A Yellow Table, from Queen Brown

There are not enough hours in the day...at least that's how I feel today. A conversation at work about the need to try to scale back on multi-tasking. Focusing is so indescribably delicious, when one is given the chance.

So I need to keep things simple today. I found a beautiful drawing made years ago by a woman named Queen Brown, a daytime resident of the Willows Care Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I had the privilege of teaching an art class for elderly participants. This was sponsored by COMPAS, an extraordinary organization that has offered meaningful community arts opportunities to countless people over the years.

Queen would focus intently, talking only once in awhile. She had a regal bearing, just like her name, and took a great deal of pride in her images. They came out of her, from her long thin graceful gnarled hands, one patient and deliberate gesture at a time. This yellow table, with its embellished hem, never fails to fill me with a kind of calm satisfaction. Trying to remember to channel Queen.

Walking in Wood Lake Nature Center

My mom, Joyce Kennedy, took this photo of some of the herons – or are they egrets? – at Wood Lake Nature Center, in Richfield, Minnesota, where I was able to take a few walks last week-end. It's such a beautiful resource, lovingly maintained, contributing quietly and peacefully to the quality of life in the Twin Cities. It's wonderful to walk across the water bridge, surrounded by cattails and other tall native grasses. In the early morning there are many birds flitting between marshland and forest, and inside the shelter is a large wall with data from bird sightings over the past 30 years. That includes some of the time when our friend Ann Sigford was a naturalist there. Ann and I developed some art and nature classes for children years ago, through the COMPAS program in St. Paul, before she moved on to northern Minnesota, and then Sweden. I was recalling those experiences while walking again through Wood Lake, watching the tiny tree toads leap across the footpaths. I'm so grateful that this place still exists.