What I"ve Been Up To...

I love beautiful cities. I don't spend enough time in any these days but last weekend jb and I were in Boston for the day. One of these days, probably when I am better with my camera, I want to photograph Boston and do her justice. Meanwhile, here's the quickest glance at one of my favorite American cities:

It was a hard sad week. Not all of it, but enough that I found myself looking for signs that everything was not slowly falling apart. These are the times I look for light. My friends Mike and Clara provided that last weekend: their daughter Dani graduated from high school and graduated from Project Step, a stringed instrument program that takes children of color from kindergarten all the way through high school, many of their graduates on their way to performing in symphony orchestras. Dani was flawless. After, about 12 of us sat around an outdoor patio, chilly enough that the restaurant owner gave us each fleece blankets (something I've never experienced before while dining), and we ate, drank, ate and drank some more. (I like the way this sounds but I guess I should add I can't and don't drink anymore. I'm not always happy about that, but I'm way better off because I don't.)

Two weeks ago Mr. Ryan came to stay for the weekend. He is almost two and a half and if you rule out the exhaustion he generates, he is absolute fun. Just watching him learn, hearing him put words together, chuckling over his very real and very playful sense of humor: it's just irreplaceably precious. I don't know if either of these pictures show his purity, but I hope so. For some reason I especially love this shot of him sitting in what we tell him is the "Big Boy Chair."

I have children in my life. Lots of them. Besides for Mr. Ryan and Mr. Drew, somehow half of my clients are children, ages four through seventeen. I'm in this weekly clinical supervision group where the teacher has a background in art therapy, and every week we do some kind of art while she talks and teaches and we talk and learn. So I've told my clients that over the summer we'll do that: coloring, clay, paper, drawing, writing stories. I've never ever done this before with kids, adults or myself, so it is both stretch and an adventure. Here is fifth grader D's 'Ollie Octopus' and grown up kj's 'Gregory Druid'. This clay is easy on the hands, pliable for hours, and slowly hardens after a day. So far, the kids and I love it.

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Do you have phobias? Are they major? Because I have a couple and one is very major. The dentist freaks me out. Finally, I now get laughing gas to drug me, and it works. My dentist looked at me this week and said, "You like this stuff, don't you?" I was embarrassed but too happy to care...

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Anyway, lovely high aside, I'm lying back in that dental chair and what do I see when I look up? I almost burst out laughing. I could just hear Ms. Emily Rabbit thoroughly enjoying this.

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(It's me, Emily....Blow this picture up and it will make you smile. I'm especially telling this to my best friend Marianne.)

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Next: jb and I are driving to our friend's when a cardinal flies by our windshield and lands in a tree nearby. Can you spot him/her?

And finally, I don't have a personal or special relationship with Bella Sinclair, but like many in our community of bloggers, I am utterly sad and mournful thinking about her and her unimaginable loss. I came across this beautiful photo--an angel reaching out and down--and I thought of her and her husband and her children. . Love to you, Bella: in time I pray you and your girls will be okay. I believe you will. xoxo