My Kansas Souvenirs

Christmas delivered us to Prairie Village, Kansas. It's the town my sister's family calls home, just an hour or so from Lawrence, where I spent 6 ambivalent years pursuing a graduate degree, but also where I met some of the most important people in my life. Fortunately for me, more than a handful of those people still live there, so we always make a junket west to to reconnect with those good folks, which is nothing shy of a giddy elixir for both of us.

Here's a small sampling of the fortunes that came home with us . . .

One of the loveliest Christmas gifts ever: envelopes made by the multi-talented Leslie, who--despite the troops who adore her--will never be appreciated to the extent she deserves.

A small metal bird from a local shop where we had the accidental good luck of meeting Kendra, only two degrees of separation from us, both practically and virtually, and whose stunning photography can be seen here.

This beautiful (and ok, slightly macabre) Mel Kadel print from Lawrence's Wonder Fair Gallery.

A new manicure, compliments of my quirky, wonderful, 8-year-old neice Liza.




A framed sketch by my father, quickly becoming one of my favorite artists in the entire state of Maine.
Finally, memories of great and much-too-short chats with Max, Tim, Atty, Bea, Matt, Mom, Jen, Chad, and especially kindred spirit Amy and perfectly complicated David, each of whom is a kind of homecoming.

We returned to litter, new gang tags in the area, and a shooting three blocks away, but I'm feeling a little more steeled to handle it all after dipping at least a baby toe into the center of the center of the country.