I confess, I am having a love affair. His name is DANSKO and he is...a shoe. I first heard about Dansko shoes at least 15 years ago, and have gone through many pairs since. They are literally more comfortable than sneakers to me, and even though some people think clogs make me look like I am going to go and milk the cows, I don't care. I wear them to teach, to walk, to do art, to do everything. I have had black, purple, leopard print, pink, turquoise, but my true love is RED. I have clogs, sandals, boots, many different styles...but the red clogs are my true love. I recently took this photo at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, and it was made into the piece of art that I will also post here. This piece is about to be shown in Wyomissing, PA, at a show revolving around "SHOES", and it was fun for me to do...to finally do some art showing my TRUE LOVE ALWAYS for Dansko shoes. They have an outlet where they are 50% off in Southern Chester County, and each time I go, I have to control myself by only getting one or two pairs, when there are always 10 that I want. Try them, you'll love them...

Goggleworks

I can't believe that I am fortunate enough to have a studio at the Goggleworks. I don't remember exactly the first time I walked through the halls of this amazing place, it was over 2 years ago. I was in awe that Reading Pennsylvania had something as vibrant and alive, as creative and amazing as what Goggleworks is. Artists, galleries, movie theater, cafe, gift shop, art partners (dance, choral, Berks Living Magazine)...there is so much going on in this old safety goggle factory. It was renovated 5 years ago, and I wish that everyone would take time to wander around Gogglworks and see what is there.

http://www.goggleworks.org/ Please take a moment to check out this cool place!

Serendipity and Teaching

(These photos are of my fabulous group of students from Harrisburg, whom I have the privilege of teaching 2 more classes to soon...)

Someone recently asked me how I started teaching, and it really was one of the most serendipitous moments in my entire adult life.

I moved to Shillington, Pennsylvania in July of 2007, and during the summer of 2008 was walking my dog with my lovely neighbor Sharon. Sharon has lived here since the neighborhood was built 20 plus years ago, and knows many people. As we were looping around, she introduced me to Dr. Jerry Lee, who is a neighbor, and full time Psychology Professor at Albright College. I mentioned to him that I wanted to go back to work doing something in my field (social work, case management, therapy...I was not sure), and he said he had a list of agencies in the area that he would drop off to me.

Weeks later he knocked on my door with the list. He then asked me a question "have you ever thought of teaching?" I think I responded by saying something like "teaching who, what???" I had led group therapies, taught English in France, taught French in my kids' school...but I was not a TEACHER per say, I was more of a clinician. He asked me to send him my resume, and I did.

I got a call later from Dr. Andra Basu, who is in charge of all of the adjunct psychology professors in an accelerated degree program that Albright has, and Dr. Lee was the person who started the program over a decade ago. Classes are held at night, so that working people can finish their 4 year degree in a non-traditional setting. It is a great program, check it out.

http://www.albright.edu/accelerated/


I never had an interview. I was offered "Abnormal Psychology" as my first class to teach in early 2009, went to a day long orientation, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of my first group of students. I was scared, excited, and thrilled...and it just felt RIGHT. All of my life's experience and education had led me to that moment...

I now teach a variety of subjects for Albright, and learn so much from each and every group of students that I have had. I am excited to get back to a group in Harrisburg in a few weeks, I had them for Group Dynamics in May, and I learn so much from hearing what each and every one of them brings to the classroom. I miss them and their weekly updates! The classes are 4 hours long and we meet 5 weeks in a row, so it is a lot of hours in a short amount of time. I am so impressed with them as people, how brave they are in what they reveal about their work or personal lives, pertaining to the subjects that we learn. I know that they will all graduate and have success...I get to have this particular group in Harrisburg for 2 more classes in a row, and am excited to see them all again....

So, just as my stamp paintings emerged from a dream, my teaching career emerged from a walk with my dog, and a serendipitous meeting with Dr. Jerry Lee. Thank you, Dr. Lee, for seeing something inside of me that I did not even know was there. This is the best job, ever.

Thankful

I want to say how thankful I am to have the people in my life that I do...right now I am really thinking of Elizabeth Dellevigne, who was kind enough to create a fabulous web site for me. Please think of her if you need one, she is so creative and came up with the concept for my new site, and I love it! She can be contacted at http://www.dellevigne.com.

When I dreamed of my first stamp painting over a year ago, I had no idea that I would keep on going, or that a web site full of these images would result. I am thrilled! These paintings went from a dream to a reality with endless possibility...THANK YOU LIZ.

Finding Peace.

This is the Goddess Lakshmi. I do not know anything about Goddesses or Hinduism, but a few weeks ago I was telling my yoga teacher Ellen some personal things, and she told me that I needed Lakshmi. She is the Hindu Goddess of wealth and prosperity, both spiritual and material. She embodies light, wisdom, fortune, fertility, generosity and courage.

Today I did 45 minutes of yoga in my bedroom, mixing different styles and creating my own practice. At the end I did about 15 minutes of Shavasana, or corpse pose, where we lie quietly and allow ourselves to rest, resisting the flight or fight response that we always carry around. I thought of Lakshmi, and prayed to her, and thought about God and was praying to God as I know him, as well. Tears started to silently pour out of the corners of my eyes, I was so relaxed and so moved, by some silent peace and spirit that I wish I felt more often.

I was thinking about all of the different religions and ways to believe in God, or to be spiritual. I often think about how this will be the end of civilization, the wars surrounding religion. What is supposed to bring peace actually brings turmoil and hatred, we are so afraid of someone who worships or does things differently than we do.

I was thinking that all of the spiritual entities in the sky need to unite and form some sort of board of directors, and send messengers or angels down to let us all know that we are doing OK...that it is OK to allow our brothers and sisters from different religions, countries, and places to believe in their own way. We do not have to try to change them or make them think the same way that we do. God created us all, including all of these differences. I wish that we all could learn to respect and love the differences of everyone that we know. It would be a first step towards PEACE.

I just wanted to give a plug for Kelly Corrigan's new book...LIFT. This is her second book, the first called "The Middle Place", a story about her battle with breast cancer at the same time her father had cancer...and about not being the kid anymore, and coming into adulthood and parenthood and all of the real life struggles that it entails. It is a great book.

Her next one is a letter to her two daughters...I have a clip by her posted on my facebook page, and even 2 minutes of this book made me cry...about how kids shift and change and mature faster and more differently than we expect them to...her 3rd grader does not want the "Mommy time" that she used to...she wants to call her friends, see her friends, email her friends....things that Kelly thought would happen later than 3rd grade.

It makes me think about the fact that kids just pass through our lives, if we get this right...we do not own them, we raise them, to hopefully go out into the world as happy and secure adults, who still want to come home and see us sometimes! I just saw some photos on facebook of a friend named Marie who took her amazing looking teens to go and see a recent John Mayer concert...they all looked so happy and like they had a great time. I hope that when my kids are teens, that they will want to do things with us like that, as well.

Go and buy Kelly's book, it is available on Amazon...anyone who is watching their kids grow with a wistful eye will appreciate it. Makes me think of the song Landslide by Stevie Nicks, with the line that always makes me cry ..."children get older, and I'm getting older too". I am so thankful to have had the chance to become a parent, it is literally the best thing I have ever done. Thank you Julien and Amelie, for being who you both are, I am amazed by you every single day.

Love

I am thinking about love, and all of the forms that it takes...and of the people, near and far, past and present, whom I have loved and cared about. I am thinking about people who recently lost their spouses, Merrill and Ruth, and how short this life really is, and how hard this day must be for them, alone. I am thinking about how love can be the most complicated with the people that are closest to us, how sometimes we are kinder to strangers than to our families or friends. I am thinking about Charles, whom I have been with for 13 years now, and how I am so thankful that we have this big love and shared vision of a life together...how it just works. I am thinking about my kids, who made us huge Valentine cards this morning, so happy, so innocent, so full of love. I am thinking about single people today, and hope that they find love, if that is what they are looking for. I am thinking about my Mom, my sister, my grandmother...my family. Aude, in England, whom I wish was with us today...my in laws...all of us so spread out. I am thinking about my female friendships that bring me more than I can even express. I am thinking about how lucky I am to have so much love in my life.

Mostly I am thinking about how we only really have today, this minute, as we have no idea what the future will bring. So, love one another. It is simple, really. xoxox

MADE SHOP, Kutztown, PA

Just had to give a plug for a new shop that opened in Kutztown recently, called

"MADE SHOP"...I saw a great article about it last week in the Reading Eagle, and I know the couple that opened it, Dave Jones went to Kutztown with me, he and his wife Tess Doran are both artists, and have filled this shop with what looks like museum quality arts and crafts...

I can not wait to go and see it...eat at Snuzzles, shop at Rennigers, and stop at MADE SHOP.

If you want to check out their blog, the address is

www.madeshop.blogspot.com/

I wish them luck, and can not wait to go and see this store...the address is 227 West Main Street, Kutztown, PA...everyone knows that I am a big fan of charming Kutztown, and here is one more thing to make it even better!

Rashmee's Art

I just had to share this amazing painting that I just saw on the blog of a friend that I made when I lived in France, her name is Rashmee Pal Chouteau, she is from India but now lives in Le Mans, France, where I used to live, with her French husband and child. Her artwork is amazing!!! This is a painting that she did for a magazine in the Netherlands...I love her art, and I love Holland, so I had to share this...I have photos somewhere of her cool house that I had visited when I lived in France, she is one of those people who makes every single little corner of her living space look interesting and inviting. I hope I get to see her again one day soon, but thank you to Facebook for reconnecting me to her.

Inertia

I am feeling a terrible sense of inertia. I read a little quip by the singer Carly Simon, saying that the thing she dislikes about herself is her "paralysing tendency towards inertia"...and boy, can I relate. It made me feel marginally better that even someone like her can feel this, too. I spoke to my friend Cara this morning, and she said that most people, unless they are hyper motivated, are like this too. I feel like the more I have to do, the more I accomplish, but when a huge open day is before me, it is gone, wasted, toast, before I even know it.

I also am pondering foul moods that are inexplicable. Where do they come from, is it the moon, hormones, fatigue, brain chemicals, what? This photo I took last summer on the finger lakes in NY, of a stormy patch coming on, is an apt image of my current turbulance, my inert, rather foul mooded turbulance. I guess that all we can do when this happens is press on, move forward, and get through the day. I also know that if my house were clean, I would feel better.

I worked at a home for mentally ill adults for a long time, called Gheel House, in Kimberton, PA. Gheel was named after a town in Gheel, Belgium, where long ago, people with differences were embraced and made part of the community, rather than hidden away or institutionalized. Anyway, the phiosophy of Gheel is that of Rudoplh Steiner, he was an Austrian Philosopher who founded a spiritual movement called "Anthroposophy"...interesting stuff, look it up(this is also the basis of Waldorf Education). Anyway, I remember hearing something he said once, that a person's external environment is a manifestation of their internal life. That being said, my house is a mess, and perhaps some of this angst will cease if I go and clean it now.

Serendipity

Is THAT not a great word, a great concept? What is serendipity to you? I remember a French woman in Paris speaking to me, her name is Evelyn, and she worked with my sister in law, Aude, when she lived there. She loved this word, and asked me what it meant to me, and she believed in the magic of it's power.

There are different definitions on the web, but it basically means that you make a desirable discovery by accident...like my Dream which led me to my stamps paintings, in my last (and first!) blog entry...I also like Wiki's definition ..."the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate while looking for something entirely unrelated". I think that my life has held very many serendipitous moments, there are there like little shining jewels, if we only take the time to notice. Tell me about the serendipity in your life...

I think that meeting my French husband held a lot of serendipity...he is quiet, I am loud, he is solitary, I am a social beast, he is Catholic, I am Quaker, he is serious, I am crazy, he is reserved, I am out there...on paper we would have never, ever worked...but 13 years later, 2 crazy cool kids later, 2 countries later, 6 moves later, a dog and a cat and lots of ups and downs later, I still feel that meeting him was a very fortunate accident...like most of the relationships and friendships I have had. A lovely series of accidental meetings that have made my life so full.

The Dream

So, I want to tell you about THE DREAM. Firstly, this all has to do with stamps. I love stamps, and have collected them for a really long time, and have longed to do cool art with them. Only, no cool art happened when I tried, only mediocre art.

So, THE DREAM. In early 2009, I dreamed that I was in an art gallery somewhere, and the walls were filled with these bright watercolor, pen and ink pieces of art, and they all had stamps in them, done in little squares. I loved them SO MUCH in my dream. I loved them so much in the dream that I went outside into an alley beside the gallery, and in the dream I sobbed, sobbed that I was not the person who had done these paintings. SO, the next day I woke up, and did a painting like the ones I had seen in my dream. The first one has all LOVE stamps in it, and I was so happy that I finally found something cool to do with stamps and art. I have not seen anything else like it, which I also love!

I adore old letters, cards, stamps. I have nearly every letter that has ever been written to me, and I always look through boxes of old post cards when I go to farmers markets or flea markets...I love ones from 1923, with the thin curly black fancy writing, and the stamp that was one cent...the post mark, and then I do more dreaming, about the person who wrote that card, who they were, where they were, what they were doing. I just love them.