First real snowfall of the season

There is a calming aspect to a snowfall and the day after, when the sun returns, a feeling of renewal.

Freedom

 "...where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Martin Luther King

Still Life In Winter

Pink Cloud

Fell in love with this pink cloud making its way across a wintry sky.

2015 Begins

January. We begin again and though in some ways it's a contrived beginning, I think the New Year reminds us that it's possible to make changes in an hour, in a minute, if we want that change badly enough. On New Year's eve, a few friends joined my husband and me for homemade spaghetti and meatballs and scrabble, accompanied by Dylan's Free Wheelin' and Newport Jazz Festival's 50-year birthday celebration CD (Sarah Vaughan, Coltrane's Favorite Things). Here's the center of this flower that is packed with beginnings. To me, it almost looks like a birthday cake with yellow candles ready to be lit up.

Catching Up To November

Apologies for the flagging number of picture posts lately. Here are a few select favorites from the past few months. For starters, there is this tree that is so reaching and strong. Trees are wonderful connectors to earth and sky. We stand beneath them and look up. They find balance and symmetry as they grow, adjusting their limbs to shifts and alterations in their environment.

September 

This was a neighbor to the tree above

A turning tree. Admiring these swirling roots at the Boston Public Garden. 

October -  was a super busy month. I moderated a panel on love and loss at the Boston Book Festival, hosting on behalf of the Women's National Book Association (WNBA). Here, I am pictured with Jaime Clark who is co-owner of Newtonville Books and author of the novel Vernon Downs. Also on the panel: wonderful novelists Celeste Ng and Leah Hager Cohen. 

 This fall also launched the Boston Literary District, a new initiative to celebrate the vibrant literary community that makes Boston and Greater Boston a unique place.

Reaching to include others as always: Eve Bridburg, founder and exec. director of Grub Street

October wraps up at Brookline Booksmith, where I moderated a panel on Writing Across Gender, also on behalf of the WNBA, featuring novelists: Hank Phillippi Ryan, Askold Melynczuk, and Julie Wu.

And then November arrived. The light changes. I am not quite ready.

And then, the beauty of fall takes over.

Finally, I am adjusting to colder weather, gloves, sweaters, hats. Here is a Chinese maple that is dancing.

Bees in August

Yesterday, I came across a cluster of sunflowers and found that each and every flower had a bumblebee visitor. Not two or three, but one each. It was as if an agreement had been made among all parties that this was the best way to share the goods--one on one, everyone getting a seat in the theater of pollen collecting. The bumblebees were so content or full or something, they barely moved, which made for easier picture-taking. Here's a few.