Sylvie is becoming one of my favorite portrait subjects at the Mansion, she is happy to be photographed, and I am happy to photograph her. Sylvie is continuously walking the halls of the Mansion, pushing a cart with her letters and articles. Today, she was answering a letter from a blog reader in Texas, she read the letter aloud to me and was excited to get. She was going to answer the letter today.

Sylvie has a beautiful story for our story-telling exercise and show on June 30 At the Mansion. The daughter of diplomats, she moved across a dangerous world as World War II approach and lived on several different continents. She found love and lost it to her mental illness, and she spent many years in institutions and what she calls sanitoriums. A hard and meaningful life.  it is pleasure to read and consider this dramatic story.

When I see her, Sylvia always shows me photographs of her family, her sisters and her cousins. She wants  her story published in this book so that her family will get to read her story. Jean has written a bitingly funny story about ironing, Jane wrote about spotting a giant turtle when she was a child, and her struggle to keep it.

Ben writes about his father, a pilot, and  his own flying.

This weekend, I have seven Mansion stories to read and edit. Excerpts will be read from all of them at the Mansion, and I plan to publish the stories – “Stories From The Mansion” – in e and paperback form, they will all be on sale, the proceeds will go to the Mansion. We may arrange for a reading at the Battenkill Book Store, if Connie approves.

It is such a great pleasure to be working the Mansion residents – we have held two writing workshop and a third will be this coming Friday. I am loving this kind of teaching, it is so different, but the residents are eager to learn. Their stories are very important to them, they are their identity, submerged in some ways by the aging process and life in a facility for the elderly.

The stories focus on memory and loss, and some surprising humor, and they are touching to see and edit.

Sylvie had several strokes last year, she is a strong and interesting person, I am happy to get to know her.