Is all about Transformation.
Funny how a season expresses itself, even in a shoe repair shop. At Koskina’s, two days before Easter, for example, not a single “sole” walked into this always busy place. During this time of freshly laid eggs, unleavened bread, and new shoots pushing through the earth and out of the bark of trees—one does not consider repairing worn shoes a priority, no matter how expertly done.
Now, not even two months into the new year, the work being done at Koskina’s, my local shoe repair shop about which I have been reporting, has changed. Shoes are still a Koskina mainstay, of course, but bags, into which New Yorkers stuff “stuff,” are now up for intensive care.
Whenever I go to my local shoemaker, I always feel good. That’s because everything there is repairable. Shoes, regardless whose feet they shod, are given concrete and honorable solutions. Considering the state of our present world, I go there a lot these days.
As you will see from “In the Mailbag,” Remember the Magic ‘06 felt like the best one yet. In addition to its exuberance, the conference also included its first Memorial Tree planting which was in memory of Ann Loring (1915-2005) and Jean Zipser (1946-2006).
(North Carolina, New Mexico and California.
These were the Guild's three destinations in the
month of March which is also Women’s History month):
This morning, The New York Times reported that the Alliance Francaise in New York, a 100-year-old French language school, has completed a $19 million reconstruction in order to continue its language classes and also to become more a center for French culture. What caught my eye particularly was this comment: “A priority now for many nonprofit institutions is to assume the role of the ‘convener’”.... “Manhattan,” the article goes on to say, “certainly has plenty of French stores and restaurants, but there is no meeting place.”
With the completion of this issue of Network, the Guild will glide into its 30th year. No doubt, there will be much reflection about those three decades: who we were then and who we have become, and what the world seemed to be then and how it looks to us now.
When people speak of the city of Dresden, they say one of two things: Either they say: "Oh, yes, that’s where they make the beautiful china!" Or they say: "Oh, yes, that city was bombed to smithereens."