Love Spoken Here

Today is Mother's birthday!  Happy, happy birthday!  I hope that I am still as smart and beautiful when I am 91....I know I will live to be at least 100, and I want to live as gracefully as she does-  which has been true for all of her life.  Style, grace, the ability to create surroundings that are aesthetic *and* authentic.  Not a put on style to suit current trends or tastes, not someone else's idea of elegance or chic, but a true display of her personal style.  Everything selected and placed with care and intention, but warm and resonant.  It is difficult to describe in words, but rather than a house where everyone is afraid to use the towels, or a house that looks like a recent tornado swept through, or a house that is 'delivered' directly from rooms-to-go, a house that is a home.  A home with interesting objects, family treasures, comfortable seating in an arrangement that works for everything (conversations, reading, tv watching), art and books and plants and bits of all of us.  The home is her artform, and she has always done it well.

When I write in the mornings- because that is my time- I sit at my grandfather's desk in the studio.  I drink my coffee out of a plain white mug (just like one of hers! champion of white dishes), and on my desk are a collection of treasures.  Baskets for mail.  A ceramic pot that says 'Ashes of Problem Students' given to me by the Raynor brothers long ago, a brass ink pot and quill from the manz, a beautiful dried flower picture from Romania, a small dragon from Oaxaca Mexico, an antique Krispy Kreme diner cup holding fossils from Sister Sue's, one of my small paintings, a dish with a fish on it that has been in the family forever, and the tin in the picture.  It's like everyone is right here with me when I write- (and there are other things- on the desk, on the wall, everyone is *right here*).

The tin is special, beyond special.  Mother made it long, long ago- it must of been in the 60's or 70's because I seem to remember it being on the desk at Headacher.  It is a simple tin- from something? coffee? hard candy? tea?  Painted black and collaged with clippings from the Abby Press.  (How amazing is it that I remember the name of the catalog?  It was a (what we might call new-ageish) spiritual store that sold religious and spiritual texts, signs, cards etc.  I really suspect that Mother got it because of all the lovely text~

Anyway, this tin cheers me and reminds me every morning with the words: "Love Spoken Here.  Home is where the Heart is. Be Happy, Be Beautiful- live fully each moment, cherish others and yourself. Love One Another, Bless this house O Lord we pray, keep it safe both night and day. God's peace be in this house.  Lord turn the routines of work into celebrations of love. Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure that you are. I love you."  Good blessings to greet the day with, good words to remember- and selected with love.

Made with care and enough craftmanship to last for...a very long time.  (Which is not easy. Trust me- working on tins is much more difficult than it looks and this has nary a bubble or loose edge even after all these years and all its travels).

The legacy is not just in the words- though they are important- the legacy is in the creation of something meaningful and beautiful from nothing.  The ability to create something at the moment that lasts forever- that carries with it a bit of spirit of the time and place and creator.  So today Mother, along with Birthday Wishes and Love, I am thanking you for showing me that magic- giving me the gift to pull the useful and the beautiful and the wise into the most humble objects.  To leave a voice that every day says: I love you.