“Between an optimist and pessimist, the difference is droll.
The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist the hole!”
~ Oscar Wilde
—
image credit: josh atlas
it is our last day today as a class.
and as we look back –

and look ahead –
we find
that a part of each of us
is still right here.
always has been.
and always will be.
—
Always jump in the puddles! Always skip alongside the flowers.
The only fights worth fighting are the pillow and food varieties.
Terri Guillemets
back in my catering days,
we hosted a party in a very small, yet charming victorian house.
it was for a women’s group,
a lovely luncheon that began with tray-passed appetizers.
as i made my rounds through the rooms,
squeezing past people engaged in little groups,
i offered up tray after tray of beautiful bite-sized food.
and one woman ignored me the entire time
and continued her conversation,
she wouldn’t even look at me or make eye contact at all.
and never took one thing from me.
until finally –
she reached down and popped one into her mouth.
and i was sure she did it just to appease me
and hoped i would go away.
but –
she had grabbed the flower on the tray instead of the appetizer.
and it was not an edible flower.
and she put it in her mouth and chewed it.
and got a strange look on her face.
and delicately deposited it into her napkin.
and went back to her conversation.
and i hurried to the kitchen to let the chef know.
who asked if it was the woman in the pink sweater.
and i said yes and wondered how she knew.
and that was when she told me
that the woman in the pink sweater was blind.
—-
The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.
Woody Allen
and so we went to find art.
and after we ran so far,
and climbed so many stairs,
we could see the sky.
and there we found
a beautiful stone lion waiting for us.
we must have climbed to the top of the world.
and we were in the clouds.
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ~Twyla Tharp
it was camping day.
we went outside
and hiked
and looked at lots of stuff
and touched it
and found all sorts of things.
we tried to catch a frog to see him up close.
and if we did we promised we would put him back in his home after.
and we got in the mud.
even those of us who usually don’t like to get dirty.
and we learned so much stuff.
—
Must we always teach our children with books? Let them look at the stars and the mountains above. Let them look at the waters and the trees and flowers on Earth. Then they will begin to think, and to think is the beginning of a real education. – David Polis
we learned about artist frida kahlo and how she created images of herself,
with things that had meaning to her placed all around.
here, h shares her collage with our class,
and it shows us
that she loves flowers, animals, sweets, and celebrations of all kinds.
no words are needed to tell her story.
—
http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org