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August 2021

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. - Maya Angelou

I started writing a newsletter about this rainbow back in April, only to get stymied. (What’s the use?) When I got back to this newsletter months later, I planned to delete it.

Then today, something totally unexpected appeared at the end of my rainbow: I received a check from Four-Eyed Frog Books, near Sea Ranch in Northern California. While on a retreat there in 2019, my writer group gave a reading at the small bookstore. I left copies of my poetry collection, Always a Blue House with them, expecting nothing to come of it.

But apparently someone, a complete stranger, bought one of my books recently. How wonderful to think my poems are out there in the world being read.

Here’s Something Beautiful:

One of my writer friends, Michel Wing found an unexpected gift from the pandemic. When Covid hit, Michel created a pod with their young neighbor who could no longer go to school. This unlikely pair began drawing and painting together.

Then Michel began working for Beloved Community, a nonprofit organization “founded to build bridges between those with intellectual and developmental disabilities and those who are those who are neurotypical.” One of Michel’s jobs was to create a weekly Zoom art class.

As Beloved Community believes, we are “enriched by friendship and association with those both like and unlike us.” Michel’s new friendships inspired a rainbow of artwork. Beauty flowed from Michel’s hands, wowing all their friends and acquaintances.

Since then, Michel’s art has been shown at the Las Cruces Dona Ana Arts Council gallery. Now Michel has begun selling their original pieces as well as prints and cards through their Facebook shop: Michel Wing Artist.

Sun and clouds. Both are needed to create a rainbow. Today we all need rainbow, that symbol of hope.

So, what would you like to find at the end of the rainbow? Picture that - and keep going.

I’d love to hear from you.