It’s not lost on me, the irony, that my current most popular painting on Pinterest is of the woman taking flight by reading a book. And I’m as guilty as the next person, searching the internet for all things analog. But I do find comfort in the fact that we still celebrate the sketchbook, the written word, the paper and pencil. The intimacy of heart and hand. 

And maybe it’s the pushback to all of this Artificial Intelligence. Maybe it’s the understanding that’s it’s all about the gathering. The joy of the gathering. 

I’m so happy that I grew up in an age when you had to go to the library. You had to search for a book to reference, sometimes only to get to another book. And then another. Feeling each cover. Smelling each page. Digesting each word. Feather by feather, I suppose, we earned our wings. 

I see it in my sketchbook. How one simple little bird became another. And then became a French bird. Or a bird on a wire, and a purse.A stack of books. On a person’s head. And that person became another. In a different time. A different race. Each with a different story. A different song. Together. So many feathers. So many wings. All that flight from the gathering. 

I wonder if we can do the same, with everything, reaching with heart and hand…