How lucky I am to live in a place where I have to drive by this farm every day of my life, and many others like it. I love the symmetry of this farm, the neat row of buildings, barns and outhouses. The light is always gracious to this farm, and the field is ever-changing.
Felting by Robin Blakney Carlson.
Maria and I will both be participating in the 70 Main Street Mother’s Day Art Festival today in Greenwich, N.Y. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Maria will be helping set up and sell the art, and will also be selling potholders and streaming pieces. She’ll also be selling some of my ‘Fox and Hen” and other notecards.
Other artists are offering pottery, painting, jewelry, pincushions, felting. There will be food and entertainment. I think Lenore is coming to help with crowd greeting. I’ll be speaking at 2 p.m. on “Creativity and Photography.” This is not about the technical aspects of photography, about which I know little, but about the revolution sparked by digital photography and the ways in which photography has shaped and affected my life. 70 Main Street is a new health and culture center in Greenwich, and this seems a great place to celebrate Mother’s Day and get some unusual and inexpensive gifts. I’m excited about the talk.
If you love someone, you ought to think about writing them a poem every day, or finding one to read to them. People loved to be loved in this way, I think.
“Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.
He was a winter wind,
concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.
But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.”
– Robert Frost, The Window Flower
Random House has selected this photo of mine as the tentative cover for my first E-Book Original, “The Story Of Rose: A Man And His Dog,” scheduled for publication in mid-August. My life with dogs has been rich, deep and creative. My life with Rose was a very powerful experience for me, and so was writing this book. Every dog is unique, every experience an individual one, but my life with Rose was full of change, adventure and meaning. In many ways, she changed my life and saved my life.
It was a profoundly exhilarating experience to write this book, and I am also excited to explore the world of e-publishing, a part of the future for me. I expect to be doing paper and e-books for the rest of my career. This one will only be sold digitally – Ibooks, Amazon, Bn.com, Google Readers, and on Nooks, Ipads, Kindles and other tablets. It will include photographs and videos and is mostly all new material. My editor said it is an extraordinarily beautiful book, and she is not given to excessive compliment. I hope that is so, and I am very proud of it. The designer might change her mind, but at the moment, this is the cover. I like it. It captures this very proud and independent – and sometimes lonely – spirit.
This is where I am in life, listening to the whispers of pansies. I did not use to see them.
