Badger Country

One of our stated goals is the desire to visit each of our married kids on their turf annually. Already, we are behind. A twenty-four hour flight to Thailand does not seem to equate to a jaunt to Tennessee or New York. Our 2012 Bangkok adventure may have to hold us for awhile, but at least those grandbabies (oh yes, and their parents, too) are coming to the States this summer. But I have digressed. A visit to Diana and Aaron in Madison, Wisconsin was our most recent connection.

Having married only two years ago in September, this cute young pair has just made their fourth move since taking their vows. (Oh, to be young again). They started off in Greenville to finish schooling and to launch a job that took them to Madison. Their next two apartments were in old houses renovated for maximum student occupancy near the university. Also, living just two blocks from the Capitol and city hub, they easily walked to concerts, coffee shops, museums and their gym. The farmer's market surrounding the square is a huge happening each Saturday morning of the summer season. They delighted in their new digs and became well-acquainted with the Midwestern, college-town venue. Alas, the quirkiness of hundred-year-old habitats with pocket doors nailed open (or closed), beautifully crafted woodwork interrupted by the addition of a wall, hot and cold water faucets invariably reversed, toilets with obstinate "personalities", and a myriad of other idiosyncrasies drew them to the suburbs. 

Twenty minutes from the area they used to walk and knew so well, Diana and Aaron are now tucked away in a community of multiple housing options. Apartments, town homes and single family dwellings nestle into a community that feels like a vacation haven. Silos and farmland create a backdrop for  adjacent property that includes acres of green fields, perfect for frisbee throwing and fetch-games with Remy. Miles of pathways wind through the woods behind the neighborhood. (Maybe don't tell these southerners that these are actually cross-country ski trails that may be a little more difficult to navigate come snow season.)  Evenings, we sat on the deck and watched rabbits emerge from the shadows, quite literally multiplying, as they cavorted and congregated in the parking lot. Altogether, it was a parent's delight to see our kids engaged together in making their house a home and extending hospitality.

As Murphy's Law would have it, our idyllic visit ended with a four-hour delay at the airport. Not altogether negative (I much preferred hanging out in the terminal to the predicted thunderstorms in the air) Dennis and I had the chance to reflect on our early days "setting up housekeeping" as they used to call it. We remembered scurrying around the night before houseguests arrived to hang pictures or paint a room or finish a piece of furniture being renovated. We would move out of our bedroom, offering it to our company, making a pallette on the living room floor for ourselves. Sometimes, our grocery bill would increase with the anticipation of extra people at our table, so we happily carved from the budget in advance to make a way. So proud we were to set the table with our shiney new things. How people must have rolled their eyes at our "firstborn". Schawnroi, our Olde English Sheepdog, was large, unmercifully ill-mannered and cute-as-the-dickens. He came with the territory and our guests kept coming back. Maybe they thought we would surely get him under control, but that never happened. Schawnroi actually ate a pound of woodwork in our own version of the hundred-year-old dwelling every time it thundered. That, too, is another story. Anyway, we reminisced about the fact that once those challenging days of scrimping and saving and improvising and getting started give way to a more regular rhythm in life, there is something about the simplicity and serenity in together facing the struggles of those early years which one misses. 

It has been said that God wants to do a greater thing through each subsequent generation. We are humbled and encouraged by the home these two are creating together, their commitment to applying godly principles to their life decisions, and their witness to those around them. And, by the way, our grand-dog Remy is way better behaved than Schawnroi.

"We should so live and labor in our time, that what came to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and that what came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit. This is what we mean by progress."

Henry Ward Beecher

Celebrating the Art of You

I

 Recentiy, I was asked to share with a girlfriend-gathering at a local  church launching their summer programs. During the course of the evening, a plethora of options for serving, giving, creating, learning and relating were introduced. The theme, amidst Mexican cuisine and festive fare, was CELEBRATING THE ART OF YOU on which I was invited to speak. At the end of the evening, several of the gals suggested that the material covered--the art that each of us was made to live--be available in written form to share with others. A blogpost seemed the genre through which to easily launch the thoughts. Paging through my notes, (I spoke for only thirty minutes, honest!) it appears that we might best tackle this topic in more readable, shorter segments. Intermittent blogposts may scoot off to a current happening or two, but readers will be able to follow the thread of discovering the art we are each meant to live and heed the challenge to live it.

First, let's defuse that common complaint we each have muttered under our breath at one time or another: "I am just not creative." In a current favorite read, Creativity is a Verb, author Patti Digh makes a good point in the sub title: "If you're alive, you're creative". Because we are made in the image of the Creator of the universe, we are each image-bearers and therefore, creative.

Graham Green has said, "There is always one moment in childhood when a door opens and lets the future in."

Mrs Delaney was a vintage friend of mine in our old neighborhood. A renowned hand-painted china artist and instructor, she tutored me at her dining room table in the art of dabbing images of forget-me-nots, dogwood blossoms, and delicate birds on saucers and vases. Mostly, I just watched, awestruck at her expertise. Yet, a story she shared has stuck with me way beyond a knack for painting fruit and flowers on tea cups. Mrs Delaney, then in her eighties, lit up all over whenever she would recount her memory of being two years old sitting in her high chair with a teddy bear under her arm. She distinctly recalled laying her bear atop a piece of paper on the tray, and with a crayon, drawing all the way around his furry perimeter. Mrs Delaney repeated often, with childlike glee, the delightful sense of satisfaction she felt as she tucked her teddy back under her arm and gazed at the paper, having made a mark with her hand that was pleasing to the eye. It was that moment of inspiration that carried her dream into the future.

My own door was a set of oak pocket doors that led to my daddy's office. When I was growing up, Daddy worked out of our home and the doors remained closed during business hours. But when the workday was over and he emerged to join the family, I was permitted to inhabit his office and make myself at home at his enormous desk. My legs dangled from his creaky, swivel chair and with feet barely touching the floor, I plunked out stories on his Royal typewriter. We did not have reams of copy paper in those days. I crafted my compositions on the backs of envelopes or blank sides of letters Daddy had received in the mail. The red stripe of the typewriter ribbon was for my use, the black being reserved for office work. When finished, I would add illustrations, staple the pages together and happily pop back into family life, with the most delicious sense of accomplishment.

Where do you remember a door that opened in childhood?

Creativity does not point exclusively to those who are bent toward the fine arts like painters, sculptors, composers or even to those with the athletic skills of pro golfers and tennis champions. Well-educated professionals like CPA's, trial lawyers, brain surgeons and astronauts have undeniable talents. But let us consider the everyday art of a grandfather who spins yarns that are captivating to his audience, a  woman who cleans a hospital room carefully (full-of-care) with attention to detail that is beautiful, a hairdresser that specializes in grey heads, listening to and loving her clients in a way that is almost sacred. 

Who have you watched tending a garden, feeding a kitten with an eye dropper, repairing a car engine, or waiting tables with such joy and enthusiam that you knew they were about the very thing that made them tick?

My own art, in part, would be that of celebrating everyday days. My mother did not live to meet my husband or my children, but they know her somewhat because I have passed on her art of making everyday days special. Mother would sometimes put a little flag on a toothpick in our mashed potatoes or dessert that said, "I love you" or "Happy Report Card Day", even it it was not necessarily a happy report card. She crafted whimsical presentations at meals, like a bunny salad that consisted of a half-pear turned upside down, with two carrot ears, a cherry nose, raisen eyes, and a marshmallow tail. Her creations made those fruits and veggies so much more appealing. Everything from our milk to the pudding got a dose of green food coloring on St Patricks Day. And on George Washington's Birthday, we inevitably baked a cherry pie, crowned with whipped cream and a construction paper hatchet. We made Ivory soap boats that we floated in our bath on Columbus Day...the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria emblazoned on sails held high by Popsicle sticks.

Seasonal and special events are celebrated to the hilt at our house, often with a vignette which is simply a visual collection that points to the moment in time, the person, or the season being celebrated. Birthdays are a big deal. Presents are mostly modest offerings, but the celebrant is royalty-for-the-day. Someone else does your chores and the honoree does not have to practice the piano, or violin, or whatever the instrument du jour might be. There's always a photo fan display along with memorabilia distinct to the celebrant which might include a trophy, created object, favorite cap, ballet shoes or tennis racket. These icons are clustered together in a central location like the kitchen table or countertop where the message is, "We are celebrating YOU."

Because my daddy also did not get to watch my family grow up, we include photos of him, grand fathers and great-grandads, as a kind of visual family history, in our Father's Day vignette. Daddy was bald and often wore a hat, so I place one of his wide-brimmed fedoras on a stand. His dog tags from the Navy where he served during WWII, pocket knife, cuff links, and tie clasp are strewn around. A shaving mug that belonged to one of the dads in our lineage, a straight-edged razor, and a class ring are among the artifacts the children have handled over the years, asking questions and thereby becoming acquainted with the stories of those who have gone before them.

The evolving calendar year brings opportunity for changing up the visuals. Vignettes do not have to be a big production, but rather can be an interactive affair as family members grab hold of celebrating the season and one another. This time of year we drag out everything beach-y. Bottles of sand on the mantle wear labels tied with rafia on which are scribbled the names of the beach from which the contents was gathered. Conch shells, starfish, and sand dollars perch atop a stack of beach books with smaller specimens tucked into a mound of sand inside a mason jar.

So there you are. Art might be a sculpture, a painting, a sonata or a beautiful home run. But art

is so, so much more. Art is doing whatever you do in the most beautiful way possible. Every person is created with the capacity to live the art they were uniquely made to live. What's up next? Let's call it Discovering Desire.