I'm so excited - Swallowtail tonight. I haven't been to a contra dance since last winter and I really need the practice. Mom cancelled Morris practice, so a good bit of the team should be there. That'll be fun.

Contras are a lot like life. You spin around a lot and dance with strangers and get dizzy and tired and confused but it's a lot of fun anyway. I think the best thing I have ever tasted was a little paper cone of water between dances one Halloween. Standing there in the big room in the Ginter Park Community Center, it shocked me that anything could be so sweet and so good.

I taped Sound and Spirit's show on goddesses a few weeks ago and was listening to it last night. There was a really cool song about Persephone called "Demeter's Daughter". Now I've been thinking what a cool picture book that story would make. I'm sure it's been done before, but I know I could do something original with it. The whole thing is so vivid in my mind, I could set the whole thing in poetry without blinking. There's this image in my mind of Persephone running barefoot on the grass and hearing the laughter of her friends suddenly hush. And she turns around to see what they're looking at and there she sees the king of hell standing before her. And the flowers drop from her hand and she takes a step toward him . . . The whole thing works on so many levels. And there are so many opportunities for flower symbolism, which I love. (Did you notice it in my version?)

April 17
April 20