Category Archives: It’s a Legacy THING

Collections, stuff, and you know it’s a “thing”

Patina

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Ida Ravioli (1)

Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character. — Ralph B. Perry

Sometimes the most beautiful pieces of furniture are the ones that show their age.  Call them antiques, call them vintage.  You can see many different layers of paint, the different colors begin to show through and there are bare spots where people have rubbed against them over and over and over.  This is called patina.  Patina can happen naturally over time or can be artificially imposed on a piece.  Either way it’s beautiful but mostly in the eye of the beholder who appreciates it.

I am lucky enough to do my work at what was once my grandmother’s kitchen table.  It now resides in my office and I love every inch of it.  It hasn’t been painted in years and the rubbings and chips are what give it patina.  When I pull out the hidden cutting board I can get an idea of what her kitchen must have looked like by the remnants of color.

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Humans too have patina.  Theirs are the wrinkles, the thinning hair and silver highlights.  These are the layers of human patina.  There isn’t a person in the world that sets out to artificially impose this patina on themselves, rather they seem to do anything they can to prevent this natural appearance.  This is legacy’s roadmap etched by laughter and tears, prosperity and hardship and well…life. Your story will show up as your own personal patina.  I hope you will learn to embrace it and find it beautiful.

The Velveteen Rabbit said it best:  Still Beautiful – “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes don’t see as well and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. “But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand”

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Today I had the privilege of spending the day with my dear friend’s family making ravioli and getting a glimpse into their lives.  They welcomed me into their home with my camera and my curiosity and I am enormously grateful.  I hope to post their story shortly but for now, know that the board for making the ravioli has seen hundreds, if not thousands, of them and the ravioli maker is one of the loveliest women I’ve ever met.  Both are beautiful evidenced that patina of the most genuine nature is stunning and will leave its story on your heart.  It’s Real.

 

Me Meditate?

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NJ Botanical Gardens (28)

Ordinary Legacy Mantra: Thank you for this day and everything in it.

They tell me that meditation can be practiced by anyone, anywhere, and that you can focus your attention, produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind.  Do you know me?  During meditation your attention is focused and your ricochet rabbit thoughts can be eliminated…really?  You can achieve calm, peace and balance that are beneficial to both your emotional and overall health.  And even when your meditation session ends your benefits just keep on keepin on.

The Mayo Clinic gives the following emotional benefits from meditation:  Gaining new perspective, stress management, increased self-awareness, reducing negative emotions and focusing on the present.  Ok, I’m listening, I could use a little of this and a little of that.

They go on to inform us that certain medical conditions that can be worsened by stress might find meditation useful.  Of course the jury is still out as their disclaimer clearly states (meditation isn’t a replacement for traditional medical treatment) but perhaps anxiety disorders, asthma, depression, heart disease, high blood pressure, pain and sleep problems could be eased by integrating meditation into one’s life.   I happen to have a few of those…

The numerous ways to meditate range from guided to mantra to mindfulness to transcendental meditation and can include some physical practices like Qi Gong, Tai chi, and Yoga.  There are any number of Gurus, both on line and in the community, willing to impart their wisdom…seriously?  It’s a business?  Honey everything is a business…

Several years ago I took up the practice of daily affirmations and this seemed to me the next logical step.  Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

With all the talk of deep breathing and letting all those invasive thoughts float by like clouds I thought my head would blow off and I would hyperventilate.  First of all it is nearly impossible to stop your thoughts, if they stop you stop.  And deep breathing when forced becomes the hardest thing ever and really loud in your head.

Repeat a mantra…seriously the mantras that are most often associated with meditation are in a completely different language.  I don’t know, nor do I wish to know Sanskrit, or whatever.

Make sure you’re not disturbed.  Use a candle at the beginning if it is too uncomfortable to keep your eyes closed. Meditate first thing in the morning before anything else when your mind is at its most quiet.  I have dogs, the first thing that happens in my house is a dash for the door with all the accoutrements of the morning walk to relieve…it all.  Not disturbed…with dogs?  One eye is always opening to see what those two are up to especially now that Lina is in treatment.  Where exactly does one put a candle with two dogs roaming around you as you’re cross legged on the floor, which in itself is a bit of a thing, to say nothing of the smooches on the face because you are after all at eye level. And you know they’re watching you even if they’re not right in your face…

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Notice small adjustments and do NOT stress.  Meditation is what it is, they say, and  just do the best you can at the time. Ok, it may be what it is to you but my epiphany came when I realized the single only thing in your life that is always in the moment is your body.  So I put my body where it’s comfortable, in my chair.  They say it’s ok to sit in a chair but your feet should be on the floor, eh not so much. I do a body scan, which they actually recommend, to see how everything feels and make small adjustments so nothing is falling asleep or twitching or numb.  Just so you know, your nose will itch as soon as you close your eyes.

I tune in to Pandora calm meditation channel, set a meditation timer (there’s an app for that) pick up my coffee, and shut my eyes.  I know, the coffee isn’t really a step in any guru’s teachings but I love the feel of the warmth through the cup and when my mind wanders I can either bring it back to my body (which is always in the moment remember) or take a sip and feel that velvety hot liquid going down my throat and warming me all over.  I am now practiced at the art of finding my lips with my eyes closed and not spilling a drop.  I catch on quick…just sayin.

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If one of the dogs puts a paw up on the chair, they now recognize that the slight opening of one eye means get the hell off and somehow they do…energy is indeed powerful.

The moral of this story is that it seems to be working.  Not in any formal sense that the meditating community would recognize but I find myself coming back to my body and closing my eyes during the day too.  I find my mind is a bit slower, when I ask it to be, and that my shoulders have somehow found their way down my neck.  When I’m in a stressful situation I tend to breathe differently.  My breathing regulates and I don’t need to think about it anymore.

Liz Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame talks in these terms about meditation, “It’s not necessarily discipline. Discipline can become a prison. When your spiritual practices become another thing for you to be anxious about, they’ve lost their usefulness. I try to be limber with it and soft with it”.  Amen Sister.  I too am being soft with it but I think I might actually be doing this meditation thing, kinda.

 

 

The Last of the Calla Lilies

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Calla Lily (1)

But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.” ― Stephen King

I confess I’m not a summer person, so while everyone is lamenting the shorter days and the snap in the air I love September.  It gives me a minute to get back to my garden after the screaming hot days of summer (although this year was not so bad) where you can’t prune or weed or plant or harvest.  Even though September begins the process of putting the garden to bed I still love it.  I begin with the Calla Lilies that are bent over and getting dirty but still producing those magnificent funnel shaped spathe bract.  Yes that’s what you call it, you can’t call it a petal you can call it a type of leaf.  As the leaves unfurl some of them become full on leaves and some bring this beautiful funnel enclosing a spike in its center.  In the spring the funnel will turn a velvety white but in the fall they remain the color of the leaves.

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There is so much folklore wrapped around the Calla Lily.  The phallic spike lends itself to spells and sorcery both to increase male sex drive and lessen male sex drive, to aid against impotency and to cause impotence, there is also a spell to keep him faithful.  The word Calla is Greek for magnificent beauty and so the flower has come to be associated with the Virgin Mary and purity.  This combination of attributes has made the Calla Lily a popular wedding flower representing the idealized virginity of the bride and the fertile future of the couple.  It is also a prominent funeral flower usually for those who may have died before their time.

“The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.” ― Katharine Hepburn, Stage Door

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And so it’s fitting that the Calla Lily in my garden is one of the first to appear in the spring and the one in the fall to “kick summer out on its treacherous ass. “  Stephen King is right, once the Calla’s no longer whiten and begin to fall over the nostalgia and the stories seem to follow.  We are forced inside into comfortable chairs.  Just this morning we were reminiscing about Sol and Lena, former neighbors that I remember from fifty years ago. I remember them as vividly today as I did then.  They have become a part of my childhood that is dear to me.  I would spend hours at the back of their wrap around front porch playing with the doll house that Sol made.  The furniture was made of spools and match boxes and match sticks and scraps of fabric and lace and buttons.  Their house was filled with pictures in silver frames that were always polished.  These were the people they had lost, these were the talismans of their daily life to touch the frames and polish them kept them connected.  I have always said that someday I would name a set of dogs after them; so far I have my Lina.  There is still time to honor Sol.

I won’t miss the summer, I never do.  I believe Wallace Stegner when he muses,  “That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”

Many people believe that September is really the New Year.  There are renewed resolutions, fall cleaning for the predicted days inside to come, and the anticipation of filling the house with the smells of signature dishes.  September is one of my favorite months full of so much reminiscing and renewal and the grass is still green.

To enjoy more of the last of the Calla Lilies visit the Ordinary Legacy Facebook page, feel free to Like us too.
 

Look Up

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“A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space — a place not just set apart but reverberant — and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry.” ― Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education

You may recall that last year around this time I lost myself in the tiny little community garden where my mother lives. I fully intended to volunteer there in the Spring but they wouldn’t have me. Not because I wouldn’t work hard or didn’t know what I was doing but because it was theirs. They needed to get dirty and dig and ache the next day all on their own. To feel alive, to feel productive, to sense accomplishment and to make days pass pleasurably.

Today was a perfect day to return to that garden and capture its beauty and the progress of the gardeners.  I thought I was alone but a few minutes in there was a man standing next to me pointing and escorting me around his plots of land. He is Korean, he didn’t speak much English, we understood each other perfectly.

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Michael Pollan believes the gardener cultivates wildness, but he does so carefully and respectfully, in full recognition of its mystery.” And so my new friend started me at the hedge of Cosmos. These can be invasive plants the kind I used to find everywhere in my garden, volunteers they are called. But here they are a carefully tended hedge, my friend showed me the exact start and end and how he uses them to protect his plants from the wind. He knelt down to blow on the baby lettuce beside the hedge.

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Come, he said. We worked our way through peppers, and tomatoes, and as we went along he showed me all the little curly tendrons that make for plants mobility. They wrap themselves around anything that will propel them and anchor them in place at the same time. I find I’m in love with these little squiggles and kept snapping away. He was delighted with everything he showed me pointing and clapping.

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He has even taken over the back end of the school next door’s lot on the other side of the fence. So he became very excited as he pointed through the fence and said, in English, Pumpkin. I was overjoyed at this hidden treasure and clapped with him. He couldn’t help but laugh, it’s ok, I’m used to it.

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Then he said, look up. And there in the trees were eggplants, hanging from the vines that had worked their way up the tree trunk and branches. The tree hadn’t flourished in years but was now lending itself to these vines. I must have lit up, he clapped and I snapped.

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That was the end of the tour it seemed as he walked away, he must have tired and laid down on a grassy spot near the Cosmos for a few minutes while I continued on to look at some of the other plots. I poked around the other well-tended plots and had a conversation with a little boy and lost track of time. When I turned back my friend had gone inside. You know I had to see what it looked like from that point of view too…looking up from that grassy spot.

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“As I leave the garden I take with me a renewed view, And a quiet soul.” ― Jessica Coupe

Click here to enjoy the rest of the album and feel free to visit us on the Ordinary Legacy Facebook page.