Darlene took this photo in my studio the other day and i quite love it ~ it makes me smile for the light and twinkles and nifty yellow warmth. Today I cleaned up said studio as it was getting awfully messy with piles of books and records stacked on the table, floor and chairs. Not to mention all the crumpled up papers under my desk and various scattered mugs of coffee and tea consumed at odd hours of the night when smitten with my writing fits. It felt so good to clean my studio since I put on music and brought up a tray of chocolate biscuits and set about returning the room to a pleasing sense of order (all ready to be messed up again sooner rather than later but nevermind)

However I am not in my studio now. I am in my livingroom with a cozy fire and cup of homemade chai listening to the rain pattering outside in my garden. And thinking. Thinking once again of my grade seven’s I am teaching a photography class to. Oh, you will love this. This week we talked about love and beauty. I asked which they wished to discuss fist and they all shouted ‘LOVE!!!” We chatted about how deeply personal love was, so abstract and complex and difficult to define, we talked about romantic love, platonic love and spiritual love and how you will find it everywhere in art, music, dance, photography etc. We discussed deep tenderness and emotional closeness and how love makes you feel so great by the happiness of another. And then. A very sweet boy put up his hand and said ‘And there is self love too.’ “Self love” I responded “Oh yes, and why is this important?” And he said “Because if you don’t love yourself how can you really love anyone else?” And then another boy put up his hand and chimed in….”You know when I do things that make me happy for myself then suddenly I am all filled up with joy and I want to go share that with everyone ~ it makes me feel like I have more love to share and I am just bursting with it.”

And well, I have to tell you it didn’t stop there. Discussing beauty later we chatted about inside beauty and outside beauty, feelings of inferiority through perceptual experience of attractiveness ~ I showed them this film and then asked them if they could give examples of inside beauty. A boy put up his hand and said “Have you seen the film Forest Gump? Well, he really wasn’t that good looking of a man but he was SOOOO kind and soooo gentle and funny and inside he was a very special attractive person. Everyone responded to him even the beautiful girl in the film.”

And then it really hit me ~ children KNOW ~ children are born KNOWING and who am I to believe I am teaching what was seeded in their soul’s from the beginning? I am not here to teach ….just to remind…to keep the faith and and hope alive in our world that it is true and beautiful and worth trusting and illuminating in self expression. Children always have their arms wide open….they remind me how easy it is to connect with one another and how far we are capable of reaching out to each other.

I am so so so SO grateful for every moment I get to share with these kids!

sweetness… and love…

See that most wonderful vintage mokka pot on the little pile of magazines? I found it this week at the thrift shop with Duke and Darlene and am quite pleased to report it makes the most astonishingly delicious expresso. (a big shout out of thanks to Duke for teaching me how to perculate to perfection) I am madly in love with it, and also the adorable vintage granny crochet pillow you see in the background which we also found at the thrift shop along with a delightful record happily entitled “Merengues and Mambo’s.” (which I am listening to right now as a matter of fact)

This morning I made oatmeal and a green smoothie (Darlene has been making them for us all week and now I am hooked) and am working on my lesson plan for my grade seven’s photography class this week. It is a quiet springbursting day in February and I just adore this photo Darlene took of me, this lovely set from ‘the four’ and this seaside shot I took with my polaroid camera ~ my greatest fear in life is to run out of polaroid film so if anyone has any stored away they would like me to take off their hands please do let me know:)

Happy monday!

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, a topaz
or an arrow of carnations that spread fire:
I love you like certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

~ pablo neruda ~

This morning there was the gift of capturing so beautifully (yes, I think my photo is so so so beautiful) the intimate and moving love between Darlene and Duke which shares pleasure merely by being in their encompassing and generous company. Followed by a drive to Main street for a curried breakfast of samosas, chickpeas, mint chutney and chai at Nakodhar Sweets, shopping for an exquisite silk turquoise kurta for Duke and fabulous salwar kameez and dupatta for Darlene and I. (which we are certainly wearing at a little gathering I have planned for tomorrow evening in my home)

There is no answer as usual to explain the mystery of a comfortable friendship, but this week has been pebbled with warm fires, fully belly’s and rainy evening strolls on the beach. (not to mentions exuberant outings to thrift shops with audible cries of ‘SCORE!!” ringing out when we discovered our various treasures)

My cup runneth over yet again this week as I almost burst into tears with pure joy with my luminous grade seven’s as they filled me to overflowing with their gracious admiration of one another’s brilliant and pure way of expression in photography. They have re~ignited my love of photography and their boundless enthusiasm for one another reminds me to be generous to soulful glimpses we encounter when invited to witness creative gust of our peers.

I am happy. I feel hopeful, and beautifully alive. Love actually is …all around.

Oh! and this interview in conversations….is a beauty. I promise. Go see…

I will be back …Darlene and I are making films, having a seaside exhibit and generally up to grande enthusiasms.

‘clouds’ polaroid photo shot with my sx70 camera and artistic TZ film stock

unphotographable ~ the responses that moved me to my very innermost being when I asked my grade seven students in the photography class I am teaching (open to exposure) “where do you feel most like yourself?’ which is their assignment to photograph this week ~ I cannot WAIT to see the photo’s they shoot

~ ‘actually the place I feel most like myself is a time of day ~ at night when it is dark and quiet and I can be alone with my thoughts peacefully’

~ In the mornings my Mom and I sit on the front deck and we can see the ocean. We always have tea together and it is just her and me and we watch the sun come up and one day it was really this perfect line of pink and that is when I most felt like myself

This week ~ was perfect in every way and I am so grateful for the honor of teaching these tremendous and artistic little souls ~ and somehow I can just tell already that is really me who is the student, and once again I am reminded that love is indeed all around.

Where do you feel most like yourself?

Have a gorgeous Sunday ~ and a heavenly helping of clouds

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm