I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what makes my job special, and why it’s generally appealing to get up and go to work in the morning, and why there are so many people who come back to the museum week after week, for special events, for art making on a Sunday afternoon, for building the 75th version of a multicolored wooden bird with their four year old.

Part of it, of course, is that the people I work with are fascinating, fun, committed people, and in my job in particular I’m given a lot of scope to explore new ideas for programming and exhibits and the things that interest me in the world of arts and education.  But what makes the Art & Nature Center special *in particular,* I think, is the way it mixes love of art and love of the world around us with a ladle-full of wonder and a hearty dash of whimsy.

On its best days, working for the Art & Nature Center is like waking up inside a Mary Oliver poem.

Poem of the One world

by Mary Oliver

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.