Gifts Upon Gifts

A good friend comes for a visit from another coast. With her, she brings her sense of beauty and perspective. She works with a vision board in her head, taking objects you’ve collected and preserved, moves them around the house and all of a sudden you have a number of galleries: drum circle, masks, Eastern Shore photographs, family pictures. Your whole life transformed. Somehow she knows what is important, what conjures up memories, good memories. Everywhere you turn, surprises. A few days ago she placed a tall rose vase painted by a grandmother high on the kitchen shelf. You look up and see she paired a smaller vase painted by the same grandmother beside it. Beloved treasures made more alive and present. Love in action. Your heart sings a new song. Improvisational. Not a whim but certainly whimsical. Clearly a gift of sight, sound, and sense.

She left this morning in the early morning hours for the airport. And I’m missing her. Missing hearing her hum and whistle from the back room. She has songs in her head. The dog has gone into the room where she stayed and looked around. He misses her too. I am seated at the table so I can see the valley before me. And on the table are the two decks of Tarot cards we consulted with questions. Do we have another book in us? What about our love lives, our future passions? I think we made a few discoveries. And we will watch to see what unfolds. But right this minute I am grateful for her gift of time. She has major obligations and engagements at home. She is flying at high speeds to meet them. Perhaps she will have some reflection time on the long journey cross country, because once she hits the ground she turns her attention and creativity to her everyday people: sons, husband, cats, her extended family. the many students, old and new. Her house is respite, intertwined with safety and beauty. Her life, a testimony to her passions: handmade everything, pantings, poems, seasonal decorations, books, song, chalkboard of what’s next.