Here are the photos I contributed to yesterday's merriment in arts. This one represents fire. It is a shot of a theater in Charleston, SC. This is the water at one of my favorite local beaches: Barefoot Beach. This is the trunk of a palm tree at the Naples Botanical Gardens. This is the misty air rolling through the Andes at Machu Picchu in Peru.

If you saw the stacks of week old dirty dishes with fish residue sitting in the sink or the menagerie of student papers to be graded, fast food bags, and clothes I stripped off as I walked in the door last week, you might want to join my grandmother's club and ask me what I was thinking yesterday. Yeah...I'm behind. So what? Yesterday, my dear friend Katelyn hosted her second bi-annual Collaborative Arts Experiment to raise money for our local Arts in Healthcare program. I participated in March and had so much fun that I just HAD TO do it again. Even if it coincided with the start of a new graduate class and interim grades. It also interfered with football, but who's counting? This time I was a little out of my element because I did not write or perform. My creation was finished before the show began. Our theme was interconnectivity and through a lot of discussion, we landed on the idea of creating a web with interconnected items attached to it. Along the way, we added a p...

For the last month or so I've been going through a transformation that has resulted in a few changes in my life. For one thing, I've made it a point to go to the beach once a week to just sit alone for an hour. I've also started journaling--old-school style--again and have filled numerous pages with thoughts both random and not so random. The whole point of this is to get in touch with the core of my being so I can make the best possible decisions for my life. I'll be honest with you. Being still is still a challenge. I'm not always comfortable with the thoughts that rumble through my head because they scare me and make me want to judge them. I don't always like that feeling I get when I stumble across a truth for my life that requires a change because I really don't like change. However, I'm getting better at it, and in the process I've discovered some really interesting things. The most obvious is that I NEED that still time more than anything else...

I always carry one of my Moleskin writing books with me wherever I go. Since I have several, I tend to just grab whichever is nearest to me. This morning I took the black book I carried with me to Peru. The poems scribbled there made me cry, and I thought I'd share a few of them here. Happy Anniversary Ten years ago today I said, "I do." Two words. A promise that only young fools think they can keep for a lifetime. And it rained... so hard that my hair curled and my mascara slid beneath my eyes-- black tracks. And we laughed in front of your father's camera that we filled with memories in black and white. And we didn't know what waited for us behind the veil of years. The secrets hiding in hotel rooms. The animosity lurking in our hidden losses. And how we've changed. I woke this morning in another world and sat by the other ocean. Alone. Strong. Independent. I found my voice in Spanish. And if I could go back Ten years I'd do it again--the same, because i...

Well, now. The school year has been back in full swing for two weeks now, and we've all survived to enjoy our first long weekend. Everyone keeps asking about how it feels to be back at work and wonders about the behavior of my students. I switched to a different department this year, and so far I am happy with it. I'll spare the details because they aren't interesting at all to anyone who doesn't teach (and only minutely interesting to my fellow educators). If you know me, you know that teaching in the public school system was never in my plan for my life. However, there's no doubt in my mind that I was destined to do this for whatever limited time I give to it. I taught seventh grade for four years, and I it was an extremely healing experience for me. Many things that happened and conversations that occurred helped me soothe the wounds that I incurred during my own seventh grade year. Wounds that followed me well into adult hood. I've always said that I needed ...