I've Just Seen a Place

Tea: Vanilla Lapsang.

Music: SixMileBridge, "Cunningham's Waltz"

Time: Night.

Went to an opening tonight (because it's Friday) at the Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University. Got to meet the artist, Clay Deutsch, who was kind enough to discuss his work with me.

On the way out, I noticed something I'd missed on the way in (probably because it took me forever to find the gallery, and I was preoccupied by the search): There's a lovely, almost cloistered space outside the building that houses the Greenlease.

Circular walk, tree in the middle, bench under the tree: It would be a perfect place to sit and read, sit and write, sit and just be.

There's a story, in a book sent to me by a dear friend, about a young man who was fond of going to the woods each day. His father asked why, and he said there was a place in the midst of the trees where he would go to talk to God. The father said, "But God is the same everywhere."

To which the son replied, "Yes, but I am not the same everywhere."

There's not a lot I could add to that, beyond a wish for everyone to have at least one space (I am blessed with several) in which you feel that connection between your innermost self and something -- or some One -- immeasurably great.

Tonight's stories, since I promised you two: Charles Dickens, "The Haunted House" and (Why didn't I think of this one before?) Maxwell Struthers Burt, "A Cup of Tea"