i love how on a weekend in minneapolis... after the snow has finally left us, briefly... the most beautiful and weathered things seem to be around every corner. i found a few lovely such things this weekend. as i sit here writing this... the sun has finally started to shine. i went to an estate sale and found a beautiful blue green paperweight (the only thing i collect these days... besides music and memories) ... a wooden bowl that now holds apples ... pink ladies and green grannies... the treasure of the weekend though... was a recipe card, tucked away inconspicuously in a box filled with a lifetime of family dinners. it reads:
"When I am dead, cry for me a little. Think of me sometimes- but not too much. It is not good for you or your husband or your wife or your children to allow your thoughts to dwell too long on the dead. Think of me now and again as I was in life as if I was in life at some moment when it is pleasant to recall- but not too long. Leave me in peace and I shall leave you too in peace while you live. ~ mother " on the back it says "My dear husband so norweigan by proxy"
last night i sat around a fire with my family... watching the stars come out... just listening to the laughter in their voices. i like to listen more than i like to talk... a train passed by... slowly... shaking the ground and cutting the stillness of it. it was almost an epic metaphor for what i was thinking after finding that recipe card. about how lately my thoughts keep turning back home. about where i come from and where i am going... not in a year... or 10... but eventually... about death and meaning in life. the moments we have in peace with the people that we care about most... are few and far between. there is always a train waiting to take one or all of us away. away to obligations, distractions and duties.... and eventually take us away forever...
i am not sad about death. i don't let it haunt me or scare me. if i were to die tomorrow... i would feel as though my life had been a full one. i am a person that thinks of death as the reason to be alive. every day.
and so now, i am eating a strawberry that actually smells like a strawberry... from the farmers market down the street... and i am going to paint. because i still can.
"When I am dead, cry for me a little. Think of me sometimes- but not too much. It is not good for you or your husband or your wife or your children to allow your thoughts to dwell too long on the dead. Think of me now and again as I was in life as if I was in life at some moment when it is pleasant to recall- but not too long. Leave me in peace and I shall leave you too in peace while you live. ~ mother " on the back it says "My dear husband so norweigan by proxy"
last night i sat around a fire with my family... watching the stars come out... just listening to the laughter in their voices. i like to listen more than i like to talk... a train passed by... slowly... shaking the ground and cutting the stillness of it. it was almost an epic metaphor for what i was thinking after finding that recipe card. about how lately my thoughts keep turning back home. about where i come from and where i am going... not in a year... or 10... but eventually... about death and meaning in life. the moments we have in peace with the people that we care about most... are few and far between. there is always a train waiting to take one or all of us away. away to obligations, distractions and duties.... and eventually take us away forever...
i am not sad about death. i don't let it haunt me or scare me. if i were to die tomorrow... i would feel as though my life had been a full one. i am a person that thinks of death as the reason to be alive. every day.
and so now, i am eating a strawberry that actually smells like a strawberry... from the farmers market down the street... and i am going to paint. because i still can.
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