Kevin and I walked through Coulon Park yesterday. It was cold and icy and almost empty. As we approached the beach, a bald eagle appeared overhead. We stopped to watch as the huge bird soared in a big, slow circle above us before returning to a nearby tree. A moment later, only a few feet away, a female eagle with a tiny fish in her beak launched herself from the water’s edge into the sky.

Eagles mate for life.

I find that the more willing I am to be grateful for the small things in life, the bigger stuff just seems to show up from unexpected sources, and I am constantly looking forward to each day with all the surprises that keep coming my way!

~ Louise L. Hay

A friend of mine confided once that he felt a little guilty about being an actor. That playing pretend seemed a shallow way to spend his time when there are so many serious problems in the world that need fixing.

My response was that those problems would be infinitely worse in a world without art. Art is creation, and creation keeps everyone sane in a world that seems hell bent on destroying itself.

How many times has a book, poem, film, photo, play, painting, drawing, sculpture, song, brought me down off the ledge? Too many to count. Humor in particular has stayed my hand. “Laughter is carbonated holiness”¹.

I’m not talking only about what’s disseminated by the entertainment industries or approved by the self-referential art world. If art is “the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty”, then it is everywhere and doesn’t need to be validated.

There may be many social and psychological “functions” of art, I don’t know. I just know that it has more than once kept me from the abyss. That shouldn’t be a revelation because the root of creation is always love. Love, even when it looks or feels like hate or pain or sorrow or rage. And love is always beautiful, and always heals.

1. Anne Lamott [↩]

cool high-heeled shoes to fantasize about wearing without killing myself in, the feel of a wet bar of soap in my hands, the sound of the wind in the trees, tangy halibut stew and a kind sweetie to make it for me, fun books I don’t want to end, and a soft bed after a hard day

To the girl playing her acoustic guitar in the cafeteria of Whole Foods this morning: Thanks. You made my whole day.