May 9, 2006

…..my deari-0 and I were wed. We have celebrated this anniversary in many ways over the years. Sometimes in a luxurious way at a bed and breakfast. Sometimes with a little outing for a restaurant meal and antique shops. Seventeen years ago found us cosy at home with our week-old son. This year, we celebrated over our usual breakfast of homemade granola with banana and raisins (with soymilk for him and yogurt for me), before saying good-bye. He has a class and an evening at work and I hope to stay awake for his homecoming. But it has been a sweet day filled with a contented-sort-of-humminess, just to have this day.

I was up late last night, making my first collage as my gift in honor of this day. I was able to use all bits and pieces of other things I have printed in the past and kept in a box because they weren’t just right….snippets from custom wedding projects, valentines, calendars and such. I also used the eraser carvings I made years ago, before Small Meadow Press. The ones on either side of our wedding date are the carvings I used on our wedding invitations. The one on the left is actually supposed to symbolise “small meadow” which is the meaning of my name and on the right is “dark stream” for my Douglas.

I enjoyed this SO very much and can see why it is such a popular artistic form these days. Mine was rather rushed-it was so late at night!-but I will take more time in the future and wonder what will come out of it?

My youngest son is snug in bed and I have just finished tucking many packages of missives and notecards into their boxes in preparation for a show I have in a few days. While I cut and fold and package, I sometimes think about where these little cards and papers will end up. Will they sit in a drawer…..will they brighten someone’s dreary day….will they help make or strengthen connections between people? Can stationery assist in saving the world?

I am smiling as I write this, but I have been thinking about this since my first post……I was still full of tears for the world when I went to our Friends Meeting a few Sundays ago. I was graced with beautiful, listening women-friends there who let me share my feelings of that week and then came up with a truly healing idea for me. Why not make a line of cards and donate the profits to a cause that will reach some of the people who are suffering? I know it will be a small gesture, but it will do some good I know, and it will give me something practical to do with my sadness.

When this weekend’s show is over, I am eagerly anticipating coming home and designing a set of cards that will speak of peace and compassion. I hope you will find them on my website in a few weeks. How grateful I am for good friends! And I think about the stationery I have sitting neglected in drawers (yes, it is true!), and how I want to use it more often to nurture those friendships. I will write more of this in the future, for I have an idea it is something most of us are sorry to have let slip out of our hands a bit since this wonderful webby world came along.