Around and Around
Last Sunday afternoon, I spent hours baking gingersnaps (Mom's recipe with black strap molasses, I added a little white pepper), and singing along to John Denver. The bare tree limbs outside the window looked like old men's craggy arms, the sky a broken hearted grey, sketchy clouds hung low hinting of snow, and the sly wind passed snickering. On days like this, it feels good to remember and accept a little depression. Let the bittersweet sadness winter, of time passing, of growing older, be real.
“There’s nowhere to go and there’s nowhere that she’d rather be...
She’s looking for lovers and children playing
She’s looking for signs of the spring
She listens for laughter and sounds of dancing
She listens for any old things”
When we were little girls, we spent many a rainy weekend afternoon in the basement of our split level, singing and dancing without any care of growing older to Mom and Dad's eight track tapes and later their record collection. Olivia Newton John, Roger Whittaker, Sound of Music, Linda Ronstadt, West Side Story, Barbara Streisand, and John Denver--carefully lifting the player's arm, over and over. One song in particular was a tidal wave of longing, John Denver's, "Around and Around." We listened it to at least a hundred times, meticulously helping Dad note every word.
This winter I am looking back, remembering and grateful. But I am also simultaneously looking forward. I feel a specific desire to be mindful. Not to take things for granted. To be here, now. To take that great togetherness and creative energy, and bring it to life in new ways. I still feel the desire to pass along some of the parental blessing I was so lucky to be wrapped in all along, keep sharing the wealth as we say.
This time last year I was beginning to search...seeking many new ideas but one such quest was for a cabinet. Something to hold old blue and white Corningware, Blue Brasserie, bread boxes and collected white pottery pieces. A large piece for the kitchen to accommodate much needed storage for these personal treasures. I considered antiques, Anthropologie, Stanton Design, and finally landed on a wire cabinet with wooden shelves...the last image in this group below.
In some ways this time has been about immersing myself in collections, history, and finding ways to be near to the memories, finding inspiration and connectedness. I am rearranging. Finding ways to integrate the traditions, the vintage things, handed down ways. Making room for the new. Mixing it all together. Understanding what to hang on to. What to let go. What to refinish, what to repair. When to repaint, and when to love the patina. In addition to the new cabinet for the old dishware, we made room for new dining room pieces, that funny enough, looked old and worn in with soft edges, reclaimed wood and distressed paint.
Inevitable and constant change; aging on my mind. My own. Parents. Husband. Sisters. Friends. I feel peaceful, mostly. We have so much time stretching out ahead, it seems like a wide open western road, no end in sight. Then too it's rushing by just like a child's Christmas morning. I have health, awareness and space to appreciate my loving family, and the blessed life that is shared with me. I stand firmly on an amazing solid platform on which to jump with confidence and security. I feel I am living; living without too many fears. I am comfortable with my mistakes, proud of the accomplishments I've achieved, continue to work with intensity, still thrill with experimentation, and seek to cultivate love. This life is wildly fun, difficult and challenging, beautiful and heartbreaking...and I still, "...love to see the sun go down, and the world go around."