Talking Walls

It's strange to step into another person's sanctuary and see how they live. See what a space says about them. I have no desire to snoop, but the pictures on the walls tell story enough. My cousin travels. She has seen the world and recorded her moments in it. A sunset off of an ocean, children carrying baby monkeys and waterfalls. She has a bookshelf nook with statues from what I imagine are the cook islands. They must go with the memory box containing currency, stamps and a palm tree post card from the same place. And then there are the pictures of family. On every surface there is a picture frame or a photograph tucked behind ribbon. Our grandparents, her and her now husband, and everywhere, her mother, who died suddenly, so unexpectedly a few years back. A mother who's absence was felt deeply last weekend when her only daughter was married.


Zach made a keen observation this afternoon. "There's no food," he said. "They must eat out a lot." I stopped and looked around the kitchen. Cupboards were full of dishes and bake ware but no ingredients with which to actually cook. There's maybe an oil. *Maybe* sugar. We're having trouble finding salt or pepper. There is no oatmeal or flower or vinegar. No spices. My cousin and her husband's registry was Pottery Barn cookware. Her bridal shower had a cooking theme and one of her oldest friends collected our favorite recipes from us and had beautiful cookbook made. It's so delightful to understand a desire from the place it exists...in this circumstance, my cousin's kitchen. "Maybe if I got all these new things, we would have this change (cooking) in our new life." Beautiful.

My family is not tight knit. My mother and her brother have some strange feud that no one really understands, least of all my mother. But the second generation in our still youngish adulthood has been trying to tighten the dropped stitches. Being here reminds me yet again why family (especially when it's family that clearly has the kind of heart my cousin possesses) is so worth the work. Life matters to her. Love matters to her. Family matters to her. Her home is one that cares for that which is inside it (her two cats) and those she invites in. She covers the walls with the art of those she loves and memories she's made with those same people. And from every corner her mother, smiling and laughing. My cousin's smile. My cousin's laugh. It reminds me to love the people I love, while we still can.

So rarely do we inhabit the lives of those we know. We walk in, we visit and we leave. Moving through these rooms I'm coming to understand my cousin infinitely more. And I will work hard to get to know her better when we head back up to Oregon and she again takes ownership of these walls.

Good night.