While I was sitting at my desk thinking about what to write about, I found myself staring at my bulletin board. Realising that it’s a kind of window into what I value. It took a long time for me to put up a bulletin board; I had to find one that was both functional & æsthetically pleasing. This one is both.

On it is are pieces of my distant past, who I am today, friends & family, my passions and my predilections. My magazines & journals: Friends (the Quaker journal);  tricycle (a Buddhist journal), Poets & Writers (self-explanatory!).  There are the washi tapes I love to use on notes, cards, & letters: birds (for Portland — put a bird on it); bees, music, crows, foreign stamps & more. A handmade card from my BFF, w/ a cup of tea or coffee steaming. The graduation photo of my ersatz niece, eldest daughter of the closest thing I have to a brother, and his wonderful wife. There is a photo from a long-ago trip to Oxford, England, a couple of quotes, bee magnets a niece bought me, a woodcut a friend made of one of my tanka… more.

Below the board I have photos — my grandson, my younger son, a wind-up bee someone gave me. My father’s & mother’s ivory chops (made long before we knew what damage ivory trading does to the world…). My grandmother’s glass tray, holding a stamp w/ my name & address (and another bee!).

So what you see is me, really: poetry, contemplation, bees, my family & my journey. What’s on your bulletin board? And if you don’t have a real one, what do you see in your head (and heart) when you think of putting one up? I didn’t choose these objects to reflect my values, but they do — in ways I never could have predicted. And I reinforce that daily, looking at them. Think about it: what would you put on your bulletin board — literal 0r figurative — and why?