pro tip from this amateur: go at the end of the day- no one is around and you can just back your car up and load ‘r in! ( on the brand new $13 tarp you bought and spread out in your car with the seats down) and I brought my own short handle shovel, ’cause it’s not my first rodeo
Wreath season.
I know it’s a thing because every time I walk or drive somewhere, I think: I could make a wreath out of that or I could use that in my wreath!
On Friday afternoon, my covered deck where I run my wreath making workshops was bathed in the most beautiful sunlight. It’s noticeable on the west coast – when it’s sunny– it can be very grey here.
With lots of other workshops being full, it was funny that only one woman signed up for Friday afternoon. She was the lovely kind woman I told you about last week. (Side note: I got the story slightly wrong, she wasn’t carrying a picture of someone else’s son to the Cenotaph, but she did go to pay her respects).
She brought me two cookies from a local bakery and this heart shaped stone. The cookies were delicious— but the heart shaped stone…now we’re talking!
I just met her at Bilston a few days before. When she saw my flower studio… it needs a good tidy, because it is housing a lot of muddy vases, plant trays, an open box of new mason jar lids and dried and drying flowers everywhere- it’s more of a storage shed than it’s normally inspiring creative space – that’s when she must have known that I was the kind of person who would appreciate a heart shaped rock because that’s when she took it out of her pocket and gifted it to me.
I had shown her around the garden, as I do with everyone- it is a way of telling the story of how my productive little flower farm came to be and to introduce the greenhouse featured in my book.
More importantly I do it to give my guests a chance to arrive in the space- leaving the last thing, the rush to get here through traffic, the responsibilities for our daily life, the to do list scrolling in our minds…before we settle to let ourselves have this creative time- making something with our hands, possibly something we didn’t even think we could make, using materials we don’t usually use, or perhaps have never used.
We came up the stairs and she saw this space. She exclaimed a word that no one had ever said: Comfort! You do comfort!
I had never thought about it before. Comfort.
The collection of furniture, containers, lanterns with candles, baskets and all the natural elements that we use to decorate the wreaths that I have made from what I have grown in the garden fit “A something from nothing story”.
It is a story I am really drawn to.
Bringing together things that are gifted, or used for other unrelated purposes seem to “layer” this otherwise mainstream place. There is not much here that doesn’t have a story or a good memory.
It was so interesting that she used a word that I had never thought of before— something that I value but had never defined consciously.
What a lovely thing.
By the way, if you are reading this and coming for a workshop- there is absolutely no expectation that you bring anything with you-
After the workshop had ended, when it was just Lilly and I – I poured another cup of Earl Grey and enjoyed the sunshine. I “just” sat there – with the scent of the cedar and looked at the light and had a lovely quiet time ( all the construction in the neighbourhood had ended for the week and so it was very peaceful).
Do you ever give yourself that time?
To be in the space that you have created for others?
Perhaps after a party or gathering at your place?
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