gifts from the land of blog

'many people will walk in and out of your life,

but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.'

- eleanor roosevelt

it has taken me all week to share the experience of monday... perhaps because it has been so very much for me to process... 

after dropping the kids off at school, i went to the station and boarded a train headed to the city... 

i was off to meet two people i had connected with in the land of blog - people i admire both personally and professionally... 

barry smith and fiona dempster... 

we found each other and then headed off to the rubin museum where we saw beautiful & meaningful work... 

a yellow tara

lotus blossoms

phoenix and dragons

we learned how to decipher complex paintings - their organization, iconography, composition and structure... thank goodness for the efforts made on the part of the rubin with that - i felt my eyes glazing over a bit... 

we learned where shrek came from -

we found funny signs -

we 'were'... 

what barry and fiona probably don't know is what it meant for me... this was my first venture out into the world after quite some time... 

i was almost dumbstruck by the ease with which our time together felt... surely, blogging provides an initial filter... one knows the others interests, thoughts, work (according to what is shared, of course)... but to meet two people from halfway around the world felt completely natural... 

i am doing an incredibly poor job of describing this - 

i know that... 

i want to thank them for inviting me to meet them... 

for making me feel so comfortable that i was joking with them... 

for feeling safe enough to share my opinions and thoughts without fear... 

for finding out what being free, relaxed and enjoying yourself is like again... 

for welcoming me into their world... 

those footprints will never be erased... 

i am most grateful... 

bittersweet

"may god give you...

for every storm a rainbow,

for every tear a smile, 

for every care a promise

and a blessing in each trial.

for every problem life sends,

a faithful friend to share

for every sigh a sweet song 

and an answer for each prayer."

~ irish blessing

i do not watch the news on television & only sometimes glance at my google news page - it all affects me way too deeply... the place that i seem to experience the news is in the blogosphere... because here events are attached to people... and they share their feelings... 

i think this week is a perfect example of the bittersweet of life... leann weih having her son at ft. hood and suffering a mother's worry... and cynthia thornton bringing home her sweet baby max and experiencing the throes of joy that accompanies a  newborn's arrival... 

why do we blog? to connect, of course... most of us though, do not completely wear our hearts on our sleeves... things trickle through... 

i think that one of the gifts of blogging is having an opportunity to connect with those we never would have met... and it is clear as one navigates around the 'blogs i follow' that deeper friendships have evolved... how lucky are we? in this chaotic world with so much pain and joy, to find people on the same wavelength... perhaps providing support or bolstering the spirits of those feeling a bit lost... perhaps providing new insights... or giving us moments of much needed laugh out loud tear spilling... (i think we know who this person is, and i have told her that she needs to look into writing a column)... seeing the world from a different point of view - particularly in photos of the natural world and families... for it does not only take a village to raise a child, it takes a village to navigate through life...

i love the insights that artists provide and how they share their creative process... the groups that get together to collaborate... knowing that you can share a 'look what i did' moment with people who get what it is you did...

my everything has been so expanded by this opportunity... and i am so grateful...