Kinds of Honey

This weekend my sister came and we had a marvelous girls’ time. The weather cooled and we cleared our schedules for whatever we wanted to do, instead of what we ought to do.

So, we started our two days of good food and good fun with a night of arts & crafts. Elena made a yarn-covered letter “B” (the first letter of her last name), and I dug out my paints to replicate the photograph of a butterfly.

We talked as the sunset turned into dark, took a break for pie, and finished our projects with J.J. Heller and King Charles and Fun in the background. Then we admired our works with satisfaction and surprise: Look what we made!

Each of us created something new, something that would add beauty to our spaces, something that had not previously existed. This sort of activity was not uncommon for us as little girls. It occurred almost daily, and lived on our family’s refrigerator, or on our bedroom walls, or on the sidewalk outside, or perched on our dressers. We had little fear of imperfection or inadequacy, little sense of obligation to be accomplishing or completing another, more important task. We created because we liked to.

It is good to bring back these small satisfactions, to insist upon times set aside for the making of things. That thrill of creating beauty is unique unto itself. We remember that we have capable hands and important imaginations. We remember that we are artists.