?” 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^nd 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.

“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.

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.”

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.”  

I nodded. “I know, Mohammed, I know,” the only words to escape before sobs swallowed the rest. Sobs of loss…. and overwhelming hope.

The Anne Frank Tree in Arkansas

I've read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl three times, climbed the steps to the Secret Annex at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, toured and written about The Anne Frank Center USA in Lower Manhattan. A copy of the book sits on my writing desk in Arkansas, among other books that inspire me.

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 Miep Gies, 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 Holocaust they will ever encounter.

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...

AP photo/Peter Dejong

"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." February 23, 1944 

"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." 

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 Little Rock Integration Crisis in 1957…


and the other at the Clinton Presidential Center.

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. 

    

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.         

Chief Heckaton - hereditary chief of the Quapaw during the Arkansas Indian Removal of 1830 (Trail of Tears) 
Melba Patillo Beals - one of the Little Rock Nine (African American students denied entry to all-white Central High School) 
George Takei - actor and activist (confined to Rohwer Relocation Center, Japanese internment camp, in southeastern Arkansas during WW II). 

Victims of intolerance, discrimination, hatred, prejudice.
Like Anne.
Like millions of others.

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. 

One sapling, many voices, plead for us… to listen. 

                                                                      ************   

The Sapling Project, 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."  

   





     



  
  








 

ddd

John Symons, A Voice of Peace

John Symons, a dear friend of ours, died recently. 

John and Ann Symons, Victory Day
Moscow, Russia - 2008

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.

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.

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.






I remember the day he opened his bag and gave handfuls of cranes to students….

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 here?" expression in their faces.

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.

"They were so young."
"One soldier was only three years older than me."
"They died so far from home."
"What did they die for?"

--- reflections in journal entries shared by students

*******

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 good 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.

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 her blog -- today!
Serendipity, indeed!!









      







       

An Afternoon at the Met with John Singer Sargent

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 The Metropolitan Museum of Art on the table, the one that's been laying around all week. The one announcing the final two weeks of the "Sargent's: Portraits of Artists and Friends" exhibit. The Metropolitan Museum of Art!! It's a forty- five minute subway ride + walk away. I haven't been there in months.

What am I waiting for?

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.

John Singer Sargent,  Self-Portrait (1886)

John Singer Sargent 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:

Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)

Carolus-Duran (one of Sargent's teachers)

William Butler Yeats

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.

 I stopped at each of the ninety-two paintings, and returned to two.

A Gust of Wind

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.

The second could have been voted "The Most Unlikely To Get A Second Notice." It is unfinished.

Woman and Collie

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 undone.

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."

 Next time, it's….

American Quilts and Folk Art
Ancient Egypt Transformed
Celebrating the Arts of Japan
Or
Or
Or





  

    

     

    

My Labyrinth - Finished!

My labyrinth is finished!! 

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.
"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.
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.
No more digging!

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.

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.

9 yards of topsoil

1165 bricks (Did I mention that Ben majored in math?)

 

155 rolls of Bermuda sod

                                                    Then the creation began!

Clearing away the remnants of Plan A, then tilling (Drew)

Schlepping (son Jason)

Measuring ( Jason, Ben and grandchildren Luke and Ruby)

Laying bricks (Ben, Jason and I)

                                           

Adding the last piece of sod - Done!

Cutting and placing sod

     

                                                           

















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!"