Sitting in Michelle's Tea House

I lay in bed this morning for a long time...reflecting on the rich experiences i encountered yesterday. Last night Makiah and I visited my eighty nine year old mother who lives alone, the conversation turned to nursing homes. Loneliness is settling in, the kirby vacuum man visited her a couple evenings ago and she called me to ask if she should ask him to spend the night.

I got to spend a couple hours at Barnes and Noble while mom and Mikiah went out to a music performance with mom's 'elder care' assistant. I got to read a lot of books, skim through dozens more and wonder around and around the bookstore racks to discover new authors, new ideas, new trends, new art, new, new, new outlooks on life. I really enjoyed reading "Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason" by Caroline Myss, i thought her insights outshined all the masonic secret books on the Dan Brown table. The business table creativity and design thinking books were interesting while the "Be the Change" community activism book more insightful than the business books. George Washington history books, Obama community activism by Michelle of hotair.com. "the revolution by Ron Paul, and all the delicious looking new coffee table art books wrapped in plastic that i had to imagine the contents.

What is community? The stories ? The creative action of groups of people acting together? The high school sports teams spending time together. The men's morning coffee group in the basement of Bauman's clothing store. The swimming pool on hot summer days. Where is the center of the heart of it ALL. The highways of one and thirty intersecting, the first street and first ave intersection, the orange carpet at Cornell College.

This morning i was reflecting on how lucky, how blessed i am to be doing this community project because of the new interactions with new friends...to sit around the table outside of Kelly's Room and Michelle's Tea House with Carolyn telling me stories of the history and characters of Mount Vernon. NOW, i just want to make a movie on Ann Silva's legs. Or the election day results of Marty and Slayton winning town council seats. Time to reflect. Time to appreciate the beauty. Time to connect. Time to listen. Time to really really listen to the heartbeat of reality via each and every encounter, each and every glance, each and every story unfolding.

I have some more local invitations to print up. A flyer for the whole community to "Dream Big Dreams"....then sending out WEpod invitations on how to get US together to co-create and co-design systems of making THE MOVIE.

Michelle's Tea House is a special place. That warm inviting center where stories are shared. That creative source where relationships connect, networked and shared. From Kelly's Room, that magical space of experiencing 'beautiful pure perfect love' to Michelle's Tea House where the tea ceremony or art of relationships occurs. Community is about relationships and space where people meet.

Shari believes that if WE all took some time, any amount of time, to fully, totally and completely CELEBRATE life, alone or together, maybe that would be the defining moment of creating the ultimate game. The play between the deep deep listening of BEING in Kelly's Room to the sharing of "Dream Big Dreams" of Michelle's Tea House to the happy, joyous, blissful, ecstatic, hilarious CELEBRATIVE DANCING around and around and around the heart of reality....simple easy acts of experiencing, feeling and knowing the real beauty and quality of living...here in Mount Vernon, here on this planet, together.....