positive pointing #25

My school used to be a Tuberculosis Treatment center.
5,000 people from all over the country came there in hopes of living.
Not for an art education, not for a change of scenery, not for vacation.
They wanted to live; to survive.
Most of them died on my campus.

For my class we are introducing ourselves to one of these people through the records that remain of them. I found a man named Sam Stahler tucked inside a manilla folder in the back of a cardboard filing box. Sam and me lived on the very same street in Philadelphia, only three blocks away from each other. About 60 years ago, Sam came to RMCAD from Philly, just like me. He left behind his family and his streets and everything he'd built his life around and come to know and was shocked, also, by the spaciousness of Colorado, by the thin air, by the towering mountains that you never grow used to; the snow-laden winters, the quiet people and he missed the bustle and motion of Philadelphia and felt the pain that distance created.

Sam died on my campus. He was 24.
Somehow this really puts things in perspective for me.
I'm thankful that I know Sam.

positive pointing #24

September 28th will always be my own a personal holiday where I can celebrate these two miracles in my life. It's the day God gave me both these human beings to walk with me and stand beside me and generally sprinkle all kinds of goodness around me. They are continual gifts to me.

Happy Birthday Chali and Eric!
You don't know how bottomless my love is for you.

a little introduction to the vast world of Typography:

Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

positive pointing #23

Something about today was very quiet and peaceful. Most times, my quiet days are anxious, stuffy days. The silent fuzz of nothingness rings in my ears. I usually don't like it. Silence is, typically, seconds meandering over this way and that way and side to side; anywhere but forward. Silence means slow. I'll turn my music up louder, download sermons, make lists of things to do, places to go where I can go a get some noise (a nearby coffeee shop, Target, a friend's house). Who can I call? What plans can I make? I'll go running and turn my Ipod up until it fills all my senses!

But today was not that way. It was as if everyone was on the same page. Nobody wanted noise today, so there was none to be found. Even the sky was in on it. At about 3:00 it turned a pleasant muted grey. I turned off my radio during my drive to church. I ate lunch with Eric in the shade of an umbrella without much chatter. I kept my phone in the trunk of my car and had short, crisp chats when I did use it. Eric and I walked the deserted streets of downtown Denver to his emptied school Campus and down long, echoing hallways. I nodded to the few people I passed, and they pleasantly dipped their chin back. I wasn't agitated. I didn't get snappy. I didn't put on a show for anyone. I just sailed on the breeze of the day.

It was a beautiful sunday that repaired my mangled mind.
It was easy silence. That is a gift.

positive pointing #22

I'm thankful for happy colors found in unexpected places.
Like here, in a back alley, on the back corner of an art supply store that sits off a busy street in Denver. A man had just finished painting the last bit of the yellow square when I remarked how great they looked. "Oh, there just a test run. Not sure what color we're doing the whole wall."

"Just leave it like it is!"
I wanted to say.
But how often do we say exactly what we should?

positive pointing #21

I'm thankful for necklaces. Right now I'm wearing both my sister and my mother around my neck. The locket has my sister's face--and even a little note-- in it and the rose pendant was worn around my mother's neck on her wedding day. When neither my sister or my mother are around when I wish they were, I wear one of these necklaces and, ever so slightly, become calm and am able to put on finger on who I am and where I come from and who I am loved by.

positive pointing #20

Eric made him for me.