The Art Waits

I stacked five pieces of art from my mother's house in the back of my car yesterday morning. 

Later that afternoon, they were stacked in my son's living room. One leaned against the wall, the others rested on a table, white sheets of spongy paper between them on top of the glass. I sighed as I saw them there. While my brain organized this new information.

It's part of dismantling my mother's house, her home actually. The house will remain intact. The things that made it particularly hers, and a home, is what we're dismantling. 

My place looks similar with stacks of artwork leaning against walls, waiting. Waiting for how they will come together in my home. Similar stacks of art wait in my brothers' homes as well. There are pieces my daughter will take, my nephews, and others who we're not yet imagining. 

The art waits, some of it still hanging on the walls in my mother's house.

She had a lot of art. 

I don't know how she did it, put so much art on so few walls and made it look good. 

But she had an eye for beauty. And for pattern. And for placement. 

I can't get the image of stacked art, waiting, out of my mind. Like seeds carried by birds and planted in new places to flower in another bit of land. The tree hangs heavy with fruit that falls to the ground, and the seeds are planted and life renews itself. 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.