You stopped me dead in my tracks as I rounded the corner in the Albertina Museum.

Your blossoming colors reached into my heart and my senses came alive to your fragrance, as if your very perfume could fly through the air from your canvas.

Chagall, your mastery and imagery of ‘sleeping woman with flowers’ spoke to my soul and encouraged me to blossom, write, dream large and celebrate my very color-filled life.

You on your high heels called my name from your pedestaled perch in the shoe shop off of Mariahilfer Strasse.

“Try me on,” you beckoned, “Festoon your feet with these beautiful dancing shoes and see where we might take you.”

Kloster Newberg, your history of contemplative monks colored my imagination and whispered in the silence:

“Slow down, take out pen and paper, pay attention. Embrace your love of silence and solitude. You are learning to find ease and rhythm in the flow from community to solitude. From your exuberant joyful dancing to soul loving silence. Bow to the reverence within your very self and be embraced by God.”

La Vie en Rose, bed of roses, you sang your melody as I rounded the corner into Ferstel Passage and my taste buds responded,

“We simply must sip from that divine glass.”

Soul-filled color you have sparked the flame of my inner artist, invited my writer to compose, caused my feet and heart to dance, and enriched my inner monk.