June 2007

I fell for this picture at a flea market. One day I opened the back of the pretty dark brown frame and discovered that the image is an old magazine cover. I hadn’t imagined that and liked to think of something so humble bringing pleasure for scores of years. I like to think of the woman who, perhaps, received the ladies magazine in the post more than seventy years ago and read the magazine through and then carefully cut the thin cover paper to fit in her frame….and then hung it on her wall. Now, it is often the first thing I see in the morning, and the last at night as it sits on the white bookshelves in my bedroom.

More than any other picture I have encountered, this evokes for me the tender, tender feelings between parent and child….between parent and small child. Soft, warm, easy. I loved to see it with my husband and our sons when they were little guys. And am grateful to see it even now, when are sons are getting so big. Our sons are blessed in their father.

This is the first Father’s Day in eighteen years that I haven’t been with my beloved and our boys. But I am near my own father and spending time with him, as he won’t live to see another Father’s Day. We have had some shaky periods over the years, my father and I, but these days, I think most often of the early years that I feel I know so well from our family photos, and am grateful for the sweet and simple togetherness I see in them.

A Very Happy Fathers Day to all the dear daddies and papas in my life!

is what this post feels like. The last post was a spontaneous putting-of-my-foot-in-water, written after a thoughtful drive…..and now I am taking a full dive into the water. I received an email this morning, in response to a petition I signed last week on climate change for the G8 Summit which begins tomorrow. The petition has made a difference already, and the email was asking me to ask more friends and family to sign. As I have asked most of them already, I thought of my blog and thought I would share it here….to do my best for this terribly important opportunity we have in Germany in the next few days.

I don’t do this lightly, and have been thinking alot lately about why I have a blog…why I read other’s blogs…what you are looking for when you read my blog…

It may not be to be made more aware of the frustratingly complex problems facing us on this Earth today. Goodness knows, I wish we weren’t facing so many. But there they are for me to see, each and every day. Just yesterday I was told that the 100% post-consumer recycled papers and cardstock that I use for a large portion of my creations will no longer be 100% post-consumer, but only 30-50%. Recycled, if it is not post-consumer, means the wood scraps left from all sorts of mills…not truly recycled at all, just wood being diverted from the landfills. A good thing, but not what I based Small Meadow Press upon. So there is always much to wrestle with, in trying to live in tune with our earth…and to be one of the many voices trying to keep the world in tune-each in his or her own way.

I know that the perceived simplicity of times past has always drawn me to it in books and movies and lifestyle. The months and years I have spent since I was a very young woman, living only by lamplight, or only wearing dresses, or growing and preparing our own food, in reading old books and watching period movies…now I see that some of this must surely be a response to all that is challenging in our modern lives. Tho’ these things all have their own inherent charm and goodness, as well.

*handmade paper garland and curtains fashioned from (unironed!) antique sheets*

All this to say…it is rather daunting to truly be one’s self in this very public medium, but I am going to keep trying. All I have shared in my blog thus far has been authentic, but there is sometimes a holding back from saying all that I long to about how we live upon the earth. Yet it is such a large part of who I am, how can I not? So I hope that I can do it gently and helpfully and that we can have good conversations here. And you can tell me what you are doing and I can ask you questions and you can ask me questions and we can work together to bring just a little more harmony to our worlds-large and small.

Here is the link to the petition…and remember that the summit begins tomorrow. I will be sending hopeful thoughts towards Germany for the next few days.