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This week has been *challenging*! Melanie Hope Greenberg, who reads tarot cards professionally when she’s not illustrating picture books (contact her at melaniehopegreenberg at yahoo dot com), explains that today is a new moon eclipse, which can create some instability. I was really looking forward to interviewing Jacqueline Woodson today, and since I’m an anxiety freak, I made sure I had everything prepared in advance—I charged my Flip camera, brought my digital camera to take some stills, and had my questions all typed up. Got to her lovely home and within FIVE MINUTES the Flip died. Even though it said I had 2 hours worth of memory space. Grrr…I tried filming with my digital camera, but had never done that before and worried it, too, would die after five or ten minutes. Jackie was her usual gracious self, and agreed to reschedule before sending me home with new books to read. Of course, I plugged my Flip in as soon as I got home and decided to make a short film just to be sure the camera works. UPS delivered three packages from my uncle in Winnipeg containing family heirlooms—I won’t bore you with the footage of me tearing open the boxes, but this is a still of my great-great-aunt’s painting; she studied at an art academy as a young woman and this painting used to hang in my grandparent’s house. I remember the swans…I’m assuming she “passed” for white while in Toronto; no one would have known she was a Negro woman, and had she been brown-skinned, she likely would have been barred from the school. Now have photos of her painting at her easel, and a beautiful portrait taken in a professional studio. Will try to regroup this weekend so I’m ready for whatever’s in the stars for next week…
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