Muddied hands wiped clean, I duck out of the studio to drop my youngest at freshmen orientation.  In the passenger seat I spy no longer a little girl, but a young lady smiling back at me, mascara flawlessly applied, blonde tresses smoothly brushed.  Not too many years ago I watched a big yellow bus take her away to kindergarten.  And further back still, I kissed her soft pink cheeks and studied her tiny newborn face from a hospital bed, wondering which sibling she most resembled.  

How did we get to high school? 

Throwing an ordinary lump of clay like I’ve done countless times before, a handful of earth begins its transformation into a unique work of art.  My slippery hands roll gently over each piece; shaping, molding, forming, changing.  Dinner table chatter echoes in my mind... Graduate school & a change in degree... A serious relationship... College graduation... A youngest son’s senior year.  Scripture soon knits its way into my thoughts: “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.” 

His tender hands eternally enfold and transform us into His beautiful creations.  The work is never complete.  Privileged have I been, co-creator alongside Him, forming and molding my children through all their stages and years.  

The first day of school arrives at 4:05 A.M.  I am up while the world still sleeps.  I start the coffee and step outside my studio.  Gazing up above me are billions of bright tiny lights twinkling against the still, dark morning: a sky full of tiny lanterns, palpable reminders of God’s everlasting light in my life.  His hands never tire, yet remain gently on each of us, His creations: molding, forming, shaping, changing. 

There’s a crib under my bed.  A small wooden nest that cradled my babies for nearly a decade has found its final resting place where I lay my head each night.  Adorned with teeth marks of four little people, I refuse to let Matt donate this white badge of honor. “It’s no longer taking up space in the garage,” cracked the father to my Blondies.  Then it’s going under our bed.

   Frugal me says it’s in a holding pattern; a sacred structure awaiting future grandchildren.  But that’s not it at all.  

   Those strangers in restaurants were right.  They do grow up fast and the teenage years are not for the faint-of-heart.  Yet here I am, on the eve of my twenty-second Mothers’ Day, lamenting the words of Keith Urban: Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.  What those unknown, veteran parents concealed was the heartache I would feel in the middle of the night, the tears I would see in my children’s father’s eyes, and the prayers I would worry never made it up to heaven.  They left out the part about anguish, grief, emptying and surrender.  They didn’t tell me I would be brought to my knees, with an extra large dose of humility, right back to my young adult years with my own mother.  

   And so here I lie, my dismantled timber relic safely tucked away; surrendering, entrusting, praying for balance.

   A retired electrician eagerly volunteers for the humble mission of adding more outlets in my pottery studio- all for a cup of jo and leftover cake.  He is the first man in my life.  The one who strummed a guitar while my sisters and I twirled in nightgowns singing, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”  He is the one who dished up glorious ice cream sundaes on ordinary nights and tucked us in with concocted, silly bedtime stories. 

  Alongside him, I study my Dad’s thick, bristly eyebrows & beads of sweat that dot his wrinkled forehead.  He squints at the array of wires that stare back from the cavern in the wall, whispering questions at the tangled mess.  His cracked, calloused hands fish around the cardboard toolbox as he announces the strategy.  Meticulously separating the colored strands, he outlines the procedure, mindful to incorporate me in the project. I hand him tools, fetch the tape measure, hold a rope of conduit, marvel at this old electrician in his element.  In this sacred moment, time stands still.

  Suddenly I am ten years old again:  A little girl at her father’s side.  We are creating a tree fort, constructing a lemonade stand, converting a run-over wagon into a go-cart.  I am his proud assistant, watching, calculating, absorbing, dreaming.  I am the luckiest girl in the world.  He would mark the first man in my life, paving the way for the one he would give me away to.  

   Chattering to himself on how they don’t make ‘em like they used to, Dad stops to scratch his head.  My mind drifts back.  I imagine Matt- carrying Dad’s torch of humility, patience, gentleness and love. I consider the creating, constructing and converting we’ve undertaken over the past 22 years of marriage & children. I haven’t always recognized his sweetness in my life; his support, his humor, his friendship.  I pause and whisper a prayer of thanks...  I am the luckiest girl in the world. 

Watch my JUST-released demo video: "Creation of a Cruet".  I'm having trouble getting the link here.... click on "About Me" over to the left and find it under "Videos".  Thanks for watching!

Light

Christmas 1999

Christmas Morning: the culmination of MONTHS of shopping, spending, decorating, wrapping, baking, planning.  December 26th: we can’t put it all away fast enough.  As a kid, I can picture the naked Christmas trees abandoned at the ends of white driveways up and down our Minnesota streets.  But not the Wood House!  Those old colorful bulbs shone proudly through the frosty picture window until the first week in January.  Having come from an Orthodox Catholic home, my mother insisted on keeping the tree up until Three Kings’ Day, otherwise known as The Epiphany. I recall feeling some embarrassment for not keeping pace with the neighbors.  And yet today, 40-some years later, pop over to my place around January 7th and you will find Christmas still at it, trees and all.  

Either way- the day after or 2 weeks later, that stuff has to come down.  I dread it just as much as the next guy.  Room by room, I disassemble the holiday, eager to have my house back & free of dust-collecting Christmas chach-keys.  In no time at all, the whole thing turns into the mom version of “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”:  If you give a mom a ladder, she’s gonna notice the dusty fans and need a vacuum.  When she goes to get the vacuum...  You get the idea. The process is painstaking: fake pine needles sprinkled about, stray hooks that find their way into the carpet and plastic tubs that somehow seem incapable of housing the Christmas Crap-ola that just one month prior came out of them!   

Hog pile with Dad - 2003

By hour eight of the dismantling process, I drag my ladder over to the family room tree: the last remaining evidence of Christmas 2013.  Savoring one last holiday moment, I plug the tree in as I begin the unraveling.  Winding tiny twinkle lights onto a wheel, a nostalgic sadness envelopes me.  So many bulbs, so many memories. I stop, holding that warm ring of a thousand lights & snap a mental picture of its radiance.  I’m reminded of all the lights in my life: my four children and husband of 22 years. I think back to decades of parenting and marriage, with all its challenges and gifts. I thank God for the many bright souls who were a light to my sometimes darkened path.       

My Four Babies - 2013

Before I know it, another Christmas is put away: the wad of lights in their proper tub, and the tree, squeezed into its tattered box for safe keeping until next year.  I pause, pondering those three kings... ‘Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, 

still proceeding, 

guide us to thy Perfect Light.’