Contentment

When May comes,

and the daffodils have faded
into the blush of the cottage roses
that I adore almost as much as you,
and the weathered barn,
surrounded by newly dressed maples,
whispers in the wind
its dreams of the summer sun,
I'll still be there;
among the ancient calls of crows
and the occasional twit of a cardinal,
waiting in the cool of long grasses
for you to see
that I've been there
all along.

the Secret Diary

     She thought it best to keep the key to her secret diary on her favorite necklace...the one she never took off. It was so worn in spots and the locket was rusty, but she never cared. The chain was from his necklace and that key would unlock her innermost secrets...things she never told a soul except God himself.
and she kept a picture of her father in the locket....the one of him before he went to war...and she smiled to herself and was thankful she didn't inherit his big ears, but she had loved him nonetheless. The photograph reminded her of the good things...his smile and the moments emblazoned on her heart...like the perpetual story he told her each time they met. The story about how she fell asleep on his chest as a newborn; she, fresh from the womb, and he, fresh from a war that had only just begun.

Return

Return to me,
my love,
as you have year after year
and think not
of the voices
in your sacred garden,
you know the ones,
that whisper your name
in each drop of dew
on the tips of
the lips of dawn....

you knew
you could see right through me
as you held my
heart to the light
to see
where the fern
and the wild flowers grow
and the cut glass
sparkle of the day
rises to meet
your eyes...

My First Public Show

Such sweet and lasting memories made last Saturday night...almost like a dream for me...I stayed up into the small hours of morning trying to come up with a solution for a coffee shop counter space display for my necklaces, and came up with an old washboard-suitcase-cigar box configuration with an old upholstery spring on top to hold things. It was an amazing evening with live music and some very talented vendors, not to mention the wonderful compliments from admirers of my work. I felt very much in my own element and I was reminded that though my beloved work is a solitary thing, I am very much a "people person."

Since I do love me some Blues, the ultimate highlight of my evening was a performance by the very talented duet, Method Star. I'm talking head to toe goosebumps folks. Head. to. toe. I am thinking of becoming an official groupie.

Made it to the Front Page!

as I cleaned out your top dresser drawer
only months after you left,
way in the back corner
under faded floral paper
(the scent long gone)
was the tiny glass cameo
that fell off of your necklace
so long ago…
the one you said he gave you
in 1968
as a token of his affection
before you knew
that his affection was already sleeping there
softly inside your belly.

Blooming

...and she and I,
breathless and lifted and
hand in hand through the snow
sang at the height of our hearts
"We Shall Overcome"...in remembrance of Martin Luther, but I think also for ourselves.
There is a turning point, I think, in the infancy of a friendship, when things get bigger....open.....and bloom into something deeper and more profound...and though I don't call as much as I probably should, I think of her each and every day.
There are little crinkles around her light colored eyes and curls of baby hair buds at the roots of her dreads, that beckon a little twist every now and again as I read my favorite poems by Mary Oliver and we nod at one anothers' revelations...and marvel at the teas that bloom in the steaming water with the rising scent of jasmine in the room.
I marvel as I think of the happenstance day we met... when I gathered my courage and asked her what she was "doing here" in her vintage vest and dreads and holy jeans...in my desperation to connect, I found a lifelong friend.
and
We shall
overcome.
My dearest curmudgeon.

A Trainwreck and Stillness

Inside I feel like a mangled train wreck and I can't remember the last time I bathed since I found out my father is gone forever.... Did I write that out loud just now?
I simply crave beauty and stillness and written words.
In the quiet of the day I glance over to my right as I sit here at the looking glass of the world and I witness such exquisite unfoldings...the portraits my companion creates in the spaces when I am not looking...or when he thinks I am not paying attention...
It is like watching the gentle birth of something so lovely, that I can't find my breath. Something I know is so delicate...so feeling...so amazing....unlike anything I've seen before....

I think they call artists of his (and my) kind "outsiders". Something to do with lack of "formal training"....but Ken...Ken is an "insider" who taught himself to paint more than 40 years ago...he paints the insides...the spirits of those who appear on the canvas...a kind of seance with his brushes and a softness of feeling all his own.

What Was Real

                                                           (me and my father, 1993)

I know you tried. Maybe you just couldn't bear the love you felt for me.Maybe you just didn't think you knew how to love, or how to apologize or start over or forgive..... Maybe you felt you were doing the right thing by not being in my life in your final years...whatever your reasons, I forgive you.
What is real is what I will keep alive in my mind. Images of your smile...remnants of your voice in my head and how I can almost hear you call me Daddy's little girl... falling asleep on your lap, a newly single woman with another baby girl asleep inside of me...comforted by finally being a reflection in your eyes again after so long. Why we just couldn't get it together, you and I...I don't know. Forgive me for not trying harder.

And you know, the pain isn't any less just because we were "estranged" for some years.....my heart just aches at the thought of it. You are gone.......forever. No more second chances. No more hope that one day..........one day............
I have some photographs of you smiling at me and I have the memory of your huge rough hands that enveloped mine and the way you ate pickles and always told me you kept my tattered little smiling girl picture in your tool box for 20 years.....
There are memories I choose to keep and those I will simply discard. What good is negativity in this world; in this life? I know all to well that life is too short for it. Too short for petty things that never matter in the beauty that is this life. This one life...
I know you loved me in your own way...
and I can feel your deep brown eyes watching me, again my fiercest protector...with your wallet chain and your pocket knife and your quick temper and your leather boots.
No regrets, old man. No regrets, ok?
I'll always be your little girl.

Still Life with Portrait

A portrait by my talented husband, Ken.

In Bed

I stayed been in bed all day because sleep has been so much easier than feeling. I crave the sounds of Patty Griffin...her voice seems to clear my heart of this darkness...the Kite Song is one of my favorites.
...The phone rang tonight and it was my Grandmother and we talked about funny stories and family and of love and of creativity and gifts and relatives with names like Tennessee and Texas. Something she told me really helped: she said her Aunt used to tell her when she felt the blackness creeping in, "Sarah, you just have to rise above."
And she is right. Life is too short to waste time with self pity and asking questions that will never have any answers and letting the darkness in too far...
Yes, I'm sure I'm not finished with this grief, It has only just begun; but today was the first and the last day of staying in bed and allowing sleep to take the place of feeling and doing and being and creating.
That just isn't who I am.
I look into the eyes of my children and my husband and into the faces in photographs of my beautiful mother and sister smiling out at me and I feel so grateful... blessed that I am not, after all, much like the man who helped to "make" me. A man who could so easily forget.
I am where I've been, but that isn't as important as where I am going....I am the journey...toward understanding. toward love. toward hope. toward grace. toward God. toward creating an authentic life.
And when I look into the beautiful eyes of my mother, I feel so graced to be that reflection in her eyes, as I have been for over 40 years now...as she has been reflected in mine...and she has been on this journey with me. Unfailing. Constant. Ever present even in the very difficult moments.
and that is what matters.

But I know this to be true about myself...

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

Death Came Today

I learned of my father's death today and I grieve for what could have been if only.....if only I had tried a little harder to get through the thickness of misunderstanding...
called more
wrote more
begged more
done less
or
done more
and maybe I wouldn't feel such pure anguish
if I hadn't always had that tiny light of
hope that I held
in secret
behind the anger and feelings of
rejection and outrage
keeping it alive
all my life
playing Pollyanna for years
and years
the glad game
in secret
I told myself
someday
someday
you'd come around......
someday
you'd see me
you'd see us
you'd see what you were missing
you'd realize
what I know to be true about the pure joy
of watching your child grow
and the utter sweetness
of hearing their laughter
and the smiles and the
sparkle in their eyes, just for you...........
and though I know in my
reasonable adult mind
that it was never my fault,
the girl in me
simply aches so.........
The little light of hope for you
that I held,
is gone.
Stolen from me in the night
before I knew it was gone
forever.
In your selfishness
you took that from me.
Hey old man,
"by cracky" as you used to say,
you really missed out
on such beauty
such amazement
such abundance
such light........
my God, such light.
It would have been so "good fer ya".

Boxes

This is a view of my huge white dresser...I admit, I have a problem. I love boxes. All kinds. Super shabby cigar boxes, old rusty tins, tattered velvet boxes, old cardboard boxes, and especially my collection (the one overtaking my dresser) of cream colored vintage jewelry boxes...the ones with the gold flourishes and borders that have been loved off over the years...I keep my jewelry creations in them, like stacks of little shabby white hope chests, with the contents waiting to be discovered by a kindred spirit.

My Constant Furry Companion

Seems like she's there 24 hours a day. If she's not sleeping, she's awake and gazing at me while I type or while I work at my table. On occasion she gets down from her old box perch (that I don't have the heart to move) and rubs her nose on my arm or lays on my right forearm while I try to type...I've gotten used to typing with her weight on my right forearm......
My dear Molly cat.

The Return of Spring

From a vintage double linked chain of gingerbread brass, hangs a very old buckle turned aviary...a refuge under the branches for a little bygone copper wren. Layers of olden leaves and branches provide a canopy for this little traveler, and an antiquated etched floral heart reminds us to keep nature there...in our hearts, when each day blurs into the next. Spring will return again. Ever present, as long as we keep it alive within ourselves.

Dear Baby Lamoreux

When your mama asked me to make a special necklace for you, I didn't know what to say. I was so honored...and I thought of you the whole time I worked on it. Your mama wanted something that would make a little noise that you could hear when she moved...I looked for just the right thing, and settled on a little key. Not just any key, but the key to a mysterious jewelry box, long forgotten...I thought it fitting because you are such a jewel. Sounds corny, I know....
Then I thought of the locket and how your momma talks of her grandmother's flowers and how much she misses her...and how I can relate because, though I am still blessed with my grandmother in my life, my love for her is so great that my heart went out to your mother and her deep loss and grief. I know your mama will think of your tiny hand in your grandmother's, and how she wishes she could see you...and I will tell your mama that she can see you...that she will find her grandmother in your little eyes and in your first little smile. And she will hear her grandmother in her own voice as she speaks to you in whispers in the hours before dawn.
Baby Lamoreux, you don't know this quite yet, but you have amazing parents. I don't know much about your father, but I know he has such a kind and gentle face....and the way he looks at your mama when she takes his picture says so much about how he feels for her....
and your mama, she is so amazing....so talented....so spiritual....and so beautiful inside, that she radiates joy and peace to everyone she touches.....and she touched me.
I read her story, as she told it, when life was very lonely and difficult for me. Your mama has no idea the impact she had on my life, not to mention the lives of so many others. She is so very special, and you are so blessed to be inside of her right now....as she breathes in and breathes out and smiles at the thought of you there in her belly, so tiny.
Yes, all this and more as I made a simple necklace...but I made it with such love...in hopes that you will feel it as you grow...and I hope your mama can feel it too.
xoxo
Jennifer

A Locket for my Dear One

...with a secret note inside.....I made this locket for my husband for Christmas. A leaf for each year we've been married and a heart for the current year.

I adore this print by my sister, Kelly Rae. I love seeing the bits and parts and pieces of things that I've sent her in her creations...

Seasons of light...

I feel more fully in the moment these days...growing more and more into myself, even at 40, there is still so much growing to do.
The holiday season is such a joy for me this year...actually my whole life has become more joyful. I finally feel like I've found my true self (other than my children and husband). Everything seems to have more meaning because I choose to look closer, breathe deeper and know. There are still the little voices that tell me what I'm doing isn't important...that making assemblage art and artistic assemblage jewelry is not really art and that someday I am going to be found out for who I am, someone pretending to be me. Does that make sense? All I know is this, I feel spirit moving through me when I create...and I've always read that you have found your passion when you forget to eat, when you loose yourself in time, when sleep becomes a cumbersome task....
I stay awake at my table until my eyes won't stay open anymore, and I have to think about when my last thing to eat was.....this is new and wonderful and scary all at once.
Lately I've been smitten with lockets and gatherings of sparkles and leaves and tiny things............
The locket that says "Fly" was inspired by my incredible sister, Kelly Rae Roberts, to whom I am so grateful for her encouragement and support. I am certain most who will read this blog know of her. I am in awe of her work and her dynamic spirit. When I grow up, I want to be just like her.
See her amazing work at www.kellyraeroberts.com

I've be so pleased with the assemblage jewelry and artwork that I've been creating lately. I feel like I am finding my own voice in old oil cans and vintage filigree and antique findings...vintage crystal beads and sterling wire. It is so hard not to be consumed by this, my new found passion...the thing that makes me forget to eat and not want to ever sleep........

Celebrating Your Birthday

...each year, I do it. I light the candle and make a place for you...an outward symbol that your memory is still so alive inside of me. and your humor and gentleness, coloring the way I am with my own children through the years. I look at them and know in the depths of my heart that you would have found such joy just being in their presence. and they would have found such joy in you. I know this, and I am grateful. It is now youngest Jeremy's turn to know you, as I did. To hear the stories of you I hold so tenderly and hold on to so fiercely because I want you to always be present...I want you to live on in the minds of my children even after I have gone on to join you. Yes, they know you, my father, my Jerry. Thank you for your gifts. This is my gift to you on your birthday each year. I tell them the story, of you.

Trinity Earrings

I have been having this love affair with making earrings lately, and I want to keep each pair I create, but I am hoping there are kindred spirits out there who connect with what I make and fall in love as much as I do with each unique pair. These are created with antique glass buttons and antique clothing hooks. I love the aged and rustic nature of them...

Queen Anne's Lace

This has to be my most favorite flower...and it is growing with wild abandon around the house this year...such intricate beauty in the simplest of things. Tiny bees and flowers reminiscent of lace....

New Earrings in my Etsy shop...

www.sacredcake.etsy.com

When it's over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

an excerpt from When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

I simply can't remember

...the last time I lay under a tree and listened to the rustling of its green green hands in the spring breeze. So today, I made a memory and I lay in the grass and I took this photo to help me to remember to connect with the earth and to connect with myself more often.

Phi Theta Kappa

I love the way the dappled sunlight falls through

the lace curtains...

I received my certificate for my membership into the International Honor Society today. Not too shabby for a highschool drop out...

Last night I lay under the stars
and in the quiet
I felt the breeze,
like the soft breath of God
wafting over my body and into my ears
assuring me
that everything unfolds
according to his plan.
I am enough.
Then he asked me,
who would you be
without the burden of your story?
and after I thought
I said,
free.
So I gave my past to God
and he cupped it in his hands
and flung it to the universe
to dissipate into
tiny
tiny
pieces
that turned into
bright burning stars.
Beautiful formations
of light
that made me who I’ve become.
And I am enough.
I am.

Ray, a collaborative work

This is "Ray", a collaborative piece between my talented husband and myself. We won Honorable Mention at the Buchanan Trash to Treasure art show last month.
This piece is a collaborative work between my husband Ken, who is a talented portrait painter, and I. The assemblage and portrait revolve around a story that we created about Ray, an African American man in Chicago who marched with Martin Luther King. He lived in an old apartment building there and his nieghbor was Miss Jones,whom he had secret affections for. Each Wednesday,he'd go over to Miss Jones' apartment to take out her garbage for her...she always invited him in for some homemade pie and lively conversation. He repaired radios and televisions on the side and prided himself in his work and civil rights activism.


You can see more of his beautiful portraits HERE.

Apple Blossoms

Today we passed an apple orchard in which the trees were being trimmed row by row by row. It was so sad to see all of the drooping branches in heaps on the ground. We filled the back of the van with the sweetly scented wilted flowers and put them in a sink of cool water when we arrived home. Fortunately the sink is a beautiful vintage deep sided sink, just perfect for such a thing as flowering branches.

As of this post, I have filled every available white pitcher and white vase and old bottle with blushing apple blossom branches and placed them in each room downstairs. When the sun comes out tomorrow, I'll take more photographs. Now, it is time to surrender to sleep and the scent of the blossoms filling the bedroom with the hope of spring.

Mother's Day

....I still wear scarves....always have, even when they are out of style, just because they remind me of you. Did you know that?

My fondest memory? Strange, I know, out of 40 years worth of remembering... my favorite is looking into the rear view mirror from the back seat of our old white car to see your forehead and the fashionable little white streak in the bangs of your perfectly curled shoulder length brown hair. How I loved the colorful scarves you wore and the way you smelled and the color of your fingernails and drinking the last bit of your tea. My God how I adore you still. How I revel in your attention and delight in your eyes... Your boisterous laughter, your sense of style, your intrinsic beauty, boundless creativity and unending generosity are only a few of the things that make me so proud to say you are my own. My mother. In loving you, I have learned to love myself...does that make sense?

What you have given me is such a gift. You gave me this life. How can I ever repay you for the countless glorious sunsets, blushing apple blossoms, the miraculous sound of my children's laughter, books of poetry, rain on my face and chocolate cake? Life has held such indescribable beauty for me and such immeasurable joy and I thank you, I thank you for bringing me here.

Happy Mother's Day Mom, you deserve every happiness and every birdsong and every spring flower and every joy.

I love you.