Leap Day.
What a funny concept.

I've been listening to people talking about it the last several days, and I've decided that the reason we find it so fascinating is because it is that extra magical day we all wish we had...but how many of us will do something special with that extra day?

What will you do with your Leap Day?

Go on a juice fast, take a hot bath and a long winter nap?

Write a thank you note to your 7th grade sewing teacher? (with freemotion embroidery?)

Climb a mountain, and drink in the silence of the broad windy vista?

Write a story about your beloved feisty grandmother?

Write a deep dark secret, put it in a bottle and throw it in a river?

Tell someone how much you love them?

Make a fabric angel doll and hang it over your sewing machine?

Tell a young person how talented and special they are?

Make a list of things you want to accomplish in the next 4 years, before the next Leap Day?

Carpe Diem is a fine motto for every day, not just Leap Day. Who didn't have a full heart after watching Dead Poets Society? It's not just poets, artists and Shakespearean actors who get to express this exhortation of life. Anyone with a creative fire burning in their chest when they wake up in the morning, has a chance to Carpe Diem.

This is a photo of a beautiful Brandywine Crabapple Tree that used to bloom in my backyard. The last year of its life it put on a spectacular show - branches laden with huge dripping clusters of rich pink flowers. I remember one day that Spring, when the light was just right, I dropped everything and grabbed my camera, ran out back and took several photos on the peak day of their blooms.

A year later the tree was sheared off at the base of the trunk by an Autumn Colorado windstorm.

Now a lovely Japanese Lilac Tree is planted in the same spot. It has a pretty shiny silver trunk and modest clusters of white flowers in May, but it will never tap pink branches on my bedroom window like that Brandywine did....

For me, a special day, Leap Day or otherwise, is to have a chunk of time to wander around Nature with my camera. Then I bring it back home and dream about how to express the feeling of what I captured, through art and fabric.

Then the magic of that memory, that feeling, can live on to the next Leap Day, and far beyond.

Comments

[donna cambra]

I have never been to a blog before. took a while to find this box. I enjoy your emails and stories of travel and thoughts. thanks for sharing- drenec