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Carved in Stone?
“We are unaware of how much of the past is alive in us even when we believe ourselves to be entirely spontaneous.” Anna Mahler I am looking at a photograph of the sculptor, Anna Mahler. She is a small woman, standing on a scaffold in front of a huge block of stone three times her […]
Putting on the Fiction Dress
Seeing someone wear a fiction dress, I thought how beautiful, glamorous and very sexy. Of course I wanted to have a dress like that! I had all the material at hand, bolts of material in fact, from dense brocades and velvets to transparent silk chiffon. Like some unpaid, third-world garment worker, I became the Mistress […]
Leaving Ragdale
PARTING Some like to opine, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” I don’t agree or disagree. Shakespeare said “(more wisely,) “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women have their exits and entrances.” One thing is for certain, the curtain eventually comes down. Today, the cast of characters take their final bow. […]
Ragdale Residency: Week Three
WALKING IN THE PRAIRIE After hours of focused work, walking the linked pathways in the back prairie meadow behind Ragdale gives the senses a refreshing freedom from words. Here, as Virginia Woolf once said, “…there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” A snarl of […]
Ragdale Residency: Week Two
The Burn In each moment the fire rages, it will burn away a hundred veils. And carry you a thousand steps toward your goal. –––– Rumi While walking toward the Barnhouse one morning last week, a strong whiff of smoke puts me on high alert. A staff member walks briskly toward the back prairie where […]
The Writing Life
A RAGDALE RESIDENCY When I opened an email in mid-December, I felt like people probably do when they learn they’ve just won the lottery, utter shock. “Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Ragdale’s Residency Program for the Winter/Spring Session of 2014.” My euphoria was soon followed by a […]