A Piece of Yesterday

Remember when we were in school and someone would slip a note into your locker or desk? Almost always you could figure out the author just by looking at the handwriting. Those were the days when people actually used their handwriting to communicate. Fast forward to today. Everything is in a text or email. You might get a birthday card or Christmas card, but it’s usually always in an electronic form that is posted on some social platform. Something is lost in this impersonal form of communication. I can still go to a drawer in my bedroom and pull out birthday cards that my parents gave me more than 30 years ago. I can read the words they wrote in their own penmanship. If I close my eyes, I can see my mom sitting at the kitchen table concentrating on the words she’s wanting to use. She always had a favorite black pen that she kept in the drawer nearest the telephone that hung proudly on the wall nearest the refrigerator.
When I went off to college, my dad slipped a handwritten letter into my suitcase which I came across as I unpacked in my new home far away. I was 18 years old sitting in my small dorm room reading each page over and over as my dad reassured me that I would be ok and that he and my mom would always be there for me whenever I needed them. I have this letter tucked away in a book on my coffee table some 37 years later. Every now and again when things are not going very smoothly in my life, I pull that letter out and reread it knowing everything will be ok. Sometimes it makes me feel better to cook something my mom would make for me as a little girl. I have a recipe box full of handwritten recipe cards that my mom gave me when I got married. When I pull one of these handwritten cards out of the box all smudged with flour or sugar, it warms my heart as I create something sweet and comforting on a cold, winter day.
One of the projects I wanted to do in my kitchen involved somehow preserving my mom and dad’s handwriting to use as a wallpaper. I contacted my childhood friend, Cary Collins Acosta, who owns The Prickly Pear Embroidery in Ft. Stockton, Texas, and told her what I was wanting to do. She suggested a peel and stick wallpaper. I sent her copies of some recipe cards and the letter my dad had written me. She then worked her magic and created these sheets of wallpaper for me in the palest pink color with my mom’s handwritten recipes on them as well as portions of my dad’s letter. I pieced them together and now, every time I walk in my kitchen, I can see the beautiful art that is part of my history….a piece of my mom and dad. Sometimes I wish I could just rewind back to the old days and press pause…..just for a little bit.