Coming Home

I guess I want to start with the idea of "coming home"...of chez michael as a place to come home to myself, through writing and photos and other postings, but also a place to invite friends and family. A place of self-expression, to try out ideas and writing and to hopefully get editorial feedback. I learn by doing so I am just jumping in, journal style and see what develops.

What's up for me now is the richness of friends and family. For the last year or two, I've been cleaning house in terms of getting rid of the old. As good friend Jennifer Austin said, to me last year " I see you taking everything out of a room in your heart and repainting it--the floors blue of course-- and carefully looking at each thing and deciding before you put it back in". As scary as it is to take everything out, some wonderful new things have come into my life.

Last week I set out on an adventure with longtime friends Carla and Eleanor to Big Sur for a few days of Easter retreat. It was a rainy, wonderful time of renewal and hope that we spent together. We sat by the fire in a little A Frame in the redwoods and read Kerouac and Robinson Jeffers and talked about Neal and Carolyn Cassady and Gary Snyder and the beat poets and generally enjoyed the beauty of art and nature and friendship. It was an time of great abundance leading up to Easter Sunday, this past weekend.

We had Easter dinner in my tiny dining room put together by my sister and me. I was still sick with a cold so Robbie did most of the hard work. She brought her new puppy, Buddha, and of course the girls were there. Mom and Dad drove down and Molly came with Nick. Rob and Molly brought great imaginative baskets full of presents for everyone.