Love affair with tangibility

Thank you all for the sympathetic well wishes! It has been a tough week bouncing back from my Grandma's death and still having Jaren gone and my Cleo sick in bed. But I'm attempting to persevere, and have a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks, not least of which are the nearly spring-like temperatures outside. Our snow is all but melted and I got out in the yard today with Flynn and raked the tired old leaves and mangy mess of winter out of the garden beds. It was cathartic, and reminded me how life just moves us forward, whether we are ready or not.

Having someone close to me die seems to be making me have a love affair with tangibility. Its like I want to fight life's ephemeral nature and capture it any way I can. I have been interested all week in the idea of documentation. I have taken so many photos of my kids and have been relishing even the smallest gesture: the wrinkling of a nose, the dirt caked under fingernails, a wiggly front tooth. I've been mindful to write down the funny little things they say, the ones I know I will one day forget. How can I hold on to these little beings when they change daily? How can I capture what it feels like to be a mother to two young children? How will I remember this day, this moment in time?

I have always been drawn to collecting things, especially vintage stuff, because I love the story encased in every object. Old stuff, in particular, conveys a sense of the life lived around it: the creases, the yellowed pages, the cracks, the dents. For me, this patina is what turns mere things into precious somethings. Collecting is so expressive of personality. It explains materially what one finds beautiful, unique, or captivating. And a collection is a tangible legacy to leave behind. The "you can't take it with you" adage is definitely true, but precious objects sure can step in and inform and continue your story for you.

I feel so grateful that Mere was someone who hung on to stuff. She didn't collect per se, she was just loathe to part with anything. It has been a wonderful gift to inherit some of her treasures, as well as every day objects, and get to put them into rotation in my own household. I now have her metal measuring cups and measuring spoons and some simple pyrex dishes. In my quest for tangibility, I found myself cooking and baking Mere's recipes all week (recipes being another great example of documentation of a life and memories) and loved the fact that I was doing it with some of her ordinary things she must have used for the very same purpose. It felt comforting to me to know that even though the players have changed, the game remains the same. Her things are now my things, her story is now my story, and it will hopefully one day be told in a voice never known to me.

**The gorgeous photos above are from an amazing photo blog called A Collection A Day by artist Lisa Congdon, which is a project to document a different collection of objects each day for a year. I love the fact that some of the collections are real and some are imagined...things you would wish to have and collect. The project inspires me, the objects inspire me, and it reminds me to think about the things that surround me and how best to honor them and let them tell my story. Hope you enjoy it too......