Small town girl?

We left the greater Washington, D.C. area two years ago (Sept. 06) and moved to the tiny town of Quincy, Florida. The biggest town nearby is Tallahassee, and it barely counts as a city. I think of myself as the same (don't we all?) but when I visited D.C. this week for a conference, I felt like a veritable Beverly Hillbilly. I had dinner with a friend of mine at a panAsian restaurant - I thought I was going to burst into tears over the availability of beef rendang (Indonesian) and chicken satay (Thai). Reading the Washington Post made me delirious. Riding the metro...well, I could go on & on. One thing I MUST mention is KramerBooks, in Dupont Circle. I have been shopping there for 20 years, and it never changes. It is a tiny, hole-in-the-wall kind of place where my faux-leather briefcase/bag inevitably bumps into someone's tattoos, and where my liberal heart feels ever so slightly conservative - in comparison, anyway.

They have a table there, just inside the door (for maximum traffic interruption?) and stacked on the table are, inevitably, books I have loved - and books that I will love. I almost always buy from that table. I will admit that I felt relieved after my 2-year absence to still have read about half the volumes on the table. Quincy might be tiny, but we do still get Amazon books by mail :)
On the plane I mentioned KramerBooks to a 50ish man, who told me with some pride that he had read his VERY FIRST fiction outside of high school while posted to Iraq. He told me that he keeps himself too busy to read.

To me, too busy to read is too busy to dream. To inhabit another world. I cannot imagine not reading.

The oddest thing about the trip was that I didn't bring a camera. I am relentless about my camera, but of course I didn't feel like I was "visiting" anything "new." Leave it to Washington to bring out all the cherry blossoms, and the tulips, and the beautiful coming of spring in Rock Creek Park to make my shutter finger itch. So I can't share any photos. But - I have changed, and not just my clothing. Maybe it's because I quit my "day job" and so am less stressed. But I was calmer, letting the craziness that is DC (traffic, noise, lines, horns honking, Pope-related road closings...) wash over me. I love the energy there (and the blossoms). I love the fact that in Dupont, people with teeny-tiny yards - no bigger than a regular-sized mattress - plant oodles of tulips. I love the fact that I can shop for shoes after 9:00 at night.

But I love being home. My head is full of glass ideas (as is my notebook). Back to the studio~!

Today: first show in Tallahassee

Heck, first show in ... 2 years? 3? The great irony when we moved here in 2006 was that I finally had the studio of my dreams - and no time to use it. I am so happy that's not true any more!

Here are some pix of the work in the show.

Florida's Mangroves

I've been thinking about mangroves. I grew up on Tampa Bay, and we had mangroves growing right around our dock. They are amazing trees - apparently they're also called "walking" trees because of the way they grow - their roots extend and then basically a new "trunk" grows. The ones I know are only about as big around as my forearm, but that's still pretty impressive. I think my next piece will incorporate my friends the mangroves. (see pic)