Someone made that chair

  A while back we visited a shop called “Empty the Nest.” It’s a small store front stuffed with all manner of junk and treasure. It specializes in helping people “empty their nests” (or their parents' nests) of things they simply don’t know what to do with. You can find a vintage apron. A dresser Grandma owned. Fishing tackle. A box of buttons. A zip lock bag full of drill bits. I usually try to stay away from such places, but that’s where I found a “gasp.” Carelessly cast across a dirty shelf and hiding beneath a broken violin, a gleam of persimmon caught my eye. I lifted the box and there lay – a hand-woven, hand-dyed wool rug. It is small, only about two by two and a half feet, old, but exquisite. The colors are still vivid. No wear or flaws. Some artisan made a perfect rug a long time ago. I exhaled and looked over my shoulder, suddenly filled with an anxious need to own it. Would someone grab it from my hand shouting, “MINE!”? I wondered if I could mount a defense for spending money on it? It was my birthday – it was. Could it be a gift to self from self? Whoever priced it must have sensed that it had some value. I had to pay $25.00 for it. So there it was: an Indian-type rug, perfect for the “baked clay” wall color in the bedroom of our new home. I only wish I knew more about its origin.

That rug was what Maira Kalman would call a “favorite thing” something that makes you gasp with delight. Those are the things, she writes, that are worth keeping. Because of her illustrated book – My Favorite Things and her work (she calls her work “curating a life”) for a museum, I have a fuzzy little gauge, a sweet reminder that it’s okay to keep a few things you really like even as you simplify life. You might even admit you love them. This past year has been one of letting things go before we made our big move last May. Things were given away. Sold on Craig’s list. Taken to Salvation Army. Dumped or recycled. Some things were a little hard to give up – like the fragile “Flow Blue” antique china I inherited from Denis’ great-grandparents. A big old buffet with wood inlay from the 1940s. Those two particular things were easier to give up because a family member was delighted to have them. It was a relief to fling other things out of the house. Old paintings and faded photographs that made me grimace, not gasp – Gone! A large patchwork quilt kept for years out of guilt – Gone! Years ago it was a gift from Denis’ step-grandmother. Wouldn’t that normally be a welcome gift? You would think. But this was one ugly quilt with large patches of polyester prints from old dresses backed by a muddy gold fabric, she warned me I had better appreciate that quilt because it had taken her a long time to make it! So I kept it year after year, even after she died. It didn’t even reinvent itself to become an interesting retro piece of Americana. It remained repellent. I gave it away to someone who dumbfounded me by liking it.

As I wrote in a recent blog post, “I understand that not EVERYthing needs to make me gasp. I don’t want to have a hard time breathing when I climb into bed at night. I mean. There needs to be calm scenes. Functionality. Quiet colors. Soft beds. Crisp sheets. None of that has to make me gasp. We understand. But it is a useful measure I’m going to be checking in with now and then.”

As it turns out, because of a broken ankle, I’ve had more occasion to enjoy it as it hangs on the wall of our bedroom. Certain patterns and colors make me happy. In a Japanese philosophy  called Naikan, people are reminded “to be grateful for everything. If you are sitting in a chair, you need to realize that someone made that chair, and someone sold it, and someone delivered it – and you are the beneficiary of all that. Just because they didn’t do it especially for you doesn’t mean you aren’t blessed to be using it and enjoying it. …[thus] life becomes a series of small miracles, and you may start to notice everything that goes right in a typical life and not the few things that go wrong.”  - The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.

We are Home

My new office

Overseeing the sink

God made it to the new house. As if I didn’t think he would come. Bobble-head Jesus has a new sink to oversee. I am reminded that God blesses this place and these people (us) who dwell here. It is June 20^th almost a month since my last post. 

Today I am sitting in my new office looking out this window. I’m watching a little fly-catcher hop down a limb looking for insects. The sun is sending rays down through the canopy to the ravine below us. It lights leafy corridors with many hues of green. 

Looking at the canopy

We are 85 % moved in. Denis says it is 85%. I don’t know why 85. But I do know there are many fewer boxes. The ones that remain will be okay taking their time finding new spaces to hide or to show.

Unpacking the kitchen

This house will be called “The House Between.” Our new home. I’ll explain why the name some day soon.

One of the first projects we did was paint the basement “Bonfire.” Although it's a walkout, it is a little dim and that color warms it up. Then we spent the next two days prepping and painting the floor. It is now a lovely clean slate to work with. It is going to be Honeysuckle’s new home (too many local predators to be outside) and Anita’s Studio. Very exciting.

Bonfire!!

Last night I had a new experience. One I’ve never had or owned in life. I walked into our roomy, walk-in closet, (which is still unpacked because the shelves need to be painted and lined) turned on the light and changed into my pajamas. Totally pleasant experience. Do you think it is weird to thank God for a walk-in closet? I suppose.

In this quiet neighborhood we have already seen wild turkeys, fox, coyote and raccoons though technically we haven’t seen the latter, just experienced the damage they wrecked on our bird feeders. In the morning the cacophony of bird song wakens me. I do not object.

One final note. Our area has received so much rain the rivers and lakes are flooding in many places. A friend once told us, if you live in Minnesota and have a basement, it will flood at some point. Count on it. You would think we would have reached that point. It is a shocking wonder that ours remains dry as a bone. We are sure the previous owner who built the house had some engineer/architect smart person design the location of the foundation, the tiles and the drains because I have heard that even if you build on a slope you can do it in such a way that water flows through it rather than under or around. I lay in bed and think, God, how wonderful you are. I am allergic to molds. How good to give us a dry basement.

We are home.