Love is a popular theme today and for retailers, it's a cash cow of hearts and roses. But relationships that endure take work. For the Silsby family of Lacey the secret is weathering change.
Mourning begins in a kind of thick non-seeing, only later clarified, gradually lightening, until we recognize what our lives must carry.
So begins "The Planet Closest To Us," Alice Derry's frank and moving poem about grieving the loss of someone who it was not always easy to love -- her mother. Derry reads her poem, and talks about the unexpected gift in her mother's passing.
If you ask American ballet dancers to name the person with the biggest impact on their artform, chances are they'll answer: George Balanchine.
"George Balanchine changed the way we look at dance," enthuses Seattle arts writer Sandi Kurtz. "In the same way Picasso changed the way we look at visual art, the same way Mozart changed what we heard in the concert hall."
