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Rest #3
Only here, in these blue depths: light, shade, solace. ~ Mary Ann BartonFiled under: Art, Music, and Creativity Tagged: American Impressionists, Art, Dennis Miller Bunker, Massachusetts
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Rest #4
Faith: this collar, that gaze lost in sleep. ~ Mary Ann Barton . . For more poems with images on the theme of rest: Rest Rest #2 Rest #3 Image: “Faith Asleep,” Harold Weston, 1923. Oil on canvas....
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Art Activity: Paintings of Children
I love looking at family pictures with my elderly clients. There they are, children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, playing with a favorite toy or eating birthday cake or even just...
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What Matters More?
What matters more, the word or the image? What matters more, my life or this breath? Perhaps the heart beats in the mind as well as the chest. Perhaps this cat resting beside my heart feels soft to the...
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Dear Readers, I’m Writing a Book Called Rest
January 1, 2014 Dear Readers, I love writing the Joyous Paradox blog for you. Tonight, I’m so grateful to be sitting at the big mahogany desk in our little office off the kitchen, drinking ginger tea...
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Today Love Asks Questions
Editor’s note: My husband and I are celebrating Valentine’s Day, so I wrote a prose poem, “Today Love Asks Questions.” The painting that inspired the poem is Koekkentrappestor (Kitchen Stairs) by the...
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Notebook: Pilgrimage
Editor’s note: Today’s post is a letter from the notebook I’m keeping for my work in progress, Rest, which is a book of my poems, essays, and stories about finding rest and renewal in the midst of hard...
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The Biology of Fleshly Pleasure
Dear Readers, Awhile ago I published a poem about love and sex called Today Love Asks Questions. While the poem was inspired by a real moment of intimacy and happiness in my marriage, it wasn’t at...
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Dear Readers, I’m Getting Back in Touch with You
October 20, 2014 Dear Readers, Today I’m getting back in touch with you after more than a month away from the Joyous Paradox blog. I’ve spent this time writing my book, which has grown into a series of...
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So Glad You Are Having a Baby: A Gallery of Family Portraits for Thanksgiving
“So glad you are having a baby,” I wrote to our daughter and son-in-law when I heard the news. Our granddaughter, the adorable Ava, is now six months old. We’ll see her at Christmas. In the meantime,...
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New Design for 2015
Today the Joyous Paradox blog is three years old. Around the globe, we’re on the cusp of a new year. I’ve changed to a new design that shows off the beautiful paintings which illustrate many of these...
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Paintings for a Snowy Day
Tuesday, January 27, 2015 Editor’s Note: I’m at home today, watching the snow fall and looking at paintings of snow scenes in Wikimedia Commons. Why not share these with someone you love? You could use...
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Winter Caregiver Prayer
Dear Winter Caregiver, my Northern Hemisphere sleet-and-snow companion, you sliding on tiny, bouncing, translucent balls of ice in the Stop ‘N Shop parking lot, on your way to collect loaves and fishes...
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Hot Valentine’s Day
It’s Valentine’s Day. Things are heating up in our house. 1. Hot kisses. 2. Hot food. 3. Warm cat. 4. Hot you, man. 5. The body, beautiful at any age. 6. Hot me, woman. 7. The body, beautiful at any...
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Dear Emma: Snappy Letters to My Alter Ego
Editor’s note: From time to time I share my writing process with readers of the Joyous Paradox blog. Today’s post is about my literary character Emma Davies, who began showing up in my notebook when my...
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Oliver Sacks: An Artist’s Tribute
Taking The World Into His Arms by Summer Pierre As almost everyone knows, we lost the great writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks on Sunday. His books were enormously important to me. He had been on my...
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Washing His Bright Hands (I’ll Fly Away)
Mmm, hmm. Mmm, hmm. Song’s in my breath this morning, dear heart. “Some bright morning, when this life is over, I’ll fly away.” Here’s the basin, dear heart; here’s the soap, the towels. “To that home...
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Cool Tools: The Steal Like an Artist Journal
Joyous Paradox readers know that two of my favorite tools for caregiver wellbeing are creative self-expression and comic relief. Writer Austin Kleon’s new Steal Like an Artist Journal: A Notebook for...
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Notebook: Angels
Editor’s note: “Angels” is an excerpt from a short story about family caregiving that I’m writing for my book, Rest. I began it this fall in Eson Kim‘s Fiction I class at GrubStreet Creative Writing...
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