Tag Archive | ancestral treasures

The Market Square

Jan28

My generous cousin sent me a couple of ancestral jigsaw puzzles for my birthday. I love these puzzles for several reasons. This is the fourth I’ve gotten to do: The Market Square. I love the evocation of simpler times, the craft of being cut with an actual jigsaw by an individual, the way they don’t completely lock together like modern puzzles but segments slide apart at the slightest touch. They require a most delicate approach. I love that there’s no picture, just the title, so the image grows from mystery to completion. I love my great grandmother’s handwriting on the lid, and the note that one piece is missing. I love that at nearly 100 years old the pieces remain mostly in great shape.

I love that they’re small enough to do on just part of my desk so I can do a few pieces at a time on a short work break without rearranging my workspace for days at a time. I love the muted colors, the cuts that delineate color blocks adding difficulty, the illusion of bringing order to my mind as I fit the pieces. I love giving myself this little gift a few times a day as a way of surrendering to who I am: imperfect, aspiring, basically a good person despite the habitual afflictive thoughts and emotions that arise continually, despite the practice.

This is the second puzzle I’ve done this season knowing a piece is missing and not knowing which piece. It requires a looser approach and more comfort with uncertainty. It’s a good analogy for my own growth. Something’s missing, I don’t quite know what, I just trust the process and keep putting pieces together to eventually get a pretty complete picture.

I’m grateful today for the kindness of two people in this little community, one who helped soothe my struggling body and one who helped comfort my challenged mind; both provided the spaciousness to let go of a little suffering. May we all do the same for one another.

Beauty

Dec17
Cats on the Furniture
The glitter tree, another of Auntie’s cherished creations. This one will stay with me til I die. Who wants it then? The tree skirt arrived safely in Tennessee and has been installed under its tree with its new family.

I’m blessed with an abundance of visible beauty in my life. Art was important to all my women ancestors I know of and possibly some of the men. I grew up surrounded by beautiful things, many of them created by family members. We took vacations to the mountains because both my parents appreciated natural beauty: my mom painted and drew and put a sketchpad in my hands. My dad took photos and put a camera in my hands. I sometimes think I’ve made choices to surround myself with so much beauty because it’s the only thing that makes human life bearable. Without it I’d have lost my mind ages ago. I’m grateful for beauty.

I cannot imagine the mind it takes to imagine something like this...
… spray painting the pinecones, finding or making all the little baubles, flowers, bows, fans, butterflies, and glueing them all on in a seemingly random fashion yet it all working out so beautifully...
She even included little baby Jesus.
The Colonial Williamsburg nutcracker, which I gave my parents one Christmas while I was in college, temporarily bumped my own little baby Stellar out of his spot.

I’m grateful for beautiful food, and for thinking to add special touches even if I’m just serving myself. This creamy cauliflower dip is a great way to eat vegetables. So simple, so delicious. It’s like hummus but different.

And for an afternoon snack, I celebrated with the neighborhood as the Potica Fairy delivered all over the mesa! Thank you, dear neighbor, for this annual treat.

And, of course, I’m grateful for beauty in my playtime as well. This self-care Sunday I ate right, exercised, walked outside, brought in firewood, connected with loved ones, and started a new puzzle.

Finding What I Lost

Aug30
A silver commemorative coin in the series honoring “Famous Families of Ukraine,” an irreplaceable heirloom.

I am SO grateful today that I found something important which I thought I had lost. It was inconceivable to me that I’d have thrown it out, but… anything can happen. I had done some work for a friend who moved away rather hastily, and I was left with a precious family heirloom and a stack of scanned images, foreign currency, and historical documents. I kept thinking I’d hear from her when she got settled, but that didn’t happen. Time marched on, the precious packet got moved from one place to another and another, I tried to track her down a couple of times, I let it go (the dark side of letting go: its illusory facsimile ‘letting slip’)…. When she finally surfaced six years later (my, how time flies!) looking for these things, I was horrified that I couldn’t find them.

My friend is descended from Ukrainian nobility. One of the worst things I’ve ever had to do, right up there near telling a friend his mother had been killed in a car wreck, was to tell this dear woman that I had lost her treasures.

So imagine the thrill that coursed through me today when I was looking for something else, and stumbled upon this large envelope–I knew instantly by the feel of it what I had found. I called and left her a message right away, and await receipt of her mailing address to get them home to her asap. Whew! A psychic load off, a good deed done, a loose end tied up. I am beyond grateful for finding what I lost.

Why is American currency so boring? is what I always think when I look at foreign notes like these from the lost stash. It was a big deal to me when the US $20 got some colors other than green back in 2003. Have you looked at cash lately? While double-checking the date on that milestone, I stumbled upon this fascinating guide to US bills, and pulled out a couple denominations to examine. So though the US was late to the dance, I’m grateful for colors in money, for the good fortune to have a little cash in my wallet, and for finding out just how layered is its design.