Last night was the first of three harp and poetry events I'm doing with Kim Stafford. My sister-in-law drove down with me to the Gordon House at the Oregon Garden, and captured this shot as I warmed up. We walked in the door and were immediately invited to join the poets and hosts for a soup/salad/bread dinner. If our year of travel taught me nothing else, it taught me to always say, "Yes," when strangers invite you in. So after we set up, we drove to a nearby house and ate together and told stories and laughed together and then drove back to the garden where we gathered out of the rain for an evening of music, architecture, and poetry. I don't know if Frank Lloyd Wright intentionally designed the room to be great for musical acoustics, but the space amplified every note I played and sang. I could hear the sound resounding from the walls and it felt like the people there were doing the same with all the love and beauty I brought to share--amplifying it and offering it back to everyone in the room.