Latté and reflection

She's an artist who creates brush paintings in the Chinese style. She's a mom to two daughters in their twenties, a caring wife, a fitness coach and personal trainer. She works out at the gym, does yoga, walks the dog, hikes through the hills, talks on the phone to her daughters and loves adventure travels with her husband, Jeff, who blips as Klaus001. She reads poetry and calls me sometimes to read a poem that speaks to her. She cooks: "I'm Italian! Of course I cook!" And today, sipping latté with me in a sidewalk café under apple blossoms on a balmy spring afternoon, she mused, "We have so much. I feel we should be giving more, giving back more. I don't ever want to get so out of touch with reality that I only think about myself or my family and friends."

She told me about an organization she belongs to, Dining for Women. They meet for pot-luck dinners and raise money to empower women all over the world who come to them with projects. DFW supports midwives in Haiti, businesswomen in Uganda, craftswomen in Afghanistan. They support a program that provides trauma counseling for women in Cambodia who've been victims of sexual trafficking and a project that is eradicating the Nepalese practice of "kamlari," a form of indentured servitude that sells young girls into slavery. It's a way of bringing together women in the USA who aren't rich enough to be philanthropists but want to make meaningful contributions to other women.

"We educate ourselves about women all over the world, and we don't just read about them and cluck about it, but we actually do something." While she was talking she let me snap away with the camera so I could get my blip for today.

And of course we talked about what's happening on Blip. We met because she and her husband are friends of Giacomo and Bonnie. We wonder what's up with Giacomo, hope we'll see more of him on Blip again soon. I had with me a book of poems by R.S. Thomas, who I'd never heard of till Ceridwen recommended him on Saturday.

Here's one of his Spring poems:

The River
by R. S. Thomas

And the cobbled water
Of the stream with the trout's indelible
Shadows that winter
Has not erased--I walk it
Again under a clean
Sky with the fish, speckled like thrushes,
Silently singing among the weed's
Branches.

I bring the heart
Not the mind to the interpretation
Of their music, letting the stream
Comb me, feeling it fresh
In my veins, revisiting the sources
That are as near now
As on the morning I set out from them.