Words to Treasure

My friend Cat Isles, bridgingtheuniverse.com  (do click this link!), is writing a book about correspondence.  The old fashioned kind that arrives in an envelope, with a stamp.  She has asked people she knows to write about what it means to them to receive cards and letters in the mail.  Here's what I've come up with, so far...


What's in your treasure chest?

Some of my most treasured keepsakes are cards and letters.  I keep most of them in a ribbon-tied box.  There's a hand painted card from my Grandma Norma, with a yellow warbler, sent as a Valentine, and another she did of Grandpa clamming at South Bay.  There are letters from childhood friends who moved away, or who I met at summer camp and never saw again, and postcards from friends whose parents took them to exotic places like Disneyland and Yosemite, for vacation.  The envelopes bear addresses I've nearly forgotten were mine, and postmarks from all across the country.

My favorite is a letter from my grandpa Eddy.  He was a prolific letter writer- to his siblings, his congressman, and probably every president during his lifetime.  He wrote this precious letter to me during the spring of my junior year of high school.  After filling me in on the weather in Coos Bay, the activities in the harbour, and the fishing conditions, he got into a ramble about my job hunt, and my older brothers' various self-employment schemes.  Grandad said he was all in favor of a fella owning his own business, in fact he and Grandma had owned three (they owned Chuck's Seafood Cannery during my childhood).

He went on to write that as a young man, when he worked as a logger, he had an idea for salvaging the thinner logs, which were being left behind by the big companies, when they clear-cut a forest.  He described in great detail how he thought he could peel and trim them on site to sell for house logs.  ..."but I seemed to lack the nerve to start.  Gosh, Dawn, I don't know why I'm telling you that." he wrote.

Grandpa died the following autumn, kindly leaving me a collection of silver ingots, and eight place settings of Liberty Blue china.  I passed the china to another family member a few years back, and after much thought, I recently sold the silver.  In honor of Grandma, I bought a nice portfolio for my decorative paint samples, and some long wished for French mural paints.  First, however, I had a pendant made to wear every day.  It's a pearl on a gold oyster shell, reminding me of the real treasures they left me:  a belief in the value of my talents, an appreciation for the beauty of everyday things, and with this letter, the reminder of the absolute importance of having the courage to follow my dreams... pearls of great price that create my heaven on earth.

Email is nice, efficient, better than nothing, but will someone read it again in thirty years, when the words might mean more than you ever expected? 

Check out my website theartofthehome.com, to see my online portfoio, and get all the info on how to hire me.  Then, while I paint your walls, you can curl up with a cup of tea and write letters to the ones you love.