Hello, friends.
I took this picture shortly after our mother passed in early 2016. It’s the front porch of the house where we grew up in southeast New Mexico. There in the photo, you can see the old rocking chair Mom sat in through many of her years and to the end of her life, with the birds and the morning air, or in the heat of the day after her perpetual tending of the flowers, shrubs, and trees. It is a special place and a special chair.
My sister and I drove down there a couple of weeks ago. The chair was the final thing I wanted to get from our childhood home. A renter and her children live there in our house now. It’s not the same place – not our home any longer. Though, I can still feel Mom in the air there. There will always be a part of her drifting in the breeze there between those trees and around those desert vines.
My sister and I spent a couple of days back in our home town, seeing the old places and visiting the old haunts. She goes back fairly often. I don’t. I think when I left many years ago, I just wanted to look forward, not back. Now it seems there is probably more of my life behind me than in front, so I find myself looking back more often.
The morning before my sister and I left to drive back to Colorado, we went over to the house to pick up the chair. It still sat in the same dust-filled corner of the old porch, like it awaited us — waited for someone. The wood felt dry and looked a bit beat up — full of spider eggs and web. I tied it down in the back of my truck on some old blankets with some rope for the long ride back north. It made it back here just fine.
When we got back to Denver and my sister had left to finish her drive another hour north to her home, I put the chair in the garage. I wasn’t yet sure what to do with it. A few days after being home, I cleaned it all down and rubbed the whole thing with bee’s wax. I let it dry for a day, then buffed all the excess wax from the wood grains by hand. It had dozens of scars and several dry patches; etchings and worn places from all the hands touching it through the years; dark spots and light spots. It all came together in one story, it seemed, under the wax — one tone blending into the next and one worn area turning to a smooth preserved section . A bit how I have felt lately, I suppose. Worn and older. Scarred and creaky in some places. But still useful and still cleans up alright.
Mom’s old chair sits in the living room now, seeming to beckon — calling for someone to come and sit with it.
Maybe I’ll sit there sometime and do some writing, though it seems I always have at least one dog on me when I do sit there, and then another one or two trying to climb up as well.
It has been a while since I have written here. I have been working away on edits of my novel since November. I finally finished those last week and have been writing steady on new material. I hope you all will enjoy reading it someday soon. It’s a good story about a woman, her struggle, and her art.
I’ll be back soon.
— K
