February 1, 2025
We were covered in ice this morning.


I actually slept very well last night.  It's amazing what honest exhaustion can do for your sleep.   Woke up early to an unplowed world and a slow recovering sun; there was a lot of cloud coverage, but soon the sun sprang through and the ice glistened and my heart beat steady.  


 






Farley String Band played first.  They started the party off with good old string music.  These guys are good.  I don't know how long they've been playing together, but they have it down and they have fun.   The audience was dancing.  Great way to start off this special day.

Skyler took these three photos in which I am facilitating a group of 15 authors who are featured in our Anthology.   We went around the circle twice and read our poems from the book.  It was such a great soup of voices and important things to say.  I was really pleased and I think everyone else was, too.  If anyone is interested in purchasing the book, you can go to Human Error Publishing's website or you can go to Amazon.  Valley and Beyond: A Writers Read Anthology.  editor, Dr. Lindy Whiton.
All proceeds are donated to LAVA.
  




I did not get to participate in Winter Carnival events today.  I just heard the fireworks, but I was so exhausted by 4 I just went and blabbed with Jean and then came home.   I took a few photos on my way home.  

Also, tomorrow is our first Open Mic of the year and I don't believe I have anything to read.  Maybe I do.  I'll have to check tonight.  I don't think I've read anything new since October.  

The past two months have been a whirlwind.  Actually the last year has been nonstop.  And my life is beginning to blur at the edges.  Joanne Hayes was my first writing instructor at Marlboro in 1974.  Yesterday she turned 80.  80  She has a couple of poems in the Anthology and couldn't make it today to read hers.  So one of her students, from GCC, who is now a published author in her right, read one of Joanne's poems to honor her.  It just hit home that we are now the elders. 



I find it spooky.  I'm amazed by the on going nature of life, of growth, of passing tools on to the next group.  My students are now at an age where they are in charge.  My peers are the white haired group in the audience.  They are not my parents' peers, they are mine.  We are the elders.  





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