This afternoon, sitting on blankets on the grass at Muddy Creek Pottery, while children sang for an audience of their parents, I thought what a better world we would live in with more song. Just singing: voices raised in harmony, trained or not.

Afterwards, my child showed me her handmade treasures: the pottery plate she so carefully designed, a silkscreened butterfly, hula hoops…..

For no other reason but simply to mark that childhood needs as full a measure of joy as possible, I mark my daughter’s happiness this week, with her hands and her clothes dirty, face tanned, her days filled with a familiar friend and a new friend, her sleep sweet.

Do not seek to follow in the
footsteps of the wise.
Seek what they sought.

– Basho

Caspian Lake, Vermont