For two days I've been sitting at my desk staring at the walls in the hope that some profound thoughts will jump out of my hat. And to no avail. I seem to have lost my way for the moment. I'm very sorry. I am trying to find words of wisdom, something exalted that will transcend the melancholy. The world is full of enough despair, and ugliness so next week I will write something from a more gracious heart. Rodney Smith

  In the Fall of 2013 I received some questions from a young photographer named Kohann Tensen in France that I felt where so insightful, and intelligent that I have often thought about him, and have often wondered how he became so wise. After I finished his interview he wrote me, and asked me as a final wish to fill in one or two line responses to the following questions. They were to be spontaneous. He called this questionnaire "la carte sentimentale" or as he described it in English "a romantic passport". He referenced Proust, and wished me good luck and thanks. So in order to get me once again into the meandering stream of my weekly posts, I thought I might begin with my responses to his request. Here following is my la carte sentimentale.   the most beautiful song : My Romance a music genre : Classical, but I like most music except rap. a male singer : Pavarotti a female singer : Ella Fitzgerald an art movement (in painting) Hudson River School a painter : Vermeer a painting : Anything by Sargent a writer : John Steinbeck a book : Grapes of Wrath a photograph : Spanish Wake a photographer : W. Eugene Smith a movie : Out of Africa a film score : Days of Heaven a director : Roman Polanski a music composer : Samuel Barber an actor : Cary Grant an actress : Audrey Hepburn a superhero : Superman a superpower : contentment an element (earth, fire, water and air but also sea, sky, wind, rain, thunder, fog, sand…) : fog a letter : A a number : 7 an animal : English Sheepdog a tree : White Oak a flower : Tulip a sound : A Peacock's Lament a smell : Guerlains Jicky a country : England a city : Charleston, SC a famous character you would love to meet : Jesus an invention : automobile a cure : cancer a monument : Lincoln Memorial a word : buoyancy a verb : reclining a habit : criticism a relevant and insightful question : Who are we? an essential thing : Light an amazing thing : Trees an enjoyable thing : Green grass a success  : living a quote : "Thanks to the human heart by which we live" a mood : Melancholy a deep regret : Not knowing my father better.

  I'm sorry but it seems like I can't win. I think I'm going to only write about dead people, or myself. I don't mind revealing my inner workings, but obviously others do, my daughter for one. So for the sake of family harmony I have removed this last post, but I will be continuing to write hopefully on a weekly basis. See you next week.