"The artist has a special relationship to beauty. In a very true sense it can be said that beauty is the vocation bestowed on him by the Creator "
Pope John Paul II

I am in town today, shopping for Christmas and for the feast of St. Nikolas. Advent is such a lovely time - it is so easy to discover beauty in the bits and pieces of everyday life. Last night I made curried turkey salad for dinner, with chai tea and the last of the ciabatta. It is dark so early now, so I filled the blue room with candles and we ate on our Spanish plate that look Greek because of their blue and sipped Krupnik from silver vodka cups. It was a wintery meal because of the light and the hot tea and the warming vodka and our own careless knowledge that just outside it was cold and clear and dark.

We have managed so far to avoid turning on our heat. The apartment has been warm enough without it thanks to heat-loving upstairs neighbors and exposed heat pipes that snake up the walls of each of our rooms. The blue room is warmest in the evenings and we curl up on the blue seat and read or write and talk amid our candles and icons.

Now that the cold has come and we are indoors more, we hope to create more artistically. Winter is such a lovely time for the making of beautiful things - there is so much inspiration in the snow and in the expectation of Advent.