August 26, 2008 – I’m learning a lot, besides the fact that when you lie down in the hot sun to take photos of flowers, you get hot, bitten by bugs, and get sore. I’m learning other things, a miracle.
  I have learned that there are always long lines of people eager to tell you what you can and can’t do, and should and shouldn’t do, at any age or stage of life. Be careful about listening to them. They don’t know as much as you do, you only think they do.
  I’m learning about what an artist is, and what the role of an art is, for me. To see every moment as a moment of creation. To look at everything for the first time, and to understand that I have never seen it before, and will never see it again. To see the world anew, each time.
  It is not, in fact, about where you look but what  you see. I’m learning to be  honest about what I see at the moment, and if I mess up, or see it wrong, I learn from it, move on, go out and look again, and tell the truth of that moment again. And again, and as many times as I need, in whatever mix of light and color and emotion works for me, and is in my own private and personal soul.
  There is art in hospice, in leaves, in dogs and dandelions. It’s what you see and are open to.
  I’m learning I don’t need expensive cameras or jazzy easels to do that. Well, maybe some lenses.
  I’m learning to tell story all the time, until it drives people crazy, and until somebody listens, and this can be done in many forms  – work, purpose, family, poetry, photos, writing or art.
  I think it works for me. I am not so foolish as to think I have the answers for anybody else, or the wisdom, but I am always surprised – and am getting to see – that people draw encouragement from what they see, not what they hear. So I’m sharing what I can.