On Turning 66

Now turning One that is really a Birthday to Celebrate ...My sister and her granddaughter

Here is my birthday blog. Today I take a few moments to reflect on the 66 years that I have been around. It is before dawn, warm and humid and I am here in my studio. Most years I am traveling out west for my birthday.  This has  been a wonderful year and an interesting life so far even with all its bumps in the road, dashed dreams and lost loves. Would I change any of it? Of course I would if I could do it all over.  But for the most part I wouldn’t change much. There is always that one fork in the road that you wonder if you took the other path what your life might have turned out like. Robert Frost wrote a poem about that,  two roads diverged in a yellow woods and one was grassy and wanted wear…  I loved this poem since I first read it in the 7^th grade. I wrote a report on Robert Frost and illustrated this poem. I can still remember doing that drawing of the yellow woods using pastels that let me blend the colors.  Fifty five years have past and I can remember the feeling of the pastels in my fingers and can see my fingers as they made marks on the paper.  So, I guess I would have to say there is a moment in my life that I would not change or many, many more like it. These simple moments that somehow become memorial. Like the casual conversation with a friend and years later you still remember it or the walk in a park with family when somehow the sun seems extra bright and the landscape is just breath taking.  Then there is the memory of the best moments at work when you see a student light up because they “got it”…that ”aha” moment or when I “got it” because of a teacher, or an exhibit or a friend. I think what I have really gained over the years is how precious community is and what a joy it is to be part of one. For years I was very, very shy…I never spoke in school and we moved so much that I never felt connected to a place, home, school or ever felt like I belonged to a  community. Over the years I worked at letting go of my shyness to become  more out going and truly came to value the many communities that I am a part of…even that silly one called Facebook. So, here is what I have to say about turning 66…life is pretty awesome and whatever the road we choose it is wonderful to share it.