WAIT FOR IT
I’m not very good at waiting for things.
Judging by how many of us run to our favorite purveyors of what I call, “instant décor,” very few of us are…good at waiting for things, I mean.
But then I think of the Artists and everything shifts in me.
I wonder, when Da Vinci sat down to paint the Mona Lisa, did he know he would not be completely finished with her for another seven years?
I marvel at the patience of an Amish woman who, in between canning fruits and vegetables, dedicates her hands and a half of a year of her life to the stitching of just one quilt.
Some of us are compelled to begin without concern over an ending not yet in sight.
This morning, my feet set down on patterns of pink and apricot, ivory and yellow,
colors that I can feel as much as see—soft, lumpy, comforting—and I am reminded that every really beautiful work of art is a creation of the hand.
I often find myself grateful that art is meant for the everyday. It’s not something simply to be gazed upon in some unfamiliar place, but to be held and even walked on in our sanctuaries.
Art takes time.
It’s not something manufactured by machine but crafted by those who understand that the value of a “thing” is not only what can be seen but intrinsic, embedded DNA of the very one who sets to the task of the making.
I’ve heard it said that process is meditation. Oh, how I love this phrase. It suggests that getting in touch with our inner being isn’t so much about removing ourselves from life but sacrificing ourselves wholly and completely to one moment…and then the next.
I wonder, then, what Meditation was in the mind and heart of the woman who committed herself to the making of this rug, this art under foot. Each stitch is evidence of a focus that to me seems luxury in context of my busy world. But to her, focus is necessity as she weaves the intricate design of her own imagination.
It will take her seven months to tell her story within the knotted yarns of pink and apricot, yellow and ivory. And as her fingers twist and tie, her thoughts will wander to a daughter who will receive this creation not as gift but sacrifice. This history—decades of love and longevity—will make its way eventually to me.
If I am wise, I will recognize that the mamas who weave, endure the hard life of the high mountains, washing, cooking, then knotting memories into intricate patterns that bring so many, so much joy.
Hard doesn’t have to mean sad but something deeper, richer, more unending and infinitely more purposeful. Our days may not be what we imagined or even what we hoped, but our minds and hearts can set themselves to the creation of something worth waiting for, a kind of Beautiful not yet seen.
