The Genuine Article

on friday night i discovered the website of someone who played a very important role in my life. he was great mentor and incredible friend. i called his daughter and thanked her for creating www.narducciart.com in his honor and promised to get together and share stories with her when i come back from italy. so odd to find this site just now, just before leaving for italy. his daughter told me that tony was born and still has relatives in a town about an hour away from where the workshop is being held. thanks for the nudge tony.

Will Concur You To Recover

This is another picture of the monastery and an interesting description I found online. (-: "To an hour approximately from Rome, we will be opsiti near the Eremo di Sant Antonio, a former convent that, erected in 1538, was between first of the reform of the Cappuccini. Dipped in a magnificent natural and rich context of spiritualità, the eremo it offers also great genuinità, with cultivations and breedings second the tradition. The kitchen is biological and in great part supplied from the gardens of the same one.The secular forest of oaks and chestnut trees will concur you to recover the hards work of the job and stress.The rooms are obtained from ancient monacali cells with the just harmony between refined sobrietà and comfort."

The Radiant Thread

This is a photo of Eremo di Sant' Antonio, a monastery located just outside Viterbo ( a medieval town north of Rome ). This is where I will be in August, working with the Spiritree artists. "The Radiant Thread" workshop will use theatre techniques in the spirit of nurturing the individual and group process: the five Tibetan rites for the preparation of the body, mind, spirit; ancient circle dances; personal encounters with the power of gesture and movement; theatre games and improvisation and the transformation of cardboard, papier mâché, paint and fabric into fantastic sculptural creatures.

Returning from Jupiter

Newly back from Jupiter, long sigh. I can still feel the sand in my shoes and and it really makes me miss the beach. We had so much fun visiting all our favorite places. The funky Food Shack where o ordered the wildest thing he's ever eaten, a barbecue chicken and fried banana sandwich with brie. R went shopping on this trip and bought very expensive sunglasses. It will be very interesting to see how long these will last. So far they've been rescued from the moving car hood, the airline pouch thing and nana's kitchen. I was thinking we should skip the trip to Florida this year but when the boys heard that, they really insisted we go. Sometimes they remind me of the turtles that return to the exact same beach each year for nesting.

East meets West

Haven't posted in awhile because I've been so busy. We attended an unusually colorful wedding. C's neice Charissa married a gentleman from Pakistan and they honored both cultures separately. The wedding ceremony was a very traditional American service with a brief reception following immediately afterward in the church hall. After that we all went to a traditional Pakistani wedding reception and the entire wedding party changed clothes ( the photo at right shows traditional Pakistani wedding clothes - i found this photo online...it's not the bride and groom ) and it was a very lavish and colorful event, beautiful colors, intriguing music, hot, spicy food...pageantry.

Fattitude

Found this photo while cleaning up files at work. It's from Christmas in 2004 and I remember thinking at the time "I AM SO FAT" and feeling rather hopeless about it. Now, well over a year later, going to weight watchers and slowly creeping back down to the weight in this picture ( and hopefully below it ) I am thinking fatness is ALWAYS relative and that you have to stay positive about where you are and where you are going.

Theme Song

Driving to work in the morning I have been playing the same song every day. I bought the song on itunes, it's from the movie"The Life Aquatic" and it's called "Let Me Tell You About My Boat". When I listen to it I am thinking about the day and driving down our little road (pictured in the painting) then watching morning spread itself out in town, the lawyers rushing into the courthouse, the line at the coffeeshop, the parade of cars around the green, the florist dragging the plants outside to be watered.

My Desktop

This is the image on my desktop at work.
This painted face reminds me to slow
down, close my eyes and be silent.

The Ampersand Proposal

The Ampersand proposal has such a nice ring to it. Hard to tell if it's a wedding proposal or a covert operation. Today was the first day at work with our new executive director C. She just returned from a week in the mountains of Colorado with Buddhist monks. She's quite different from Carolyn ( our previous director ) and today she seemed intent upon getting "the credenza" out of the office. I think, if I were her, I'd have made that a priority too. At lunch time today we talked about sacred geometry and eating lobster in cape cod.

cloudpapers

this is the first post. today is the 5th of july. we spent the holiday on the lake in saranac and kevin proposed to whitney on top of ampersand mountain. morgan played debussy in the great room and then demolished r and o in monopoly. they formed an alliance the next morning and won the next game.