Cindy McCainTennessee Renaissance Festival a Lifelong Quest
Once upon a time… before watching Game of Thrones or touring castles in Europe… I taught my children and literature students tales of fairies, dragons, and knights. That chivalry must never die and dreams do come true. We’d then travel to The Tennessee Renaissance Festival to wander Covington Glen, a 16th Century village located outside of Nashville. There I tried to teach my son and daughter…
Morocco Retreat Summer 2021
Your heart knows the way. Run in that Direction.–Rumi Write what should not be forgotten.–Isabel Allende Travel to have more to remember.–Cindy McCain Have you vowed that writing will be a priority in the new year? Do you have travel tales you would like to tell? Are you ready to make new memories and create the ultimate souvenir–remembrance–of a time and place you never…
Chef Paulette: Renaissance Woman, Artist, Authority on All- Things- Italian
Nine trips to Italy and I’ve just planned the next one. This year I spent New Year’s Eve in Venice, my birthday in Tuscany (below), and Easter in Rome, but I’m asking Santa for an extended holiday in the land I love. Thanks to Chef Paulette‘s just-released book, Italian Cooking Party, this tour will last for years to come with 100 of her recipes, tips…
Jazzed about Josephine Baker and Riad Star
Staying in the suite of Josephine Baker– Queen of the Jazz Age, civil rights activist, and mom of a “rainbow tribe”–I could see pet cheetah, Chiquita, circling the pool and hear the beat of the brave heart of a woman who changed history.
Gallery in the Sky: MB6 Street Art in Marrakesh
Some use walls to keep people out. Others use them to invite people in. “Inclusion rather than exclusion is the driving force behind the festival,” says MB6: Street Art Curator Vestalia Chilton of ATTOLLO. Responsible for a myriad of murals in the medina created for the Marrakesh Biennale Edition 6, Chilton said the global collaboration began at the Marrakech TED Talks a year ago. There she…
Dream Riad in Marrakech for Weddings, Writing, Wellness
French Elegance, Hollywood’s Golden Age Glamour, and Desert Dreams converge at Riad Emberiza Sahari.
Painting Party at Project SOAR
Surrounded by olive trees, lavender bushes, and mustard-colored blooms, we painted, stretched like yogis across the tent panels of the Project SOAR art area. Too cold to fan their plumes, the namesakes of Peacock Pavilions perched, watching us work to Dave Matthews with a rooster crowing as backup. Maggie requested a Lionel Ritchie encore. Maggie O’Neill, American artist whose prolific portfolio includes designing the Washington,…
Saturday American Artists To SOAR
I can hardly wait for Saturday to return to Project SOAR, this time to paint alongside master American artists like Maggie O’Neill of Swatchroom. She and other creatives are flying in to decorate welcoming spaces at Peacock Pavilions and the non-profit’s new Dourar Ladaam village center. There girls and their moms will take classes in health, sports, and yoga. Also coming in 2015 is a…
Summer Art and Play Dates
Like freebirds we picked up bright and shining things along the way…good conversation, laughs, leisure. We met artists who reminded us we are all made in the image of the Great Creator. By honoring their inner children with their work, they invited ours to join and play.
I Am Love…a Two-Sided Tale
The movie was eleven years in-the-making. It raises questions that have plagued us for centuries. As the intensity crescendos toward the climax and the resolution resonates with the deafening score, we’re moved to look at our lives to be sure we’re not one of Thoreau’s “mass of men (and women)who live quiet lives of desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
What I Learned On My Summer Vacation
I’ve been in school since I was five. And though in two short weeks I’ll begin my 30th year of teaching, I’m still thrilled to be as much a student as when I walked into Mrs. Monday’s Head Start Class–minus the dog ears and knee socks. As I tell my kids, the purpose of education is to learn to critically think and to discover…
Cindy McCain 