Tag Archives: Reflecting

A Family Table

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Nearly 13 years ago, before I started Stones and Feathers, I began a blog to share our family’s journey. I was a beginner at blogging, but I had been telling and writing stories for most of my life. The first post after my introduction was a story about a table. Last week, all our family who could come here gathered around that table to celebrate our son Jeremy’s birthday. As I edited and cropped some photos of the gathering, the table spoke to me again. This time I realized that by now, 6 generations of my family have gathered there to give thanks for good food and and to tell our stories.

January 14, 2009: Last night we gathered after work and school to celebrate Sean’s birthday. I pulled out my biggest soup pot and made gumbo with shrimp and crab. As I chopped and added tomatoes and onions and garlic with some of the last garden peppers to survive winter temperatures, the house filled with promising smells. The addition of rice, a crusty baguette and a Red Velvet cake completed the menu, but not the celebration. That happens in many places, but mostly we gather noisily around the table by a wall where a sign says “Memories Made Here.”

 If the oak could speak, it would fill our hearts with stories. The table came to me when my grandmother was going to live somewhere other than her home. Today I believe it is called downsizing. She called it “breaking up housekeeping”. My grandfather had died and she, refusing to move in with my parents, went to live in a tiny apartment not too far from them. Not married long ourselves, we had no room for a big dining table in our apartment, but I loved the table that had been where we gathered to eat at Grandma’s house, and I wanted to keep it. She and Papa bought it second hand around 1920 after their house burned. They were replacing furniture. Since she was selling what she could, and badly needed the money, we insisted on paying her for the table. She would only accept $25.00. It sat for several years in Mother’s and Daddy’s garage. When we bought our first house with a dining room, we brought it to live with us and so began its role in our own family celebrations. That was nearly forty years ago. Since then, it has moved with us from San Antonio to Dallas and other Texas homes, to California and beyond to Indonesia. Perhaps it felt like a homecoming for the table when we brought it back to Texas in 1992. It was certainly a homecoming for us.

Last night, the gumbo was spicy and delicious. Sean’s birthday candles lit up the room, and our gratitude to God for him and for our family lit up our hearts. Grandma Terrell’s table was the altar of another blessing of our food and family as it held our bowls and our elbows and soaked up another memory, another story of family celebration. (posted originally in mappingsforthismorning.blogspot.com)

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October 18, 2022: Once again we gather to celebrate a son’s birthday. Now our family has grown so we need more tables! I fill with so much gladness and gratitude when I think of all the places we have had this table in our home, all the occasions for sharing meals, all the laughter and sometimes tears. Many dear friends have joined us. Not long ago, our pastor and a deacon friend brought communion to us so we shared that cup and bread there too. Now I am the grandmother who has been “breaking up housekeeping.” Joe and I have been blessed to live with Ben and Kristen, Nora and Oliver for the last six years. I still call the table “Grandma Terrell’s Table” but it is more fitly called our family table. When it travels on to beckon more gatherings, it will stay a part of our family story.

September Turning

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September Turning

children spill from houses

bearing big new backpacks

hurrying to board yellow school buses

bronzed sunrise spreads

bringing light to see

one scarlet crepe myrtle leaf

among skittering dried oak leaves

crimson blossoms top pineapple sage and salvia

hummingbirds hover for sweet nectar

then continue their journey

lemons ripen, heavy on sagging branches

I prick my finger on a thorn

blood drop rolls down yellow fruit

I hear a call of geese heading south

September turning

Change

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Summer was coming to an end

light came later and left sooner

settling on leaves the trees already considered letting go

sunburned pastures waited for thunderstorms

that came one afternoon to soak into the grateful ground

we listened for September’s song of change

Summer was coming to an end.

Simplifying

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Right now I am unable to take walks in the yard or neighborhood that provided my opportunities for photography for so long. But I did spend time on our back porch and I watered the Christmas cactus starter plant that my sister in law gave us when she downsized to an apartment. Since neither of us travels now, this connection of memory and gratitude is precious. As the water trickled into the plant’s dry soil, I remembered the buds and blooms that delighted us before Christmas last year. It is almost a Thanksgiving Cactus. So I practice the reduction mentioned in the words below. I may miss gathering flowers to bring inside, digging and planting and harvesting in the garden. But my needs of the spirit as mentioned in meaning, purpose, and friendship are met. In tending this one small succulent plant, I find those things. I did photograph the first beginning bloom last year. I can watch for the buds that will come later.

.”It is said that the longest journey begins with one step. So it is with simplicity. There is no one place to begin, but as good a place as any is to simplify our desires. Both our emotional needs for things and our actual physical needs can be simplified. Learn to know the difference between real emotional needs and addictions. The complexity of our lives is directly related to our material desires. Most of our real needs are of the spirit, such as meaning, purpose, and friendship. By simplifying our material desires our lives will become less burdensome…”

~ Arthur Gish

Lost and Found, a Mother’s Day Reflection

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This photograph and part of the following narrative was posted for Mother’s Day 2 years ago in a different blog, one that is a family story keeper.. I read the comment I made then and am flooded with both memories and new learning. In those comments I said “This branch of rosemary leans into the bloom of an Amaryllis that still grows from a bulb that many years ago bloomed in Mother’s room. Rosemary stands for remembrance. The Amaryllis reminds me of perseverance.” I am still reminded of those important things, but in a different way. The following winter both the rosemary and the amaryllis fell victims to a killing freeze, one that was called the Valentine freeze which wiped out many plants, even those considered hardy in Southeast Texas. I am glad for the picture, which helps me remember the qualities they reflected. I am learning perserverance and endurance in new ways.

As I said in that post, writing is healing for me. At that time I was healing from a back injury. Since then I have had 3 hospitalizations and a major lung surgery. I needed to be reminded of my resolve to live in the moments of today, knowing I cannot add anxiety or fear for the future to the load. I am thankful for many things, among them all the things my mother taught me, including endurance that leaned on faith. Here is a late Mother’s Day tribute.

For Opal

she played the first piano notes I ever heard,

loved all the old Baptist hymns plus

Rustic Dance and I Love You a Bushel and a Peck

took me to piano lessons and made sure I practiced

when I played my piano today, it was a tribute to her

she found the prettiest cloth to make my dresses

smoothing fabric on her bed, laying the tissue patterns, cutting with care

sitting for hours at her Singer

in front of the window where Hawthorne bloomed

pinning and fitting before hand-stitching hems

and teaching me that, too

she brought me yellow roses when I was a young mother of 3 sons

Tyler roses, tight yellow buds in a bunch

in her last years there were petals of yellow sticky notes

to remind me she loved me

I miss her laughter,

the magazine and newspaper clippings she used to send in letters

she had the most beautiful handwriting

I miss the way she loved coffee

the way she smelled of face powder and Tide

I miss sitting by her,

her wrinkled hands clapping with joy or clasped in prayer

clinging by faith until it was by sight

A Star

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An 8 point star quilted by Mary Clyde Terrell (1887-1977)

Today is a day for Solstice musing. A day containing the moment of turning, the marking of winter, the promise of returning light. I want to dwell on that promise and write about darkness and light – but I am drawn to a Crazy Quilt made by my maternal grandmother.

I often bring it out at this time of year because it reminds me of her, of a country Christmas, a scraggly fence row cedar cut for decorating, of homemade gifts and family coming back home for Christmas. As I spread the old quilt out, I admire once again all the love in the repeated patterns and random pieces. I love the briar and feather stitches adorning patches of fabric scraps left from sewing clothing or even the pieces of old clothing. A Crazy Quilt usually uses the fancy cloth from an old church dress or something worn for a special occasion. Some of these quilts have silk or velvet or satin. Grandma used what she had.

So I will use what I have as well. For the first time in all the years I have had this quilt, I am seeing a new message in the pattern. If I only look at a few patches at a time, I miss the bigger picture – the pattern of the 8 point star. Stunned by a new perspective, I am called to the symbol of this star. An 8 point star is the symbol of a compass. It speaks of navigation and direction.

This fourth week of Advent, I feel the cadence of pounding hearts and plodding feet – Joseph and Mary on their way to Bethlehem, the wise men who saw a star that was so different it sent them on a distant journey. I imagine their desperate need for direction and how they sought it. Grandma’s 8 point star reminds me that I have a compass, that I will be given the navigation I need for Advent, for Christmas, and beyond.

Return

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These months of not writing have not been time without keeping stories .. There are many, some tucked away only in my mind, a few kept as drafts, waiting for time to bring them out to finish and post. This is one of the latter. As we open boxes to begin putting on our home’s Christmas dress, this picture and comment call me. I labeled the draft “for Christmas 2021.” That is a hopeful label. Into this second year of pandemic, I see that on June 18, 2021, I left one small paragraph and the photo.

. The manger was empty for over a week . Now the baby has returned. Our littlest angel, Oliver, likes to hide him in all the decorations. There is a story or two there. This morning the profound reminder to me is that Jesus didn’t stay in the manger. And that he comes to me in every way I need and is coming back in ways I can only imagine.

The speaks of hope because in the middle of a difficult time, I looked forward to the expectant waiting of Advent and Christmas.

I last posted here at the beginning of Lent. Now we have already gathered around the table for Thanksgiving and Advent begins. Tonight, we stood together to light the candle of Hope. Nora placed the first Advent figure, a little shepherd boy, on our old wooden Advent calendar. Our thoughts turned to the word “hope” and why we need it. Oliver, who just turned 5 on Friday, blew out the candle. The story begins again.

Listen to the Flowers

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These days of quarantine and isolation require focus to capture moments of blessing and beauty. Even without roses in my garden, if I pay attention, I don’t have to look far to be surprised by joy and simple lessons from growing things. My friend hand stamped some concrete blocks with the lines I quote so often from Mary Oliver “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” I think of her hard work, pressing the letters one by one into the hardening blocks. I think of her smile when she brought them to our back yard. No hugs as we once would have enjoyed. No lingering visit with thoughtful conversation. But a sparkling smile and eyes that danced and the gift of her hands needed to be enough, so they were.The blocks are not laid like stepping stones but standing at the edge of roses and touch-me-nots where I see them from my bedroom window.

If you are not familiar with the old fashioned flower called touch-me-not, it is lovely and unusual. When the flowers fade, fat seed pods grow rounder and fuller until they pop open at the slightest touch, scattering seeds. All the flowers behind the stones in the photo below have returned from last year’s seeds. Seeds of hope are nourished right now in what can feel like a hopeless time.

The flowers preach and these stones sing out love and promise.

 

Consider the Lilies of the Field

Flowers preach to us if we will hear:
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

Source: Christina Rosetti , Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress, and Other Poems 

Savoring Garden Grace

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WhenWhen my son and granddaughters were with us in the first days of this new year, my thiirteen year old granddaughter wanted to paint in the prayer garden at our church. While she sketched and painted with oil pastels, I savored being back in this space after a long absence. I have written before about this small garden and ancient oak tree. I have photographed the labyrinth and written about its prayer walk. The word I chose for a focus word for 2020 is savor but I didn’t even think intentionally about that. My joy in being back there, watching Maddie take it all in and put her impressions into her work was complete.

Later, when I hung her painting on my wall, it came to mind that savoring was just what we were doing. Although there were benches there, my back injury keeps me walking, so I walked the prayer walk and around the garden paths over and over. I took photos of Maddie, and dappled sunlight through a dozen different kinds of leaves.

The walker I need to use now does not travel as well on grass or sand or pebbles, so that part of walking was a different effort for me. It was a listening walk for me. I heard the rustle of oak leaves, wind, scattering dry leaves, soft notes from a wind chime, distant sounds of a train and cars, closer sounds of nearby lawn care. She was absorbed in creating. We savored this place and this time. When I made a turn in the labyrinth, I saw that the wheels of my walker had left tracks in the spiral next to me, reminding me I leave prints behind regardless of  my manner or speed. I won’t forget that lesson. I love Maddie’s art work and enjoy it often. But the picture of her dear head bent over her work will always accompany it in my mind.

 

A Growing Edge

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It is the last day of 2019. Will my thoughts be of the past year or will I pause on the cusp of a new beginning? I am asking questions. What is my growing edge? How am I able to move beyond unwanted circumstance and find new wonder, new ways to encourage, new resolve? What is your growing edge?

“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born;all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be no new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child – life’s most dramatic answer to death – this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge”.  ~ Howard Thurman