Slice #1 Oh the Places You'll Go

 I'm so, so excited about DAY ONE of Slice of Life.  

I took last year off because I was finishing up my dissertation work, and I knew I couldn't take on one more thing-even this seemingly small thing that brings me great joy.  The thing is, this seemingly small thing isn't a small thing at all.  It always sounds so easy when I say it aloud, "I'm going to write a blog post each day for 31 straight days," but then it isn't.  By about day 20, I have no idea what to write about.  ...so, the last four times I did the challenge, I've come up with a theme.  It always sparks ideas and keeps my writing habit fueled.

This year, I'm going to spend 31 days writing about places.  In my profession, I talk about place-based writing quite a bit.  I frame it like this when I share:  We believe in the power of including spaces in the process of writing.  Place-based writing is the concept that the place where we write may influence our thinking, impacting the writer’s perspective, engagement, ownership, and/or purpose.  I'm really jazzed up, thinking where I will spend time as a writer in 31 different spaces this month and how I can use each post to share a little slice of my day. 

Today, the art museum.

I live in St. Louis.  Our art museum is phenomenal.  We are members, so we visit quite often, but today is a special day!  Today was the last day of the 20th anniversary event of Art in Bloom.  SLAM describes the event as such:  experience dozens of works from the Museum’s collection imaginatively interpreted by the region’s most talented floral designers at Art in Bloom, the Saint Louis Art Museum’s (SLAM) annual celebration of flowers and fine art.  Basically pieces are chosen in the museum and flower arrangements are made to represent them.  

The picture of the sculpture hall was taken this afternoone while we toodled around.  SLAM is the only permanent building constructed for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.  It is giant, it is gorgeous, and this hall is my favorite part.  Recently, there was an exhibit by Anselm Kiefer called Becoming the Sea.  He designed the five large-scale paintings you see here just for us, and they will remain on view through Spring 2027 (you MUST see them).  

If you zoom in, you can also see three giant loops in the center of the hall that were present just for Art in Bloom.  All of the flowers are live.  

And what I want to share about this oh so special place is that it gives me that kind-of-hard to capture feeling of awe.  Pure, absolute awe.  The amount of people.  The sheer size of the space.  The beautifully arranged flow of gorgeous flowers.  The amount of joy and energy and life.  When I walked up on the Anselm Kiefer today, I teared up a bit.

(photo taken in November when there weren't hundreds of people at the museum)

And that's what a place can do for your day.  The time in traffic, the parking, wading through a crowd of elbows... all worth it for that ten seconds of tearing up.  I love this space because it makes me feel alive.