On your mark...

well, I guess I should start by saying how excited I was to come up with "gennysent page" - it's my first name, middle initial and first 3 letters of my last name "genny s. ent" and "page,"which is obvious. Rhymes with "the innocent age." Innocent being this time in life where my son Tristan, 27 months, is and hopefully will remain for quite some time! "The Innocent Age" also refers to Edith Wharton's book of same title, a nod to fiction, which I love to read, and also a nod to history, which I can't get enough of. I will hopefully start school again in the fall to finish a masters in Public History. Part of the reason I've started this blog is because of the ideas I am coming up with in the areas of history I am most interested in, mainly material history: the history of things - that which you can lay your hands on, the physical evidence of time past/passed. At the moment I am in the middle of a creative explosion which came upon suddenly in the form of one of those materials: paper.

I've always loved paper, to touch fine paper, write on it with a good pen and now, as this creative endeavor has been going, to draw on it and cut it out and paste it onto cardstock in the form of something. A couch and lamp, a vase of flowers upon a table over a persian carpet, a dining room table and chairs, zoo animals, clothes hanging from a clothesline, and on and on...Initially this started because my friend Felicia sent out postcards of collage art every Chinese New Year with that year's animal. During a trip to Amsterdam last May at a sweet little brunch cafe there was some wall art of a cut-out tree with many leaves, each leaf separate and placed individually onto the wall like wallpaper. These two things started the idea, as well as falling in love with the chiyogami paper at the art store...

I have one son whom I love more than words can say, as all mothers love their children. I'm also crazy about my hubby who I've been with for 9 years. We had/have a mutual love of travel, which hasn't seemed to dissipate even with a young child. I find myself in the unique?, lucky?, position of traveling often and occasionally far, as my husband follows his teacher, Gangaji, from place to place. This took us to Amsterdam in May, took him to Vancouver, B.C. in July, and we took an East Coast trip to Boston, Berkshires and NYC last September when Gangaji was at the Kripalu Institute in Lenox, Massachusetts. Yesterday, we returned from Esalen in Big Sur, California, where Gangaji had satsang that my hubby attended. Tristan had his first hours away from mom (or, I should say, mom had her first hours away from Tristan) as he played intently with other children and teachers at the Gazebo school. And mom, yes, yo, got to have some serious down time. The first in over 2 and a half years. You are doing the math with the 27 months there, I can tell, so let me just ask, is it really possible to relax when you are past 6 months pregnant?