August 8th

Motherhood sometimes forces us to write a special entry for August 8th on August 12th. Okay, forces is a strong word . . . perhaps motherhood invites such things.

The painting in this picture is one I have carried with me for many years from house to house, apartment to apartment, state to state. Until very recently I would just prop the un-framed canvas somewhere in my space -- always saying that I would one day frame and take better care of it. I suppose I sort of liked the carefree look of a canvas just propped somewhere. A few months ago I did get it framed -- custom framed in fact (my first time doing so). It only took me two trips to the framing store, in which I spent several hours each time, to pick out how I wanted to frame it. Luckily on my second trip, a wonderfully talented and patient associate took as much time as necessary to go through the many, many, many options with me until we had found the one with which I fell in love.

On both trips to the framers and when I went to pick it up, people asked me about the painting. I heard myself say many times, "Oh no, I did not paint this. My father did. Many years ago." (The back of the canvas lets me know that the canvas itself was bought in Georgia in the early 1950's.) I have loved this painting for a long time. I love the colors, the restless water, and most of all the fact that it was painted by my father, who I never saw touch a paint brush, many years before I met him.

I have been thinking a lot about creativity lately. . . about how important it is to create something everyday and to do so with intention. Somehow my father's painting, now framed and sitting above the spot where we eat dinner every night as a family, helps to inspire me to explore every way in which I can be creative in my day, with and for the ones I love. And quite simply, it makes me happy to see it there.

As of August 8th my father has been gone from this life for thirteen years. I miss him for myself, for my husband, and most of all for our son. I wonder if my father had even the slightest inkling as he sat by the water that day painting many years ago -- just a young, single man -- that one day far into the future this very painting would be one of the things his middle daughter would hold most dear when she could no longer hold his hand. And that it would be one of the first things his grandson would know of him.

Of course, he knew no such thing as he sat there painting.

Who knows who we each might be creating for today? Better make it our own and full of love.