home is where one starts from

knowing God in movement

"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 22:16)

It is the act that teaches us the meaning of the act...Serving sacred goals may change mean motives...There is power in the deed that purifies desires. It is the act, life itself, that educates the will. The good motive may come into being while doing the good. (A.J. Heschel)

the holiday in pictures

thanksgiving

kid table

keith with the turkey

charles is tall these days

grandpa, scott, and heidi

greenbean workers

jeremy with the kids (carson, jack, and moriah)

benson and grandpa

charlie and carson

grandma and kristi

entertaining the kids

lots of blonde cousins

marley and arius

benson holding moriah, and jer holding drake

ben holding kiwi

kiwi. we made friends.

father and son

father and other son

benson with the gingerbread houses

and bay with the houses

kristi and craig

keith with miss moriah

bailey paige

baiely tells jeremy what's up

the night before, we had cheese fondu

mom and grandpa

the lovely grandparents

jer taking care of his girls

jer and michelle

my brother jeremy, his cool wife michelle, and their beautiful new moriah:

the road to kansas

i've spent a good portion of the last 3 days in a minivan on the road to kansas. we have a lot of family out there. it feels like childhood to spend so much time in a car with the family. growing up we were constantly taking road trips, all of us children packed into our big white van. back then we didn't have a minivan, we had a 12 passenger, and eventually a 15 passenger van. people stared at us. but now there are only the 3 little girls at home so my parents have worked their way down to a little minivan--with race stripes on the side.
i must say i've enjoyed being a passenger on this trip. in general i much prefer riding in a car to driving a car. people who know me might assume i don't like to drive, because i only got my license this year. i actually do enjoy driving, i just loathed the idea of taking that test, and for a good reason--i'm wretched with rules. after taking the driving test this past summer and making it to the end(the first time i failed when i made up a brand new way for doing a 3 point turn), the instructor turned to me and said:"you don't drive much do you?" i told her of course i did, and she said:"no, you don't." so i admitted that i didn't, and pretended to listen as she went through a long list of driving advice for me. then she gave me my licence which was not only a surprise but a miracle.
but this isn't why i prefer to be a passenger, it's just that i enjoy so much looking out the window at the landscape, changing the music, reading, having time to think. i do my best thinking while moving, whether going on a walk or sitting in a vehicle. i love that our house is 45 minutes from town, because i need the time during the drive in. i also love flying on planes, especially if i am traveling alone. spending time in the airport feels like stepping out of time and out of my life. for some reason it also feels safe an comforting to be a stranger in a mass of airport people. when i lived in massachusetts one of my favorite things about going to boston was riding the subway. i could spend the day riding it around.
so the drive from north carolina to kansas was a treat. i loved being crammed in the back with my little sisters and all our luggage. i am still entertained by the small luxuries of hotels. all in all, i love traveling.
in the car my sisters begged me to draw pictures of girls for them to color in with crayons. when i was little my sister michelle would draw girls for katie and i. once we fought over some fairies that she'd made until the papers were all crumpled and ripped and ruined. i secretly love drawing for the little girls. it gives me an excuse to draw cartoony storybook characters. marley asked for a future girl, carson for a mall girl, and bailey for a rockstar girl. before i finished they were requesting mermaids and girls dressed in ballgowns. i never get bored of drawing them, but i do start to draw poorly after a while. and i'm not talented in the slightest at designing cool outfits. mine are pretty cheesy and pathetic, but fine for children. it used to really annoy me when my sisters asked me to draw a girl, and then criticized my picture saying the hair was too short or frizzy, or the hands looked deformed. they now know not to complain about the girls i draw.
aside from drawing, i spent most of the trip absorbed in "the cider house rules". in the car you don't have to feel guilty for spending the entire day in a book. guilt over pleasure reading is one of the unfortunate things i picked up from college. i'm still getting over it. marley and i also started reading "the princess and curdie" aloud. we switched off reading every other chapter. i prefer her to read so i can draw.
we took a round-about-way to get to kansas. first we went to charlotte because my step-dad had a seminary class saturday. after he was finished we headed to chattanooga for the night, and then the next morning drove the rest of the way to kansas.
while keith was in class in charlotte we killed time in concord mall--the biggest mall in north carolina. it looks like an amusement park inside. i am less than fond of malls, but i tried my hardest not to appear incredibly pained by the experience. actually what made looking at children's clothing bearable was the prospect of coffee in a bookstore when we finished...that and watching the many amish women shopping(i didn't know they went to the mall). we finally finished and made it to the mall's bookstore, books-a-million, which i have to say is the worst bookstore to make it big time. they never have what i'm looking for, but still, they had books and coffee, so i went. i felt better once i was walking around with a large coffee and looking around. i stopped in the catholic section to help my mom find a book, and set my coffee on the top shelf. i always do this in bookstores, but i've never spilt my drink. somehow though, i knocked the coffee and the lid went flying. the entire contents poured down the shelf. and i mean it really poured and flooded four shelves of books. they were sitting in puddles. i panicked at the sight, thinking of what they'd do to me for drinking around their books, but then i remembered that the store had sold me the drink. so i asked my mom to go get help, and waited drenched in coffee with my 3 sisters buzzing around in circles. a little lady soon came with papertowels. her eyes widened when she saw my disaster. i thanked her and walked towards the front of the store where my mom was waiting. as i walked away i muttered something about my mom having spilt it loud for the lady to hear. then i thought about how stupid that was of me, blaming it on someone else.
later my mom and i were talking about the coffee mess and she admitted that she had told the lady at the help desk: " a girl over there spilt her coffee." i remembered back to my mom pointing at me and then walking the front of the store to wait for me to join her. i couldn't believe she called me "a girl". she denied me in a public place. i was glad i had blamed it on her. it was all so funny to me that i told everyone who called on the cell phone. and then i retold the story for amy and joseph when we got to their house late that night. i haven't told the kansas people yet. i like it because it really embarrasses my mom, and that is rare. she told me not to write about it but here i am unable to help myself.
so woke up in kansas this morning. last night my brother jeremy and his wife michelle waited up for us until 2am when we arrived. we are always late,late,late. it was the first time we've seen their new daughter moriah in person, and she's incredibly beautiful and tiny. we also met my grandparent's scarlet colored parrot named kiwi. she's from the solomon islands and supposedly she talks. she's been shy today around so many people.
and i found "the lovely bones" in my grandparent's bookshelf and started it this morning. i've been enjoying reading books based on recommendations. i stick with them longer than i do books i choose for myself...i think it's because i trust they will end up being worth my while. my attention span is so poor with reading that i don't like to waste time with books i won't like. now all i want to read are books about people. that sounds silly, but tend to overload myself with deep theological stuff that takes me years to read. now i want fiction or biographies. i want to either read about great characters or real people's experiences. so i'm thankful for good recommendations, mostly amy's suggestions. and now i'm off to talk to kiwi and find my book. the holidays are amazing in their wealth of guilt free time.

falling all the time

i have daily visions. they aren't spiritual or grand, and they're always of the same thing. i don't try to evoke them, they just flash through my mind as i'm walking down my stairs. i believe my visions are a gift from God--his little reminder for me to walk slowly. as i'm walking down the old staircase from my room to the kitchen, i without fail see an image of myself falling to the bottom and losing all my teeth in the process. it makes me walk very carefully.
i'm naturally far from graceful. today i walked into the the wall because i misjudged the space. tripping and slipping cease to embarrass me.
i've walked into two sliding glass doors in my life. that's quite a surprise.
my sisters used to hate lending me their clothing because it always returned with paint stains and rips. i couldn't figure out how not to ruin clothes.
when my mom remarried, i found 2 pairs of my new dad's old hiking boots in a box and thought they were terribly cool. i didn't care that they were twice the size of my feet, and wore them everywhere i went. i tripped over myself a lot in those boots. one time i tried to climb over a fence in his massive blue boots. my foot got stuck somewhere near the top. i'm sure i looked like goofy trying to figure out how to get myself off the fence.
when i was a young child i managed to fall every time i was in the presence of a particular family friend. he only visited a couple times a year, and so i guess i got too excited when i saw him. once i ran to his car and tripped on a tree root. another time i was getting into my seat next to him at a restaurant and missed the chair. he noticed my falling around him, and worse, he pointed it out. i started walking carefully when he was in the same room.
my freshmen year of college wins the prize for falling. i fell everywhere i went that first semester. my friend megan can attest for me, because to her own humiliation, she was present for most of my falls.
part of the problem was that our campus had large rocks lining many of the pathways, and i couldn't resist walking over them. i usually either wear clunky shoes or sandals, and neither worked well for climbing over those rocks.
one day the two of us were running to chapel and i tripped over my flip flops and landed nose to the pavement. i think megan was more shocked than i was.
i slipped on the stairs down to the mail room a little more than often, though luckily every time i was clutching the railing and so only had half-falls.
that year i also started riding a bike after many years of forgetting how to ride a bike. it took me a while to figure out how to stop and get off without looking like i was going to crash.
the worst of all the falls was on the stairs in my dorm, which was actually an old 3 story house. i was on the top floor. our stairs were steep and poorly carpeted. one evening while descending with a can of open ravioli in hand, i slipped on my sock and slid the rest of the way down on my butt. i stood up drenched in ravioli sauce, my glasses covered so i couldn't see out. huge nerd. everyone came out of their rooms to see what the noise was and gawk. that time i was a little humiliated.
after a semester of such serious bruising you can imagine how nervous i was about the slipping i was soon to experience in my first new england winter. i was so afraid of falling on the ice, by the time the first snow came, i had mastered careful walking. i didn't fall once...that year at least.
it was about the time when snow started falling that my visions began. on the way down all staircases, or even down the ramps in classes, my mind would go wild with images of falling and teeth flying. it was disturbing at first but, those visions kept me safe, and still do. i believe i might need some sort of similar reminder associated with driving.

i saw it in your eyes

"i'm looking for the tower of learning. i'm looking for the copious prize. i saw it in your eyes, what i'm looking for... i really do fear that i'm dying. i really do fear that i'm dead. i saw it in your eyes, what i'm looking for. i saw it in you eyes, what'll make me live."
these words belong to rufus wainwright. i rediscovered this song as i lay in bed the other night trying to sleep despite the coffee i'd just had. i had forgotten how beautiful it is. i sat up when it came on and looked out the window--dark hills, fog, and a dim street light breaking through our trees. the whole moment talked to me about my longing which has led me to finding and hoping. i don't know who's eyes rufus sang about, but the only eyes that make the song true for me are God's, and the people's which reflect his eyes. the following night i turned the song on again, pushed repeat, and fell asleep. the words sang through my dreams, and the next morning i woke up and went to the children's hospital for my second training as a volunteer.
i'm a little ashamed to say that i was hoping to say and make beautiful things from my experience working at the hospital. but even from the tiny ounce of time i've had there, i can only describe it as holy ground. in other words, i don't understand it. it's beyond me. it's more than me. my words don't matter.
i walk in, play with children, smile watching their tiny hands paint, and forget they have cancer...or their sibling has cancer. i see tired parents, and i don't understand. i could be overwhelmed and ashamed by the fact that i don't understand, but i'm not and i don't think i should be. i do however, feel small and unworthy, but thankful beyond expression.
my hebrew professor in college translated the last line of micah 6:8, "walk carefully with your God." most bibles say humbly. same thing, but carefully puts a clearer image in my mind. when i walk into the hospital, i want to walk knowing full well Who i walk powerfully with, but recognizing that i must walk carefully with him. i don't want to think that i can go in like a whirlwind of change and healing, and blast these people's lives. it's easy to want to fix things for them, to think that's the answer. but i can't and it's not.
so i played with a little boy who was bald and hooked up to tubes and things that beep, and i had no context for knowing what any of it meant. but playing made his glum face laugh and forget for a moment. we made play-dough snakes, and he painted, and threw red balls to me in the hallway. at one point he said he had to go to the bathroom, so his nurse came, and i didn't see him again.
in the afternoon i shadowed the girl who started this program. she can't be much older than me. she began providing art for kids with cancer after her younger sister was diagnosed. i watch her talk with kids and parents with full understanding of what they are going through. she is beautiful.
we went into a little girl's room because she couldn't come out to our table. she's ten, a year older than my sister marley. she's smart and lovely and quiet. she told us about her friends from school and girl scouts. i watched her long fingers very carefully glue tiny pieces of magazine to a candle holder. the image of her hands went home with me. i was told that she'd been in the hospital a week and they still didn't know what she had.
on the drive back i pictured her smart hands, and i cried because they don't go at all with the monstrous sickness in her body. this is all beyond me.
at home i walked in the door and my youngest sister bailey immediately asked me for lovey-love. i was busy so i said she'd have to wait...but then i stopped, thought for one second about my day, and those beautiful hands, and picked bailey up. i hugged her and doted on her and told her about the children in the hospital. her eyes widened and she said she wanted to come with me. marley and carson were listening, and they said they wanted to come too. then carson asked if the kids are so sick they have to take medicine. i said they were.
i don't know how to "be" for this place, and so my reaction is to take a step closer to God. waiting for my ride outside the hospital, i felt warm knowing He was standing beside me. i pictured Him in a big winter coat, and i slid a little closer and rested my head. it doesn't matter who i am, it matter's Who i'm standing with. i've found what i'm looking for.

i wanted to be her

these are characters that i wanted to be at one time or another. let's just pretend with the older movies, that i liked the characters from them when they came out--when i was younger.

joon first. for her art, quirks, peanut butter milkshakes, crazy outfits, and well--life

i liked the younger sister from the last of the mohicans. she jumped off the cliff in what i thought was a beautifully tragic scene. and i liked her hair tied up in knotted braids, so i started doing it with mine

ladyhawke

medicine man. they swung around the tops of the trees in the rain forest, and she was given a really cool tattoo across her face by an indian

crimped hair and an orange tail... i always wanted to be a mermaid

and i wanted to be in mermaids--winona ryder's character specifically

sorsha from willow. so, she started out as an evil character, but she came around and ended up good, not to mention that she got to hang out with mad mardigan

the girl from the spitfire grill. she was beautiful

my so called life

the girl in blade runner. she's was sad and perfectly beautiful, and not entirely real

the girl from butch cassidy and the sundance kid. running with the outlaws

whenever i see i movie with juliette binoche, i wish we were friends. i like her in chocolat: warm, colorful, makes people hungry

amelie. shy, strange, imaginative

lola. best for last. she's been first on my list since i saw this movie. it's everything about her, and something i can't quite figure out

would you rather...

when my nephews ezra and asa were last visiting i asked them if they'd rather eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches for every meal or chocolate cake. they both said cake. the next day as i was fixing lunch asa wanted to know where all the cake was. i tried to explain it was just a question--we were just imagining.
a couple of nights ago on a long family car drive, i overheard 6 year old bailey in the backseat telling carson how much she loved elvis and all his music. then she asked carson: "would you rather kiss elvis or die?" carson and marley both said they'd rather die.
i then asked all three of them if they would rather kiss elvis or the president. marley and carson chose the president. bailey was still stuck on elvis. they asked me to give them more questions. would you rather: be deaf or blind? suck your thumb until your 80 or smoke cigarettes all your life?(bailey is our only smoker) would you rather be caught picking your nose in public or eating out of a trash can? be a fish or a seagull?
the girls got really into it and started making up their own questions. bailey had some interesting ones: would you rather kick your own butt or slap your own hand? eat plastic or metal? eat 10 million hot dogs or 10 millions boogers? eat gas or fart gas? be eaten by a dinosaur or be eaten by a camel? hit mom or hit grandma?
by the end of the car ride our senarios had really digressed. they kept getting more stupid and disgusting. before we got out of the car my mom made the little girls promise to keep this a family game. they are never allowed to play with their friends.
today drying dishes in the kitchen, carson came up with a brilliant one. would you rather be deaf or blind and deaf? tough choice there.
i am particularly fond of scenarios. in college my friend beth teased me about a lion scenario that i constantly played out in my mind. wherever we went i would imagine my escape if a lion were to suddenly enter the scene. most of the time i found a way to escape, sometimes it was impossible, sometimes i was able to save a few other people, sometimes i sacrificed myself to save other people.
when we were teenagers beth typed up extensive questionnaires and passed them out to everyone she knew. i loved answering all her random questions, and even more, i loved reading everyone's answers after they turned them back into her. she kept them in a file.
from all my time spent living and working at a camp, having long distance friendships, and leading small groups--i've grown quite accustomed to probing people with ridiculous and occasionally deep questions. if you were a fruit what kind would you be? if you had to live inside a movie which would you choose?
i am equally fond of personality tests. i've taken too many myself, and as i'm getting to know people, i try to figure out their myers/briggs letters.
scenarios and personalities--i can't resist them, but i'm not very good at answering questions myself. i take them entirely too seriously. my sister michelle once asked me to choose a character from a movie that best fit my picture of my soul mate. i immediately thought of dead poets society, but no specific character from the movie worked. that question drove me nuts for weeks and months. i still keep a mental list of characters from movies who have qualities i like, but no one is right. and worse than that question was when she asked which fictional character i most identified with? i have yet to find one.
so in honor of ridiculous questions, here's a few for people who enjoy answering them:
1. would you rather sit on a porcupine or a burning log? (my dad came up with this one in the car)
2. would you rather kiss elvis or the president? (in honor of bailey)
3. would you rather travel back in time or forward into the future?
4. what one superpower would you most like to have?
5. what one talent would you like to have?
6. what made you smile today?
7. what color best describes your life right now?
8. what's your personality type?
9. what fictional character would you like to be?
and in honor of personality tests, here's a pretty good one:lord of the rings test

the perfect mother

a piece of autumn

fall colors seem to be gone almost as soon as they have arrived. i suppose it makes us appreciate and treasure them more. and i have to say, i am excited about winter for the way it empties the trees and fields. i like seeing through the forests. i like to walk through fields without the bulk of summer grasses, and the fear of stepping on spiders and snakes. i can go places in winter that aren't available to me any other time. things have thinned down enough for me to get to our creek now. lovely.
the leaves here have already dimmed since i took these pictures. i took my sisters on a walk, and our cat tarzan tagged along. he acts more and more like a dog each day. but on walks he tends to lag behind and cry like a baby. his little meow really sounds pathetically like a baby, and so of course i can't resist backtracking and saving him from whatever grass or log that has prevented him from keeping up.

opening the door to our hills

today a very important meeting was held in our little cabin on the hill, and the only two people present were my mother and i. we sat together at the end of the long dining room table in our pajamas with coffee mugs in hand, immersed in papers and books and a flurry of ideas. today we began plans for the first retreat to be held on this lovely property we call home. we've both developed a passion for knowing God through solitude, and have been eager to share this new love by offering these hills and woods and benches to others.

neither of us are trained in leading retreats, but our experiences in stillness keep urging us to bring other people into this quiet place of discovery.
my mother could be called the founder of this future retreat center. after all, it is her and my step dad's land that we are offering, and she is much more the expert than me on these things. over the last six years she has adjusted to the quiet of country life, and more than just adjusted, she has learned to embrace the luxury of time by spending long hours pouring over the Bible. she has developed a love for books by the mystics, and saints, and other desert wanderers.

she did not choose this way of life or even this land--it is more that God has chosen it for her. she is very much so a people-person, and quite good at being busy all the time. it was difficult for her at first to sit in silence.
on the other hand, i am naturally more quiet and reflective. i would say that i have always needed time alone. i thought it would be easy for me, but it has been far from that. i came home almost a year ago craving a bit of solitude, but i didn't intend for it to become a way of life. a glimpse at true solitude has shaken my little world and changed me in ways i wasn't anticipating.

we are both daily learning the beauty of barrenness before God, as well as the difficulty of it. solitude will always be the hard sort of goodness. it is a struggle to sit with God, and neither of us are particularly good at it, but we do love what we have tasted of this mysterious way of being.

so today we sat together and shared our experiences, our scriptures, and the books that have been food to us in our separate solitudes.
it feels good and right to put this retreat together. the door to these hills has been longing to be opened.
there are plans in the near future for cabins and trails and many more benches to be built, but for now our warm little house and fields will have to serve as the start to welcoming people into this quiet. at the moment we are busy compiling writings into a booklet that will serve as a resource and guide for this first little retreat. we are excited. we need prayers for guidance.

it has been in this place that i've lost myself for the remaking. i have learned to breath deeply and look around me. there is space here to think, and space to forget things to God. i think this bit of earth is blessed.

sunday lesson

i feel quite triumphant when i've learned a new lesson from God--i get excited to think i am maturing to any small degree. however, almost as soon as i've swallowed a lesson, i find myself begging for circumstances that won't require me to live it. and He is trying to teach me how to live now, rather than just giving me a lesson to add to my list and soon forget.

energy all mighty

i woke up early-ish this morning and started my day with a balanced
breakfast of eggs and chocolate. i had great big plans of being the
most productive painter ever...but i couldn't seem to get in the
groove of things. my friend beth made me a mixed tape a long time ago
called: how kelly got her groove back. i believe i'm needing it at the
moment. with art, i continually fluctuate between times of intensely
concentrated creating, and times when i can't focus long enough to
draw a good stick figure. today ten cups of coffee made no difference.
i need something bigger than coffee.
at least when i am able to work productively, i work fast, so it kind
of makes up for all my days of the painting-blahs. halfway through my
last semester of college when i hadn't yet started the paintings for
my final thesis project, my professors sort of panicked for me. but i
wasn't worried. i had been taking my time trying to discover my theme
for those paintings. when i finally got it, i painted for 2 months
straight and managed to finish just fine.
i have some paintings i need/want to finish before christmas, so i'm
counting on that burst of painting energy to help me work. so maybe if
you talk to God, you could mention me and my painting lull to him.
speaking of God and needing a boost, i've been thinking about him in
terms of energy lately. last week i read the story in luke 8 about the
woman who'd been bleeding incurably for 12 years. one day Jesus was
smashed between lots of people in a crowd, and this woman managed
to get close enough to him to touch his robe. she was healed instantly
and he knew it because he felt the power go out of him. i looked that
word for "power" up in a greek dictionary and one definition it gave
was: "God's Almighty Energy."
i love that all this woman had to do to be healed was get close enough
to Jesus' powerful presence. i'm beginning to think of healing in terms
of who i am--who i'm made up of. it is edging and pushing towards
Jesus. in the past i only asked for healing in terms of God making me
whole. i wasn't interested in having anything to do with the physical
healing of other people because it frightened me, and i didn't think i
possessed enough faith for those kind of miracles. however, i'm thinking
it's more about God possessing me. it's about me becoming like him, him
being more of a powerful presence in my life, because his presence heals
disease at the tiny touch of a finger.
so with the grand things as well as the small painting things of life,
i'm in need of energy.

granite beach

it looks like we went to the beach, but actually there is just a huge pile of granite dust in our backyard. did you know the largest open faced granite quarry is neighbors to us? i took stone carving in college and thought i would come home and make a million things out of the vast supplies of granite in the area...but granite is a hard rock unlike alabaster and limestone. and i've been told the dust is dangerous to breath in. let's hope it's okay to bury yourself in it.

reunion photos

here are pictures from way back a couple weeks ago,
a family reunion inspired by so many babies being born all at once

the house is chaos

lica with marlow

the mother of us all--taking her morning time

and the father of us all

katie and amy

my dear nephew asa enjoying his morning chai

mason at his best

amy and asa beautiful in sleep

i like this picture because i like amy and she likes horses

grandma with marlow and mason

cheeks galore

amy had joseph put up a post so we could string christmas lights for dinner

that night marley chilled under the lights with our cat tarzan

ezra is a wonderful older brother

ezra and asa watched many films in their theater under the dining room table

again

grandma and kt

reading buddies

i couldn't resist the pouch

marlow up close

lica and mason

grandma and kate with mason and marlow

james and michelle

lounging in the sun

and shade


ezra was upset that the house was too loud for him to sleep-in

so we took pictures of ourselves

grant had an unfortunate sleeping couch--the sun hit him perfectly in the mornings

mason in grant's sun

grant with mason

michelle serves pancakes

grant playing dinosaurs

i wanted to play dinosaurs

the kids found a toad

they pulled each other through the grass in a sled

michelle with mason

michelle and katie and amy

the older girls ditch the kids and go into town for an afternoon

michelle often complains about our mom's driving

in the mall...i don't remember what compelled us to have this taken

everyone took pictures all the time

me and marlow

katie and marlow

both marlows in a pillow nest

a pile of children

arts for life

recently i've felt this desire to be in a hospital, do something there, love the people somehow. i don't really know where it came from.
my grandpa had knee surgery this past may, and i stayed some long hours in the hospital with my grandma and relatives while he was there. i liked walking up and down the halls while i was waiting. there was something about just being there--it made me ache and long to touch the people somehow.
i thought about my skills and none of them could get me a job in a hospital unless i wanted to work in the laundry department. so no real jobs for me, but there are millions of volunteer opportunities. which is actually good because i need the majority of my time to stay open to work on my art.
so i discovered a beautiful volunteer program called arts for life. it fits me wonderfully.
they set up tables with art projects outside the waiting room on the oncology floor in the children's hospital. it gives the kids and parents and siblings something beautiful to put their energy into while they wait. and it takes their minds and stomachs off the stress of the visit.
i spent three hours with them today, and i left smiling and teary eyed at the beauty of it all. a good portion of my time there i played with a little boy who was bringing his play-dough creatures to life. we made the fish, birds, dinosaur, and other animals talk and eat birthday cake together and ride around on skate boards. he told me i could play with the dough bird, and that she would be the mom to all the other animals. so i had to save them when they fell off the table and reprimand them for being bad. he liked it. i usually don't have patience for pretending, but i was honored to be invited into his little world. he didn't want to leave our table when it was time to go with his mom.
so i've been blessed greatly today. and i'm more than a little thankful. and i'm glad that i'm invited back to play and paint and smile with other people.